by Abi Bown

Vijay

“She was beautiful man, I loved her.”

Previous to his girlfriend’s murder, life had been sweet for Vijay. His mind was preoccupied with music, college, romance and designer jeans. Slowly easing himself from his family’s loving embrace to move onto college and a career in graphic design his mind was focused and engaged.

Then events overtook him, one random act of violence by a stranger destroyed his rational thinking. Vijay finds himself trapped by a mind that can’t stop replaying the gut wrenching moment when his girlfriend was pushed under a train.

He has panic attacks, he suffers horrendous and intrusive flashbacks and visions. He is paralysed by fear and dread, confined to his room, afraid to come out. All this and grieving too. Vijay hopes to mend his mind by various means - anti depressants, behavioural therapy, art therapy and will power.


Dino

“I wasn’t no Gangsta drug junkie dealer neither - let’s face it, I didn't’t have the credibility or the clothes”

Dino was a conundrum to the teachers at his primary school, they could not understand his failure to fit in, to make friends, to thrive. Dino’s mind was constantly preoccupied however with trying to suppress the feelings of despair and anger that were to dog him all his life.

He was in a constant state of ‘fight or flight’, the result of a life with an abusive father in the presence of a mother who chose not to notice. When sniffing glue and simply ‘zoning out’ ceased to deaden his mind and his memories, and acting the fool only got him beaten up at school, Dino simply withdrew from the world.

He would take any drug, any mind altering anything in order to feel at ease in his own skin. There were only three people in the whole of Dino’s 18 years that he felt he could trust - Julie his ‘dealer’, Nurse Shirley who brushed his hair and treated him like any other kid and Silas, the guy from the Underground kiosk who turned a blind eye to Dino’s petty thefts, shared his strong lager and listened to Dino’s troubled mind.

Maya

“My life. Mine - it just ebbs and flows, shifts, creating different patterns in time, in the here and now”

Maya’s mind is slowly unraveling, she is coming to terms with the loss of a quick wit and fierce intellect. In the past her mind could turn to politics, to family matters, to matters of international consciousness and to soap operas and word searches in the TV guide.

She was a writer with a reputation, she sold books, she did book tours and panel discussions - life in her native Nigeria being a favoured topic. Now all this is changing with the onset of Alzheimer's Disease, and feelings of frustration, humiliation and deep sorrow are edging out pride and resilience.

Maya’s short term memory problems are exacerbated by resurgence of long forgotten chunks of her early life, mingling in the here and now so that she is often disorientated, confused and frightened. Maya rides the tube trains, embarking on a journey in the morning, she forgets her destination, then she forgets to come up for air and inevitably finds herself on Silas’s platform where there’s always a cup of tea waiting. To Maya, Silas is like the Aunty she left behind in Lagos, in fact the two are often interchangeable in Maya’s mind.

Silas

“I talk to people - one of the best forms of healing there is, talking - and being listened to”

Silas sometimes feels he has the brain the size of a planet and his intellect is too much to bear. His ability to gather information, absorb books and schools of thought as if by osmosis is hindered only by the crashing troughs of despair he occasionally finds himself in.

The highs and lows of Silas’s life have dictated his movements around the globe and his ability to hold down a job. Silas has the strong conviction that he is, nevertheless, a born healer - he was descended from Winnesheik, medicine chief of the Winnebagos after all, and his great grandma Sofia rode a spring wagon pulled by a two horse team of paint ponies - selling blood tonic made from cocklebur, balsam and burdock.

In this spirit and tradition of the Old West, Silas has set up stall on platform 2 offering along with the crisps, Daily Mail and cans of coke - understanding, empathy and hope.

	For further information about this project, email our Tour Producer David Jackson