rivers2cross

It may seem a little odd to talk about the end of Fields of Dawn with the forthcoming album being released on New Years Day. However, there are some reasons behind my reasons for calling time on this particular musical venture.

Fields of Dawn has been going for almost 4 years and raised around £3000 over that time, which is pretty incredible, especially after I spent so many years away from making music. I will always be grateful for the wonderful support that has allowed me to do this. However, perhaps mistakenly I’ve always set myself competitive targets and wanted Fields of Dawn to keep growing. For me the new album is a huge step up on last year’s debut album and I wanted it to be as successful if not more so when it comes to the fundraising. It looks like it is going to fall well short on that. I’m very realistic and I realise that predominantly I am asking the same people to support my fundraising over and over again, and perhaps Fields of Dawn is coming to a natural end. The pattern is pretty similar to what happened when I published the books and how The Record failed to match the success of Lives & Times. I found that difficult after spending three years writing The Record. So, I don’t want to allow that to happen with the music and I feel it’s better to call time on it while it’s still being so well received.

I’m so proud of what it has achieved, but maybe it’s time to call time on it. This doesn’t mean for one minute that I will stop making music. I still have The Majority with Adam, and perhaps if I remove the fundraising element it might be time to stand up musically and record as Tim Darvell… I am certainly not looking for any sympathy with these musings. Fields of Dawn has been incredibly successful and been brilliant for me on so many levels. I am so proud of what it has achieved. Of course, I will never say never and if in the future there is a reason to bring back Fields of Dawn then I will do so.

There will be one final release in 2024 as a kind of farewell. My amazing friend Laura Hopkinson died of stage 4 bowel cancer in November and with her family’s blessing I shall be donating all the profits from the song I’ve written about Laura to MacMillan and St Oswald’s Hospice. More details of the release will follow in due course.

I then come onto the whole fundraising question. I will always want to do something, but as with the music for the last 11 years I have mostly been asking the same people time and time again for support and thankfully the support has remained brilliant. However, I only have to look at my own social media feed to see how much it is dominated by fundraising posts. To be fair it is actually my non-fundraising posts which attract more interest. So, in 2024, I need to rebalance and kick start life outside of fundraising a little more and achieve a much better balance. The recent losses in the cancer community only serve to remind me of how important it is to live life for the moment… I think I need to scale back on the amount of time that the fundraising takes. It can be quite relentless and intense at times, mainly because I am so desperate for it to do well. I think special fundraising projects like the Life Of Mique and Bowel Babe teddy bears are the type of things I will be looking to do in the future. Try and let things present themselves to me rather than continually looking to find new ideas and avenues. Perhaps I can look more towards raising awareness for a while, as that is vitally important work too.

One thing that has changed my life in so many ways has been the amazing friendships I have made as a result of the fundraising and it has brought so many positive changes in my life. These friendships are very important to me and I know Mum, especially, would be so happy to see this xx

Anyway still time to do some fundraising spam before Fields of Dawn bids a final farewell, so if you have ready this far and haven’t ordered a copy of Destination Unknown yet, then now’s a great time to put that right. Almost £500 raised for The Bowel Movement, Bowel Cancer UK and Love Hope Strength.