Marty, battling alcoholism, nearly died earlier this year. Bushee, a refugee, is seeing light at the end of the tunnel after getting by on £35 a week. Both were in Newcastle Cathedral this week rehearsing for a concert.
It wouldn’t have been the place either of them would have expected to be just a few years ago, nor any of the others lined up alongside them – except perhaps the Rev Canon Peter Dobson, songsheet in hand.
Here, he explained, were two groups of people who hadn’t met each other before.
Some were members of the cathedral’s Recovery Church, “a fellowship of people in recovery who are wanting to explore spirituality and faith and have been working to express something about the prejudices they face and some of the things people say about them which aren’t fair”.
Then there were the people who had been invited into the cathedral as a place of sanctuary.
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“It might have been people seeking asylum or refuge or it might just have been people having a bad time in life or whose life had been turned completely upside down.”
For a couple of months the groups have been working towards next week’s concert, Our Home, which is taking place in the cathedral in front of what Peter Dobson hopes will be a sizeable audience.
A similar concert in Sunderland attracted hundreds of people, he said. “It’s pay what you feel and money raised will go back into this kind of project.”
The good-humoured Tuesday night rehearsal was led by Sam Slatcher and Alex Summerson of Citizen Songwriters, a social enterprise that aims to bring people together through writing songs.
It began in 2018, the year Sam graduated from Durham University with a PhD, having focused his studies on creative community engagement.
Stories of Sanctuary was an Arts Council-funded project at Durham Cathedral involving local people and recently arrived Syrian refugees whose stories echoed historic accounts of sanctuary-seeking.
Later that year Citizen Songwriters became a community interest company and in 2019 some of those involved in the Stories of Sanctuary project took their songs around the country, performing at festivals.
Alex, who is singer, songwriter and performance facilitator, began the Newcastle Cathedral rehearsal with some gentle stretching exercises and a vocal warm-up.
There was laughter. If there was any ice – though none was discernible – it was truly broken.
Then came the songs arising from this latest manifestation of Stories of Sanctuary.
First up, See Me, which was written by members of Recovery Church working with Sean Cooney of celebrated Teesside folk trio The Young’uns (Sean is due to perform at the concert).
You see darkness, I see light – see me
You see give up, I see fight – see me
You see an addict in a queue, so easy to look through
But one day it could be you – see me
The sanctuary seekers were encountering it for the first time but with musical accompaniment provided by Sam’s phone and an occasional bit of guitar strumming, they soon picked it up and by the end of the rehearsal everyone was singing with gusto.
Marty, speaking to me afterwards, said he’d played a big part in writing this song, being an occasional writer of poetry and having once performed in his brother’s band.
Recovery Church had been a lifeline, he quietly confided.
“My partner got pregnant about three years ago and I’m an alcoholic.
“I reached out to one of the lads in the group who I knew through a friend because I felt I needed to try and get better.
“I ended up going to Recovery Church, meeting upstairs.
“Everyone had different problems, not just alcohol. You didn’t have to be a church-goer or anything like that. Everyone was sharing their problems and for some reason I felt at peace being there.
“There were people who came to lead choir sessions so I was getting to know people outside of addiction.
“I said my bit and put down that I was a songwriter and they invited me back to help write the song with Sean and meet other people. Everyone’s story was quite similar, being stigmatised.
“It’s such a common problem. People were all saying, ‘I’ve been in that situation, I’ve had that’. The song pretty much wrote itself. It just flowed.”
Marty, who lives in Newcastle, said he’d been five months sober but spoke guardedly because his route to current sobriety had come via a month in hospital.
“It wasn’t the ideal way for it to happen, for me to get sober. But it happened and this is helping me keep on track.
“People don’t understand what addiction is like. They think you can stop just like that… like it’s a choice you can make.
“No-one chooses to be an alcoholic. It’s an illness.”
Marty and his partner now have two young children, incentive enough to keep battling – and at Recovery Church are people who understand.
A woman listening in, another singer, expressed concern, asking if he was eating properly.
The second song for both groups to learn came from the sanctuary-seekers, and in particular the ebullient Bushee who wrote Someday.
Now we’re oceans apart
I miss the days when we’d stay up late
Sitting underneath the stars…
The words may be wistful but the performance was upbeat, Bushee strumming on his guitar and bouncing on his toes.
Bushee is a refugee from what some now call Myanmar but he calls Burma. He said he’d qualified as a doctor back home but was studying at Sheffield University when the coup happened. Finding himself suddenly stranded and penniless, he claimed asylum.
Granted leave to remain last year, he is now working at a McDonald’s and striving to save money ahead of the day he’s in a position to resume his studies.
But music is his passion. “When I was at high school I told my family I wanted to do music but they said, ‘No, go to med school’,” he recalled cheerfully.
“I was 15 when I wrote this song. It was the first one I’d ever written in my life. I had a group of really close friends and thought we’d soon go to different unis and be separated. I wrote the song in Burmese.
“The English version I wrote in Newcastle with my friend Jamie who has now gone to Vienna. This year I was one of the Refugee Week ambassadors. I sang that song and they loved it. We recorded it and it’s everywhere. The theme song for this year is my song.”
Music, said Bushee, is a bridge between people. “Even if you don’t speak the same language, the music and the melodies connect us. Everyone has a different background and personality but we unite through music.”
Bushee, by his own admission, has been through a lot.
“Imagine living on £35 a week without a work permit in a house with no Wi-Fi.”
But he has a plan beyond burgers. “I sing at open mic nights, acoustic gigs in pubs. I love to sing and I want to write more English songs. I’m 31 now and I’m going to do music for a couple of years and if it doesn’t work out I’ll focus on becoming a GP.
“I won’t ever stop singing though.”
There will be a lot more singing at the Our Home concert in Newcastle Cathedral on Thursday, July 18 at 7.30pm. Tickets (pay as you feel) from TicketSource via the cathedral website.
