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June is bowel cancer awareness month in Australia and New Zealand. The Final Post is a very special release from my musical project Fields of Dawn and is closely connected to Australia by the Nicole song. Four very special and emotional pieces of music raising awareness about bowel cancer and funds for three amazing bowel cancer charities, Bowel Cancer Australia, Bowel Cancer UK and The Bowel Movement. The songs are written about and dedicated to the memory of two beautiful young ladies recently lost to bowel cancer, Nicole Cooper and Monique Buckingham. We did very well with this release during bowel cancer awareness month in the UK in April, so it would be nice to add to the fundraising total during the month of June. This is my first foray into fundraising for a charity outside the UK, so I’m extremely grateful for all support received x
Nicole, who lived in Melbourne, Australia, died in January, and she was one of the kindest and most wonderful souls, who did so much to advocate for bowel cancer patients and raise awareness about bowel cancer. She was a young mother to Joshua and married to Tim, and surrounded by a beautiful family. Kindest was part of her DNA. I reached out to her about 5 years ago to be in my fundraising book, The Record, and from that moment on we struck up a firm friendship, even though she lived 11,000 miles away. However, we did get to meet in 2019 at Trafalgar Square when Nicole and her family were in Europe on holiday, which was such an amazing thing to happen. Nicole was initially written off when she was given her stage 4 diagnosis in 2017. However, she pushed for and sought out a second opinion which gave her a small window of opportunity for treatment, which she grabbed and gave her 5 more years of life. It’s impossible to fully appreciate everything she went through just to stay alive, including the numerous surgeries. She leaves a massive legacy, which will play a big part in more bowel cancer patients getting better treatment options and outcomes.
It was what Nicole said in her final post that inspired me to put together this music release. The words to her social media were beautiful, sad and so very inspiring. She didn’t want cancer to define her or to be what she signed out on. So, the track Nicole, which opens and closes the release was written based on my feelings and on those final words that Nicole wrote. The third track on the release is The Final Post, which is a quite magical narration of Nicole’s final post by 12 ladies from the bowel cancer community. To have them involved is one of the most beautiful things that has happened since I began the Fields of Dawn musical project three years ago. For these ladies to put themselves out there and reading words, which can’t have been easy is a testament to the whole of the wonderful bowel cancer community. For this reason alone I would ask you to support the release and help us raise some money for the charities.
The second track on the release is called Monique. She was known to many as @thelifeofmique on social media. Monique died last November, and I had been wanting to do something meaningful dedicated to her, so this seemed like the right time to write a song about this amazing young lady. At the beginning of 2022, I was fortunate enough to meet Monique at Colchester Hospital. I had started selling the Life of Mique teddy bears to raise funds for the fund set up to pay for private treatments for Monique not available on the NHS, after she had been told there were no more treatment options available on the NHS. I spent a wonderful couple of hours chatting to Monique and her family, who made me feel incredibly welcome. Monique was just as you would imagine from how she came across on social media, just so lovely. I felt like I had known them all for ages.
As time has gone on since that visit, I have had time to reflect upon just what a profound effect it had on me. Meeting Monique really helped me rediscover my reason and purpose, especially as far as the fundraising goes. It was a very humbling experience meeting someone with such a kind, positive and infectious personality doing everything possible simply to stay alive. If I could possess a fraction of those qualities Monique had, then I would have little to worry about…
Essentially the two songs, Nicole and Monique are love songs that I hope represent the depth of feeling held for these two ladies by the many thousands of people who followed them on social media. I am incredibly proud of these recordings. Perhaps the best music I have produced to date under the Fields of Dawn banner. Raising awareness is so important and the reel on social media which has the 12 ladies narrating Nicole’s final post has vindicated the idea with the amount of views it has had. I would like to think that both Nicole and Monique would have loved this idea x As always I would be incredibly grateful for any support.
The Final Post is available on CD and Download. There are also the two t-shirts that can be purchased too. You can also stream the release on all the usual digital music platforms.
I’d love to hear from anyone in the Southern Hemisphere during June, especially if you listen and/or buy the release. If anyone has any ideas as far as promotion goes or leads on specific radio stations for airplay then please get in touch…
