Bill

World Mental Health Day dawned chilly and but it ended on a wonderfully warm note.

This afternoon saw the launch of the the second half of our 'Respect' art exhibition, at Constellations. Many of the featured artists joined us for the private view (which includes more exceptional pieces) and I was interviewed by 'Made In Liverpool' TV about the exhibition and the wider festival. (There's a great review of the other half of the exhibition here https://alisonlittleblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/unit-5-shows-some-respect/ if you're interested.)

From there we hastened across town to Central Library for another of the festival's centrepiece events, the awards ceremony for the 'Mental Health and Me - Faces, Places and Spaces' competition and the launch of the accompanying anthology of pieces by the shortlisted writers.

Many of the writers were in attendance to read their work from the stage and it was a truly moving and uplifting occasion - uplifting, despite the painful experiences and situations which were explored in the writing. There was so much love, support and encouragement in the room.

The winning writer was Marian Carey for her piece 'The Thousand Natural Shocks' and the trophy was presented to her by our lovely festival Patron, Bill Ryder Jones.

This picture of Bill was taken just before the proceedings began, as the audience were taking their seats. An hour or so later I had the pleasure of interviewing him on stage about his responses to the writing we'd all just heard; his tips for dealing with nerves when performing in public; his own writing and the role it plays in his life - including how it relates to his own depression and dissociative disorder; the relationship of his lyrics (which he says don't come to him naturally) to his music (which flows through him all the time), and what it was about Italo Calvino's book 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' that moved him to compose an 'imaginary film score' for it - the wonderful album 'If...', on which he worked with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and which you can hear part of here www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxPG9mG6SSU It's a beautiful piece of music and, I think, a revelation to anyone who sees him as 'just' an indie musician. His answers to all my questions were thoughtful and insightful and he made my job very easy!

Given that my fantasy job has long been to be a music photographer and/or music journalist, this was surely amongst the most rock n' roll evenings of my life! (Who needs to trash hotel rooms, drive cars into swimming pools and consume copious amounts of 'substances' to have a good time?!)

Thanks are due to everyone who made tonight's event so special. Everyone who entered the competition, everyone who read their work to us, the whole Liverpool Mental Health Festival team, Writing on the Wall, the competition judges, the technicians, everyone involved in filming and photographing the event, Brendan for the amazing catering and Bill for being such a wonderful source of support and inspiration.

Here he is in more 'familiar' mode - on the beach at West Kirby, the streets of Liverpool and the Mersey Ferry... www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKF-g_tnrn8