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  For Peter Culkin
  
  Written and recorded over four days at Halsway Manor in January 2024.
  My Uncle Peter was a true Bootle boy. He loved everything about his part of the city, was an avid Liverpool fan and loved music and poetry.
  But throughout his life he suffered deep mental health issues. He was one of many, many people who fell through the net and was a victim, as were his family and friends, of Thatcher's 'care in the community' policy. When he should have had support and treatment from the state, he was vilified, punished and traumatised by the system. In his later years though he found peace and care, with great support from social services and the care and health system in Liverpool, but not after decades of pain and misunderstanding. We, his family, mourn his passing and the life he could have lived if he had had the treatment he deserved and needed earlier in his life. But we celebrate the beautiful man he was.
  His deep love of poetry was what I remember him most for though. He could recite the whole of this poem, and many others, until a few months before his death in February 2024. It was always a joy to share these special times with him and listen to his gravelly Scouse voice recite words which are usually seen as the preserve of the well annunciated and RP classes. To hear 'The mirror cracked from side to side' in a thick Bootle accent is to hear poetry in motion.
  I promised him months ago that I would put this first section of the poem to music. Sadly I hadn't finished it before his death, which came suddenly but peacefully in February.
  It was recorded in my room at Halsway Manor in January and the only other musician on it is the lovely Robbie Jones from The Track Dogs, who was a fellow resident on the retreat I was part of. It has not been tinkered with in a studio as I wanted every penny raised to go to the hospice and also to maintain the spirit of recording it in a room over several days, into one microphone and using just a mac and Studio One.
  The money raised with every download will go to St Joseph's Hospice in Thornton, Liverpool where Peter spent his last days in their loving care.
  
  RIP my lovely uncle - Peter Culkin ... more
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