Speech at Manchester Cathedral

I was very kindly invited to be a guest speaker at Manchester Cathedral tonight, in aid of Henshaws for their annual Carols by Candlelight service. I shared my sight loss journey, my decision to go back into education and get my illustration degree and the seeds planted so far in my practice that will bloom into something bigger in the future. It was nice to be able to take some time to reflect when drafting my speech over these past few weeks on how far I have come, especially in the past 2 academic years at Leeds College of Art, making substantial progress to becoming a much more informed, autonomous, evocative and enquiring illustrator. I feel like I've had a bit of a religious experience with being in such a beautiful and historic building - opening up my heart and sharing my life with a huge audience of hundreds of people; and with God. A lot of good things happen to me, like really amazing opportunities I could never even wished to have asked for, and also a lot of bad things. Many to do with my visual impairment, but others just general real-life crap.

This past year I lost my grandad who was essentially my second father. When I was little, my dad worked a lot to support my mum, brother and I so I didn't get to see him much. My mum was a young mother at the time of the late 80's, being 19, and relied on her parents a lot to take the pressure off of having two children. I grew so close to my Irish nana and grandad and learned so much from them about hard work, grafting and a strong family unit. My nana had a stroke in 1995, when I was 4 years old, and back in those days there wasn't much anyone could do - whereas now the effects can be reversed quite tremendously if it is treated quick enough. My nana was subsequently paralysed and couldn't speak and that is, unfortunately, how I remember her. This happened at the same time it was discovered that I was severely visually impaired, needing to go to London to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital most of the time for operations and it was a lot for my young mother to cope with. My grandad stepped in and was everything to me and my mum.

Losing him in the summer after a terrible series of injuries, eventually succumbing to pneumonia and heart failure, has been incredibly difficult to come to terms with. I've never dealt with death properly as I was shielded from my nana's death and this is my first proper experience. My mum and I wouldn't eat for days and had no desire to do anything from severe grief. The only thing that propelled us forward was the prospect of me going to university and living in a studio flat - where we would go out and buy little things here and there to decorate and make my stay more comfortable. This big loss, and the good and bad things that happen to me every day, have enabled me to find comfort in my faith. I am trying to find hope, support and comfort and feel like these are being slowly addressed in the Word and spending time tonight in the Cathedral has been a turning point.