By Rodney Edwards
e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

Former Fermanagh man Lawson Woodside has had a difficult life.

His story is sad, heartrending but most of all, terribly poignant. Here is a man that was homeless for 14 years, sectioned in eight different mental hospitals and waited a staggering 29 years before he had his own place to live. And now after a lifetime of illness, his sad and lonely struggle with schizophrenia continues.

“I really want the voices to stop,” pleads Lawson, still haunted most days by voices in his head. “The voices scream my surname; ‘Woodside, Woodside, Woodside’ they say. I want them to go away, I really do.”

Lawson reacts to the voices; “Sometimes I talk to them,” he whispers, before getting louder; “Sometimes I shout at them to make them go away. I shout at the person next door; ‘I’ve never heard you say a word,’” I’d shout, to my 99 year old neighbour. “I’ve never heard you say a word since you came here, although I know you’ve spoken before in your flat but in a low voice.” I’d say things like that, you know, in hope that the voices stop but they don’t.” he said.

He lives alone in a tiny flat in Belfast now. He’s hardly old; just 55 but the effects of his deeply troubled life have taken their toll. He smokes 70 cigarettes a day and spends his days painting, “I hope to hold my own art exhibition one day.”

Lawson believes his schizophrenia will never be cured; “I don’t even think the doctors know what it is, it’s an incurable illness.” he says.

Born in Belfast in 1953, Lawson moved with his parents to Enniskillen in 1957.

Lawson’s father George was a “hard-drinking” civil servant in H.M. Customs and Excise, his mother Agnes (nee: Finlay) was an “old-fashioned” housewife.

“Mum didn’t drink herself and hated my father drinking. They would physically fight. Why was he so pathetic? My mother was hysterical. I didn’t understand what was going on. I was early teens, it spoiled my life. I just wished my parents were normal like everybody else’s parents.” he said.

As a young boy, Lawson struggled with loneliness and isolation from his mother; “She never said ‘I love you’ and never gave me a hug. I was the little nit that got custard to eat; she gave me the burnt offerings.”

Lawson attended the Model Primary School and Portora Royal School in Enniskillen and the University of York. “Times at the Model were tough. I didn’t just want to focus on the school work. I think at that age I wanted some sort of social life, I was lonely and wanted a friend.”

Witnessing trouble at home and rejection from groups at both schools had a big impact on Lawson’s life. “It made me become verbally violent - but I did physically hit my mother and father as well, I thought I could take them on.”

But Lawson has regretted hitting his parents ever since. “I felt I was full of mental illness and my parents were full of mental illness. I thought there was mental illness everywhere. When dad died, I helped bury him at his funeral. The twisted knotted rope slid through my fingers as the box was lowered into the earthy pit. Now there was just me and my mother. I regretted hitting her.”

Lawson entered St Luke’s mental hospital in Armagh in 1977 after an interrogation with police; “I was arrested earlier in the night for knocking on a vicar’s door but wasn’t charged. The police were called because some kids were throwing stones at his window. I was innocent. A Sergeant told a policeman to shoot me if I moved, the next thing I know, the police psychiatrist declared I was a schizophrenic, I was injected and woke up in a mental hospital.”

Lawson was to stay in a further seven mental hospitals for the next 14 years, including; The Downshire in Downpatrick, the Holywell hospital in Carrickfergus, the T&F in Omagh (twice), Springfield Hospital in Tooting, a hospital in Bradford and one in Canterbury.

“I was admitted to the hospital in Tooting because I was homeless and had a criminal record. I stole £3.97 worth of food from Liptons Supermarket when the DHSS wouldn’t give me any supplementary benefit because I hadn’t a proper address. I used to steal pork pies or cereal because I didn’t have any money.” he admits.

In one of the hospitals, an old man would urinate in Lawson’s wardrobe; “He fiddled around in the middle of the night, I awoke to find him urinating all over my clothes. In another hospital, a man came to visit his wife and she kept hitting his head off the wall. I heard the screams; there was blood all over the wall and bed. I was appalled by the people around me and company I had to keep. And I was scared of getting electric compulsive therapy where you would be given electric shocks through the brain.”

After further medical help, a much healthier Lawson was placed in Clearwater House, a hostel in Belfast in 1996 until 2003. He continued with hospital emissions for three months at a time before finally getting his own flat in 2004. He was then formally diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia. “I think I am better than I will ever be now, I don’t think there’s anything such as a recovery. I just hope for the best and hope that’ll I’ll be happy in my life.”

Lawson has found writing about his life therapeutic. His first book, called ‘Autobiography of an ordinary public schoolboy’ published by Shanway Press, is to be released later this year.

Got myself a hilarious gig for the News of the World for the next wee bit.

As Captain Cash I will be “swooping” in on one lucky family each week and handing them 150 notes for their weekly shop.

Just doing my bit to ease the current economic climate and poverty in our society, you know.

Check out the red top each Sunday for the latest on my stint as the er… caped crusader…

Fall Out Boy and Miley Cyrus will headline Radio 1’s Switch Live, I can exclusively reveal.

The event will be Switch’s first ever live event and will take place on Sunday 12th October in London’s Hammersmith Apollo.

Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw will officially announce the news later tonight on their radio show.

The event will be exclusively headlined by Fall Out Boy and Miley Cyrus and will also feature Ne-Yo, McFly, Basshunter, N-Dubz and George Sampson.

By Rodney Edwards
e-mail: rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk

Outspoken Enniskillen man Phil Newton has fought hard for what he believes in all his life. But fighting his own ill-health has become one of his biggest challenges so far – yet he still manages to beat the odds.

On September 21, 1996, the day before his wife Joy’s birthday, Phil was working in Scotland and didn’t feel well and went to the Ninewells Hospital outside Dundee – he woke up seven days later.

Phil had suffered a heart block that lasted 55 minutes and had less than two per cent chance of surviving. “The heart block cut off messages going to my brain. I was in ‘resus’ with nurses jumping up and down on my chest, the bag being stuck in my mouth to keep my lungs going and ten jumps of a defibrillator. Once they got a slight response from the heart they shipped me to cardiac intensive care,” he says.

Phil then took a cardiac arrest which killed 60 per cent of his heart muscle before taking a small stroke. He was just 36 years old. His young family (wife Joy, son Andrew and daughter Amy) travelled over within four hours - they were told to expect the worst.

He was fitted with a £17,000 pacemaker and defied the odds; “It was very rare for someone to go through that type of illness and survive. They put it down to stress. My body was fairly fit but six months prior to that I was working 17 hours a day without a day’s break for months.”

When Phil fully regained consciousness, he was able to recount in amazing detail, his “near-death experience,” to his wife. “I looked up to Joy and said, I’ve just seen my dead mother.”

“There was the white light, the corridor and there was my mother in front of me. She wore a floral piny with the pockets in the front, she had her arms folded and looked at me and said; “Pip, it’s not your turn yet, get back down there.”

In the months to follow, Phil went through serious bouts of depression; “I didn’t want to be a burden on my young family. Do I pack my bags and leave during the night or do I take all of my tablets? But I saw a pyschiatrist in Belmore house, and it was a long, slow path to normality. I had a quick wake-up call.”

Phil was 13 years old when his mother Elsie died in his arms. “I can remember it as if it was yesterday. The kitchen windows were all steamed over because we were having boiled potatoes for our dinner – then mum collapsed. I went over to help her out; she was a white colour with blue lips and everything. She died of coronary thrombosis - a massive blood clot to the heart. She was only in her early forties.” he says.

It was a difficult time for the rest of Phil’s family (two brothers and a sister) “I give my old man credit because he kept the family together, he had the opportunity to put us into the British Rail Children’s home which is just outside London but he didn’t.”

Money was scarce and so it was an extremely tough childhood. His father Herbert worked on the old steam engines and was a rag and bone man. Phil left school at 15 with half a CSE in art and became an outdoor pursuits coordinator in Wales. “We gave the kids the very sharp, short treatment. You receive all these raw ingredients and at the end of the course, you have an end product. You could then say that you had an input into that person’s life.”

Phil and his family moved to Fermanagh in 1991.

From 1998 onwards, Phil joined others campaigning to retain acute services at the Erne Hospital. “I am an argumentative git, so I got on my soapbox. I don’t pull punches, if a question needs to asked, I’ll ask it and I expect a straight answer,” he says.

In recent years, the Newton’s have brought children from Chernobyl over for regular visits. It was in July 2007 when Phil and his family were gearing up for the children coming back over that his health deteriorated again. He was suffering from Viral Hepatitis B and water retention from the kidneys. On the 18th of December, he went to casuality and underwent treatment for major kidney, liver and heart failure.

Doctors said he had just one hour to live but incredibly Phil survived another near-death experience; “The fact I lived is put down to my attitude that nothing’s going to bite me or drag me down.”

Phil is now on the waiting list for a heart transplant and with the help of his hugely supportive family, he plans to fight on the way those who know him have learnt to expect,

“We knew it was on the horizon. We just didn’t know it was going to be so bloody soon. It’s just one of those things, I’ve nearly died twice. If I said I’m not scared, I’d be lying, I am, but my wife is my biggest inspiration. My legacy will be on my tombstone which will be on top of the compost heap in the back of the garden in Chanterhill. It’ll say, are you sure I’m gone?”

Chris Moyles will be broadcasting his Radio 1 show live from Los Angeles this week, I can exclusively reveal.

Beeb bosses gagged Moyles and gang from revealing the location because it was, er, top secret.

Teasing trailors have been played throughout Radio 1 and Geek World, Aled.info and Chrismoyles.net have been full of speculation.

But now the truth is out after a member of the Chris Moyles team revealed plans of the secret project to me earlier today, but who let the cat out of the bag? Suggestions below please! (Clue: this particular individual is married).

Make sure you tune into the Chris Moyles Show on Radio 1, Mon from 6.30am - with a jolly big time difference of eight hours.

He greeted me with that cool wrist-to-thumb thing that rappers do.

Man, I felt ’street’.

He seemed tired so wasn’t exactly very forthcoming and after some gentle prodding, he growled a few times which was unfortunate. A bit later, and a few more nudges; fascinating wisdom started to spew from his articulated but potty mouth and the allocated 15 minute interview had begun. We discussed various topics like the rise in knife crime - through the haze of insanely bad language and all under the watchful eye of his two large and scary henchmen.

Check out part of my interview in the Mirror.

Later that night I watched the Dizz-master play in what was fast becoming a scene from 8 mile as I witnessed with both of my eyes; a large number of rowdy and drunk individuals screaming awful things about the law and making ghastly hand gestures. I left early and went back to the hotel. The Killers were partying downstairs (their manager confiscated my camera earlier in the night - only to return it to me without its battery) so I wasn’t in the best of moods with Brandon Flowers (the stroppy mare) and retired to my room.

5am the next morning and I had to get ready for my flight back to London. And walking past reception at this horrific hour (with drinks in hand) was none other than Mr Rascal and one of his henchmen - who came up to me and shouted; “You’re the guy that interviewed Dizzee?” “Yes” I replied, waiting for him to rugby-tackle me to the ground for interrogating his boss in a wonderfully tabloidy way. “Ah cool man, did you see the show?” “I did, it was great,” said I. “Cool mate, see you again, yeah?” He then hugged me and away they both went.

Dizzee didn’t say anything.

I later heard him say to a reporter that he’d happily “kick” his head in; should that particular journo upset him.

Perhaps I got off lightly…

At the ever popular door to journalism, many potential recruits await get in. One of the problems for young journalists is not being able to get any work because the majority of work goes to more experienced journalists. Basically, you can’t get work without experience but you can’t get experience without work. So what do you do? You go freelance.

Apart from getting beaten in the pay packet by those in the dole queue, freelance journalism for young journalists is a long and exasperating task every single day. You must work alone and attempt to sell stories (sometimes like a glorified PR person) as well as trying to make a name for yourself. As a young mother and her 19 brats enjoy a KFC bargain bucket; you feast on a packet of out-of-date chocolate muffins. Your hair grows down to your ankles as you wait for yet another commissioning editor to reply to your lengthily e-mail with the inevitable trademark two worded; “No thanks” response.

You e-mail your CV to editors and reporters nationally and regionally, hoping that something will come out of it – the ed will see it or the reporter will pass it on or even ask you to do a bit of work. But most of the time, no one ever replies. Some that do reply (mainly senior journalists) will have an unaccommodating attitude because they worry that they might lose their job to a mere child.

You see, I believe this is something that has become an awkward challenge for a lot of younger journalists; resulting in lack of confidence, career obstacles and money woes. And what I want to express with this post is my anger at the damaging amount of “snobbery” from pretentious individuals in the business that fail to nurture new flock to the fold. It can be exceptionally difficult for young freelance journalists when senior hacks shoot them down.

Many will fail to understand that younger people coming into the industry have learnt the trade a little different and have the capability of progressing easier in the media-savvy environment than those who think “contemporary” is doing a PowerPoint presentation. And they just need a chance to shine.

Whether it’s the older journalist’s uncomfortable attitude to the change in technology or the inability of using said technology; it all boils down to the fact that many established members of the press still don’t understand the true potential of embracing it and feel threatened by those that do.

And those that understand new ways of journalism will not understand why younger journalists don’t retain the values and knowledge of the old way of journalism. It’s a yawn-fest cycle of arrogance from both sides. Think that’s bad? Try the internal politics that young journalists get too…

So, you’ve just come out of journalism school. You have your pen and notebook in one hand, dictaphone in the er.. short hand and the nose for a good story. You sit tapping at the keyboard of a sluggish beast of a computer, 600 words on the local horticultural show must be filed in 15 mins and Aunt Flo who won first prize for her marvellous collection of daffodils is refusing to do pictures because her roots need done, apparently.

Picture desk needs pics and you can’t get any sorted and the old battleaxe in charge of photos is bombarding you with e-mails demanding you ring all your interviewees again and arrange some kind of shoot. The editor comes looking for the flower piece, he takes one look at it and screams “That’s shi*” before firing it across the room in fury. “You don’t know how to write, that’s not how I would have done it. Start again and get it done fast, don’t let me down!” he yells before devouring a magnum and sharing his irritation with the balloon in charge of photographs.

You feel like you’ve just been kicked but the one thing keeping you going is your ambition to one day move on to bigger things. You share your hopes with those in the office before releasing they couldn’t give a monkeys. “Someone got a chip on their shoulder?” asks Barbara in accounts.

Thankfully, I have been very fortunate to learn from many brilliant journalists and editors within the national and regional press and not many of what I wrote about has affected me – apart from a small number showing no respect. But those were mainly washed up middle-aged women and film critics. My message is clear; show young journalists more respect please.

Rodney Edwards is a freelance journalist from Northern Ireland and contributes to many UK national newspapers and magazines. He also writes for various publications across Ireland. E-mail rodney@rodneyedwards.co.uk or for cuttings and a full biography visit www.rodneyedwards.co.uk

This post was written for Journalism.co.uk’s brilliant new blog for Young Journalists and can be found here.

“He [Ronson] wants to write his own tunes instead of ruining everyone else’s. Mark Ronson needs to learn three chords on the guitar and write a tune.” Bellowed Gallagher.

But writing on his blog; Ronson has fired back at the singer, saying: “Noel Gallagher said I should “learn three chords on the guitar and go write a tune”. So I just wanted him to know that I’m actually taking guitar lessons from Jay-Z right now and he’s already taught me both chords to “Wonderwall” (tune!). In fact, it’s so much fun having Jay teach me all of Noel’s songs on the guitar (they’re all so easy to learn!) that i”m thinking of doing an Oasis/Jay Z remix album a la “The Grey Album”. Potential titles are “Champagne Superhova” or “Definitely Jay Z”*. I’ll keep you posted!”

Looks like this is a row that’s going to run and run. So, Noel Gallagher or Jay Z? - Which camp are you in?

Edit: I did break this story before any publication or media outlet. Result. Click here to read what the Sunday Mirror had to say about 13 hours after this post was made…

The frantic scribble had Skinner’s fans fretting after he blogged about getting booted out of his home.

He wrote: “Yesterday I had my house repossessed.

“At approximately 8.30am about seven men broke down my door and told me I hadn’t kept up the repayments and therefore they would be taking all my belongings.

“The house was now the property of the bank. I ended up on the street with my girlfriend and child. Everything is just borrowed, I guess.”

He was inundated with messages of support and even a spare bed.

But Mike was talking about the plot of his new video for track Everything Is Borrowed — being filming in Camberwell, South London. And in the process, conveniently provided the tabloid press and me with a great little tale. Cheers Mike.

Well, if the fame-hungry, desperate, talentless wannabe Miss (because no one will marry her) Lily Allen can do it…