In the past few years cancer has reared it’s ugly head on several occasions, affecting loved ones of good friends and work colleagues. Last week we lost two heroes, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, to this horrible disease and quite frankly cancer can do one. For this reason I’m going to run the Barcelona Half Marathon in full Ziggy Stardust gear (Spandex, make-up, maybe a wig) on the 14th of February to raise money for Cancer Research. I’ve set a target of 500 quid, might be a bit ambitious with less than a month to raise it so please give generously! You’ll find the link to my justgiving page below:
Today we lost a hero. What terrible news to wake up to on any day, let alone the first day back at work after the Christmas holidays. I found out in a break between classes at 9am when I checked my phone and found a stream of hearts and one sad face from my girlfriend. The news had broken about half an hour before.
I just want to say a massive thank you to you, David Robert Jones. You were my hero and you inspired me in many ways, but more than that you were just ever present during the highest and lowest points of my life, and I’m sure you will continue to be. The joy I feel leaping about like an idiot, belting out “Let’s Dance” with my closest friends is indescribable and I just never imagined you’d be gone so soon. My thoughts are with your family.
I’ve been in a blue daze all day listening to your songs and willing myself to get my head around it and assuming that this song or the next would be the one that made me burst into tears. But it didn’t happen, I just kept feeling the same joy and exhilaration as ever, the hairs on the back of my neck oblivious to your passing. Only now, trying to put it into words are the tears coming.
Thanks to all my friends who have reached out today, they know what an obsessive Bowie geek I am and I really appreciate it. Reading everyone’s heartfelt tributes has been a great comfort and I can only hope that his family can also draw comfort from the outpouring of love and respect.
My friend Andrew Seymour but an amazingly positive spin on the whole thing: “Everything makes a lot more sense when you realise he knew this was his last single/album. I’m actually so happy that he finished it; released 3 days before his death. It gives the whole affair a more positive twist. This wasn’t a man who went to the grave with his last words unsaid. I’m so happy for him that he was able to lie back in those final days and know that he had finished his work. How many people die full of regret and unfinished business and wasted potential? I take a lot of positivity from that. He kept us all in the dark and surprised everyone one last time. He made mortality the theme of his last piece of art; I couldn’t imagine a more contented way to be in your last days, making theatre of it all and getting all your ideas out just in time. RIP”
