|
|
 |
| |
Edwyn Collins in his studio. |
Rocked by stroke, Edwyn gets back in studio
A Girl Like You star Collins finally returns to making music after suffering ‘weird’ health trauma
ROCK Star Edwyn Collins is back where he belongs – recording a new album in his West Hampstead studio.
The large space, behind the fire station in West End Lane, is stacked full of guitars, records, posters and memories from a career cruelly cut short in 2005.
Mr Collins, 49, who stormed the charts in the mid-90s with his unforgettable single A Girl Like You, nearly died after suffering a stroke at his home in Plympton Road, West Hampstead.
He was saved by the specialist stroke unit in the Royal Free Hospital. During his recovery, he suffered a brain haemorrhage that plunged him into a coma. He lost the power to walk, talk, read and contracted the MRSA superbug.
Mr Collins’ partner Grace Maxwell, who has written a book about their six “indescribably weird” months in the Hampstead hospital and his “restoration”, said: “Of course it was very frightening. There’s that moment of bald terror. But what hits you is the extent to which someone you love has just disappeared, and you have no clue what the future holds.
“Before we could even think about his cleverness, his fabulous sarcasm, his developed sense of the absurd, we had to wrestle with questions of simple identity.”
Mr Collins’ original band Orange Juice formed in 1979 and was critically acclaimed within independent rock circles. In 1985, the group split and he has since pursued a solo career.
Each day brings Mr Collins – who can now walk without a stick – a step closer to recovery. He still has right-sided weakness affecting his hand and arm which prevents him from playing the guitar. His son now helps him strum the guitar while his son fingers the chords. But he is able to work at his old 1969 mixing desk and has re-grouped with his old drummer Paul Cock from the Sex Pistols.
Mr Collins said: “I’m working on a new song – it’s a mixture of Northern Soul and punk rock.” He sings: “I’m losing sleep. I’m losing sleep. It’s getting me down. It’s getting me down.”
The unit that saved Mr Collins life is due to be closed in February following changes rubber-stamped by NHS London, the regional health authority, last month. Stroke patients will be taken to the University College London Hospital for emergency care.
The new centralised stroke unit is the brainchild of Lord Darzi, the former health minister who quit the government last month after setting in motion a series of reforms.
Ms Maxwell said: “The health service does not need to be fixed by people like Lord Darzi. They should be speaking to the sisters and doctors who work on the wards. These decisions are not made on the basis of patient need. It is always about the bottom the line.”
Ms Maxwell, from Glasgow, says she is a music person – more Glastonbury than literary festival – and admits to being a little out of her depth during her “Waterstones tour”, facing audiences wanting to know about the process of writing.
She said: “Every single event I’ve spoken at someone has used the word catharsis.
“I just wrote the book to see if I could do it. I don’t have a message to deliver.”
There may not be a message, but anyone who has been catapulted into the uncertainty of an intensive care unit, or has witnessed a loved one’s return from the foggy depths of brain injury, will identify with her experience.
|
 |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
