“Art is like salt and pepper, life is bland without it.”

Mhairi Sinclair Santa Ponsa 15th April 2013 ©PhoenixMediaMallorca

Mhairi Sinclair
Santa Ponsa
15th April 2013
©PhoenixMediaMallorca

“My name is Mary in Gaelic. My dad, Tommy Hawkins, was from East Whitburn in Scotland. It’s a teeny place, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. But I was born in Portsmouth so my grandparents called me a ‘sasanach’, as I didn’t have a Scottish accent. My dad travelled all over the country with his work, he was a big band leader. So we’ve lived anywhere there is a Mecca Ballroom, more or less!

“I first remember drawing when I was about four or five. I was very pleased with a picture that I had done of a hem of a crinoline dress. I spent hours on it, licking my pencils and trying out different ways to make good effects. I suppose you would say that I have a natural flair for art. As I grew up I became more and more passionate about art. I credit my dad with inspiring me to look at things properly. He would ask me to look for the colours in a tree. And then after I had given him the simple, obvious answer that it was green or brown he would ask me to look again, and then I would see the other colours there.

“I’ve learnt my techniques through experimentation, through reading books and trying out ideas. We didn’t have the internet back when I was a teenager so I read a lot of books. It was expensive to use some of the materials you need so I found ways to use cheaper things to get the same results. I love passing on my skills and ideas to other people. You have to be inventive as an artist and have the passion to try out new ways. You shouldn’t get hung up on the rules. Michelangelo is my hero; he didn’t care about showing off or the fame that went with being an Old Master. He was an incredible man. He was almost a hermit, he lived for his work. He was humble; he knew his craft and produced some incredible, timeless work.

“After school I flunked out of college where I was studying History of Art, and got a job as a ticket writer in Selfridges. I was working with the old boys who used to do the hand painted Odeon cinema posters and they taught me how to use a Maseely Press. From London I went to Brighton which to me was the centre of the world for art. It was a very colourful ‘scene’. I hung out with artists and students and got a job working through the night in a casino. It felt as if I had found myself. It made me realise that I wasn’t suited to the 9 to 5 life. My boyfriend and I opened a stained glass studio where we specialised in art deco painted mirrors and terrariums, they were a huge success. But when our relationship ended in 1991 Brighton just felt too small for the both of us, so I decided to move. I’d always wanted to live in Spain after an amazing family holiday we had had in San Jose in the early eighties. I loved the place, the food, and the people. It is such a beautiful memory for me as  I felt as if I had come home, I loved the feeling of the importance of family and how everyone belonged. I had never had that feeling at home I suppose because we were always on the move. So I decided I wanted to try out living in Spain and came to Majorca.

“When I first arrived here I would sit on a park bench in Palma Nova and sketch. People passing by would stop and look over my shoulder. I love to get reactions to my work; it’s magical when I can evoke a reaction. Sometimes people don’t like what I do but I don’t mind, I want to provoke a response, either way. My dad wanted me to be musical, but I prefer art. With a piece of music once it is played it is lost in the moment, a painting is there forever.

“Word got out that I could draw and I started to get work doing the odd decorating or signwriting job. Around that time I met my first husband Steve who was in yachting. I started to work as a stewardess on board a boat and got introduced to a British interior decorator, John Tanner, who was working on the Santa Ponca Golf development. When John said that he wanted to meet me I quickly read up on everything I could find about interior decorating and bluffed my way through the interview! I got the job to paint the show house which I did at weekends and at night, working around my stewie job. The results were fantastic and turned out to be my lucky break.  The owners of the boat that I was working on went to see the show house when it was finished and loved it and the art work inside of it. They asked who the artist was and were staggered when they were told it was me! Their stewardess. I stayed on with them for several years as their artist in residence.

“Now I paint privately for clients: whatever subject they want and in whatever style they want. I’m not your stereotypical painter though, I’m not splattered in paint, and I like to keep my nails nice. I am pretty well known for my murals. I love all forms of art but there’s something about Trompe l’Oeil that gives me a special thrill. I love the tongue in cheek trickery that makes you question what you are viewing. Sometimes I paint my clients into the murals, or at least an element of them, their eyes for example. I love breaking the perimeters of what people believe is possible, I like my kids to see that you can do whatever you want to do, you should follow your heart.  Art is so important, it’s like the salt and pepper of life, everything’s bland without it”.

You can contact Mhairi at mhairisinclair@hotmail.com To read more stories about people in Majorca visit http://www.mallorcastories.com

Language is power

Alwin Anwander

Alwin Anwander
18th January 2013
©PhoenixMediaMallorca 2013

“I was born and raised in Bavaria. Munich was the closest town to us. My parents had a house in Tenerife and we went there every summer for the long holidays. I would play with the local kids, and that is how I first learnt to speak Spanish. I really loved learning to speak another language and it seemed to come naturally to me. I studied Latin and English at school as well. So when I had finished school I went onto university in Salzburg and took Spanish Philology. I studied the language, history, and culture of Spain. I completed my first year and then came to Majorca for a year as part of the course, and I just didn´t want to leave! I love it here; there is everything you could ask for. The island is a melting pot of so many different nationalities, I love the diversity of cultures here, it is so exciting. So I transferred my studies to UIB, the Universitat de les Illes Balears.  Now I am completely fluent in four languages: German, of course, Spanish, French and English. Next I´m thinking to learn Russian.

“I think that if you live in a different country to your birth it is your duty to learn the language of that country. Without the language you cannot be connected to the people, you´ve got to try to speak their language, it seems disrespectful to me otherwise. And let´s face it, language is power, if you don´t learn it you are handicapped.

“The biggest barrier to learning something new is fear. We are frightened to make fools of ourselves. We don´t want to make mistakes in front of others. That´s why children learn languages so easily: they aren´t afraid, they don´t care. Fear is the biggest mechanism to stop us from growing. We tell ourselves ‘I can´t do it, it’s too difficult’.  The way I teach Spanish takes us back to the feelings of being a child. It´s important to play when you are learning, so there is no pressure, no stress and no competition.

“I have developed my language courses over a period of years. I teach it in the three phases, hence the name. In the first stage I present a story which is read out loud by the students, the new vocabulary is used over and over again. This creates a lot of new neuron connections in their brains. Then in the second stage the students listen to the story in a kind of cinema like atmosphere: it is in a darkened room in comfortable positions to listen to the recordings, and then in the third phase we recall the vocabulary which is in the long term memory and reuse it in different ways.

“Last year I spent a good deal of my time flying backwards and forward to Madrid where I taught the foreign football players at Real Madrid how to speak Spanish. They learnt in the same way that my other pupils do: through role playing, my students take on new names like Jennifer Lopez or Antonio Banderas, and they stop being famous athletes! Taking on a new name helps everyone to step around their inhibitions. We played a lot of simple childish games in Spanish, like Taboo, Uno or ‘Who am I?’. And we did a lot of repetition of the language. Repetition is the mother of all skills: some things you just have to do it again and again until you have learnt them: like repeating the conjugation of verbs. And in that way you integrate your new knowledge.

“When I teach a language I use the technique which helps the student to go into a ´delta state´ in their mind. This is deep relaxation in both the body and the mind, and it makes you very receptive to information. It is when your subconscious learns. Then later you will find yourself using words in conversation that you didn´t even know that you knew.

“Of course you can go for the ‘total immersion’ method but for many people it is just not practical to put yourself in the position where you speak only the language you are trying to learn for a month. It is very much the ‘sink or swim’ survivalist way of learning, it´s quite stressful! I prefer to learn in a more relaxed and enjoyable way.

“The English have a couple of things which they struggle with when they learn Spanish. You don´t have an article, you just have ´The´.  In Spanish we have masculine and feminine, and in German neutral as well. And adjectives in English don´t have a gender, it can take some time for an English pupil to understand the difference between ‘un chico guapo’ and ‘una chica guapa’. But once they´ve got it and learnt it the gates in their minds swing open and they start to learn.

 “Language consists of two things: vocabulary and grammar. It is that simple when you look at it like that isn´t it? If you think you can´t learn a language it isn´t because you can´t it´s simply because you are preventing yourself from trying. All you have to do to learn is relax and stop worrying.”

Alwin leads weekend language workshops every month in Majorca. Visit www.3phase.es. To read more stories about people on the island and to suggest your own story visit www.mallorcastories.com 

Alwin Anwander was speaking to Vicki McLeod

It looked like it was snowing inside of me

Sue Burrows Cala Nova
20th September 2012
©Oliver Neilson

“I met my husband, Mike, in 1967. I was leaning out of my office window in London. He was walking down the road with his mate, who looked like Steve McQueen, I waved at his mate, but it was Mike showed up to take me out for lunch! He says that it was love at first sight. On our first date he put Dusty Springfield’s ‘The Look Of Love’ on the jukebox, and it’s been our song ever since. We have three beautiful children: Ellie, Scott and Craig. I adore them. I speak to my daughter almost every day, although sometimes I give her the day off from me. I was a traditional mum though; I catered for everyone’s needs and didn’t really put myself first, in fact not even fourth. But I was happy to do it.

“I turned sixty in 2005. I’d always been satisfied with my life, but then I went to clear out my dad’s flat after he died, and looked around thinking, ‘Is this it? Is this all there is to a life?’ I didn’t want it to be so by the time it had got to Christmas 2005 I had handed in my notice at my job, I loved working at the Training and Enterprise Council as a receptionist, but it was time for me to go. I moved to Majorca in January 2006. I moved here on my own, and I was lucky as I made a great friend, Stephanie Mason. Mike followed me the following year. He left our son to run his commercial cleaning business in the UK.

“In the May of 2007 I had to get myself back to the UK for a mammogram. I hadn’t been for my check up and I needed to do it. I hadn’t really thought about what the results could tell me but it turned out that I had a tumour which had to be removed, and then radiotherapy. I wanted to convince them that I could have my treatment back in Majorca, which I did. It didn’t really touch me if you know what I mean, I treated it as if I had the flu. The treatment was successful and after lots of check-ups I was told that I didn’t have to go back until 2011.

“I went to Son Espases for my blood tests and check up in February 2011. I felt confident that I was fine, but I had also been getting a bit breathless. They took my blood and then they sent for a TAC (MRI). I took my friend Steph with me when I went to get my results as she speaks fluent Spanish, and I don’t. So the consultant broke the news to her.

“I knew it wasn’t good news when Steph breathed in and took hold of my hand. Then she turned to me and told me that I had cancer in my liver, lungs, chest and neck. The doctor showed me my scan, it looked as if it had been snowing inside of me, there were white bits all over me: the cancer. We went back home on the bus. Steph’s stop was before mine, so I was on my own for a bit and then I got back to my apartment in Cala Nova. I had to sit Mike down to tell him, and he looked like he was going to get upset, so I sent him away for a bit to let him sort himself out. I told him he had to be strong for me. I haven’t once cried about the diagnosis.

“I’ve had more than twenty eight sessions of chemotherapy now. I haven’t got cancer in my lungs and chest now, but the tumour in my liver hasn’t gone, yet. Chemotherapy makes your skin very sensitive, it makes it dry and it gets damaged easily. It’s actually easier to wear high heels as the skin on the balls of your feet is a bit thicker. And of course, I don’t have any hair either.

“It’s been amazing; but since I was diagnosed with cancer my social life has improved. When I had my photograph taken for the calendar last year it gave me a real boost, it inspired me to take care of my appearance. Now I always have a nice outfit, and I own a lot of hats. If I don’t wear a hat, it can be difficult when children are staring: it just makes me feel uncomfortable, although Mike says he likes the shape of my head.

“I started the Cancer Support Group with my friend Krista Hyer. So many people get depressed when they get cancer, but you have to fight. The day of the Cala Nova Cancer Charity Fashion event at Mood Beach I felt physically terrible, but I didn’t let it get me down. I focused on what I was doing: modelling for the charity on the catwalk in the pool, and got through it.

“You have to make a life for yourself; don’t just sit around waiting for it to happen to you. Now I go to Yoga, to ceramics, and soon I will be going to an art class too. Don’t get me wrong, I get tired; I have to have a siesta every afternoon. I think if you have things to do then you apportion time, and you do those things. If you don’t have things to do, you don’t do anything.

“I’ve always looked after myself, I’ve been a vegetarian for a long while, I don’t smoke and barely drink: just the odd glass of cava. I want to see my grandchildren grow up, I have three beauties: George, Claudia and Phoenix. Mike does all the housework now, it wasn’t always like this, but now he cooks, he cleans, he does everything. Steph and Krista have been like angels to me, but thank god for my husband, he treats me like a piece of porcelain, and he is so very proud of me. He tells me he loves me twenty times a day. And I love him”.

Please support the fundraising coffee morning for the Cancer Support Group on September 28th at Mama’s Cafe (next door to the Calvia Lion’s shop) in Palma Nova. For more information call 971675477. To read more about people in Majorca please visit http://www.mallorcastories.com

It’s about feeling good

Dr Huw Jones Portals Nous
September 2012
©Oliver Neilson

“I was born and brought up in Cardiff. I’m a proud Welshman, just like every Welsh man. I’m the third of four children. Our dad taught Greek and Latin, and mum was a renal nurse. I was fanatical about sport when I was a kid, still am, but for as long as I can remember I wanted to be a doctor. I think it must have been all the times that I went to casualty for a broken bone or an injury, it always seemed really exciting to be at the hospital. My dad once told me that my brother and I were invited to go to try out for Ipswich FC but he turned them down. I was always determined to go into medicine: I qualified from Sheffield Medical School in 1987 and moved to London.

“I worked in psychology, obs and gynae, paediatrics and then settled in General Medicine. I spent many years working in the NHS in and around London. I worked on the Drugs and Therapeutics Board making sure that the NHS was getting the best value for money that it could from the drugs companies.

“One day two of my practice partners were off sick and we had seventy patients throughout the day come through the waiting room. It was a very difficult day, my last patient of the day was this lady who came in and showed me some thread veins on her legs that she wanted t get rid of. I told her not to be so silly and not to waste my time and that she would just have to deal with them. She burst into tears and told me that she could only afford to go on holiday once every three years and that the thread veins on her legs upset her so much that she couldn’t enjoy it. I realised that I had been wrong and I told her so, and I promised her that I would learn how to treat the veins and then I would treat her for free. All of which I did. It brought something home to me that day: about how our appearance affects our mental well being.

“I was disillusioned with the NHS administration, the funding and the rules. So I went into private practice and started to treat patients privately. For the last ten years I’ve lived and commuted between my two practices, one in Harley Street in London and the other in Majorca. I also teach aesthetic medicine to junior doctors.

“Living in Majorca there are three things you have to take care of. You have to keep hydrated; you should be drinking between three and five litres of water a day. You have to use a sun block all year round religiously, and you need to be taking anti-oxidants to mop up the free radicals.

“We are living much longer these days. We need to feel good about ourselves. If you’re walking past a shop window and don’t like what you see in the reflection then what are you going to do about it? If you feel down about how you look, or you don’t feel good then it affects your relationships with your family, yourself, your working life, everything. I am busier than I have ever been seeing people who have to compete with younger candidates for the same job, they want to feel confident with their appearance and as if they are in the running. And I am seeing more men who want anti-ageing treatments.

“But if a patient comes to me and wants me to ‘fix them’ then I won’t do it. If I meet someone at a party and they want me to give them my opinion about what they need ‘doing’ then I won’t do that either. It has to come from the patient, I won’t ever suggest anything.  If it’s inappropriate in my opinion I just won’t do it. I think the most beautiful people are the most natural looking. If what a patient wants is excessive then I question it, although there are some doctors who will do anything for the money, I know that.

“A lot of the creams that can be applied topically to skin actually have very limited evidence that they work, and you can waste a lot of money. It isn’t true that the more expensive the product the more effective it is. You have to be careful about the ingredients of products, there are some creams which will never work because of what is in them. I still prefer to treat patients from the ‘inside out’. There are a lot of medical conditions you can solve through nutrition, I prescribe supplements: vitamins, minerals, herbs, and plant derivatives. I am using a range now that have been developed by a five Board Certified doctor in the States, and my patients are getting incredible results.

“I must have done over 10’000 Botox injections since the late nineties. I had a lady who credited Botox with getting her a promotion. She’d been working at the same place for fifteen years and soon after her Botox treatment for some frown lines on her forehead she got promoted. Then about a month after that she got promoted again! She rang me and said that because of being put in the spotlight with her first promotion she had had to deal with more people, and because her appearance had changed (without the frown lines she didn’t look so grim and grumpy) she thought that people found her more approachable, and that in turn had made her more friendly, so her bosses had got to know her better. In the end if you feel good about yourself then you’re happy and you are producing endorphins, they’re a natural opiate and that in turn gives you more confidence, you’ve got to work with the whole person. I’m just not interested in making ‘plastic Marys’”.

Visit www.drhuwjones.com

Performance has always been part of my life

Sarah Boughton, Andratx
31st August 2012
©Oliver Neilson

“I was five years old when I started to learn to play the violin. And I think I was about six when I started piano. I wasn’t really into music when I was little; I was much more interested in horses. It definitely wasn’t my idea to learn, it was my mum’s. My dad is a songwriter and record producer and my mum is an artist so I suppose I wasn’t ever going to end up as an accountant.

“I didn’t like playing the violin at the beginning, I certainly didn’t like practising. I got on better with the piano, I think it’s because it is more forgiving: you can make it sound better with less effort. The violin sounds horrible when you first start trying to scratch a note out on it. I liked my lessons though, with my teacher Carla: she was a nice lady. So I worked my way up through the grades system and gradually I got more proficient at the instruments.

“On reflection I realised that I didn’t really have any ambitions to be anything apart from a musician, I suppose I thought perhaps I would do something with animals, but then the music just took over.

“I would have been about fourteen when it finally started to get interesting to me. My dad introduced me to the music of Fairport Convention and I loved that. I started to play a lot more. A lot of my friends at school were musicians as well and we would go off and jam together in our breaks. By the time I was in Sixth Form I was into jazz as well. I was playing in a jazz improvisation group, and because of that I applied to study jazz violin at the Birmingham Conservatoire. I had to audition to get in, they only take twenty musicians every year and I was the first ever to play jazz violin.

“It’s a bit controversial to say it but I think jazz is as complicated and demanding as classical music, or perhaps even more so. It’s not just making it up as you go along, you have to memorise so many chords and combinations. It’s excellent training for your ear and your memory. There is a tradition in jazz which is about respecting your elders. You have to transcribe other people’s solos and study and learn them. The idea is that another musician should be able to play a couple of notes and you would be able to pick up from just that what you are playing. You need to know everything inside out. We practised for six hours every day for four years. It was quite an aural education. I think the experience has left me as a very adaptable musician, with a good ear.

“At the same time as studying jazz I joined a forty piece folk orchestra. The leader was a man called Joe Broughton, he’s a fiddle player with a great technique, and I learnt a lot from him.  Then I started to get into Latin American music as well, and studied Cuban, Brazilian and then flamenco styles. I wrote my dissertation on flamenco music. I’d got involved as I wanted to join a dance class for fun, and I ended up playing with the musicians. Flamenco musicians just seem to have it inside of them from the beginning; they have grown up with this amazing feel for the beat cycles in the music. When I started to learn it, I had to examine it forensically: take it apart and look at it and then put it back together again.

“After I had graduated from the Conservatoire I moved down to London and started to write. And then I started my band. I draw on a lot of different influences, which is why the band is called Jipsy, we don’t really belong anywhere. World music, 60’s, 70’s, trip hop, rock, metal, flamenco, jazz, it’s all in there somewhere.

“I think I am a good leader, I’ve run the last four bands that I have been in. I am very organised and motivated. I like to see things through and I don’t like to rely on other people to get things done. I don’t like having to carry other people who are less motivated than me. I started Jipsy as a collective, so the members can drop in and out without feeling they have to commit. I’ve performed just on my own sometimes, but at the moment there are four other musicians playing with me.

“I stopped getting nervous about performing a long time ago. Even when I was little my parents were getting me up to play. It was just one of those things that you had to do at parties and gatherings. Although I suppose I am a bit more sensitive about performing my own songs, they can be very personal to me. I want to try to play at some folk festivals next year; my dream would be to play at WOMAD.

“A lot of people say to me that they used to play and have stopped or didn’t get the chance to learn when they were children. I think you need to find what interests you about music and pursue that, even if it isn’t something that your instrument is designed for. You have to be persistent as a musician, and you have to, have to practice”.

Sarah will be playing with Jipsy on Wednesday evening (September 5th) at Mood Beach in Costa D’en Blanes at the inaugural evening for “Young Originals” featuring young musicians and singers. The evening will be in aid of Aspace, who support children and adults with Cerebral Palsy in Majorca. Doors open at 19.00. Donation is 5€ per person. Call 971 676 456 for more information.

Violinist and songwriter Sarah Boughton was talking to Vicki McLeod.

©Vicki McLeod

First published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin on Sunday September 2nd 2012

Click here:

Related articles

For the life of you, you cannot die

“I get asked the same questions a lot, ‘When did you first realise you could connect with people who have died?’ and ‘Does it frighten you?’ The answers are that my mum says that I got my first message when I was four years old, and no, it doesn’t frighten me, they’re only people after all. I was able to join a spiritual circle of mediums from when I was very young, so I was lucky, I found a teacher who instilled upon me what you do, and how you have to behave. My mind, my brain just works in such a way that I can connect.

“People often think I believe in everything from aliens to auras, but I am a very unsuperstitious person. I do get sent a lot of photos of auras, and I have offended people when I say I can’t see anything, it’s just a glow of light to me. I don’t believe in reincarnation but I did the last time I was here! I joke about it but I have total respect for everyone’s beliefs. What I do believe is that the human soul continues beyond what we call death. I am very good friends with people who don’t believe in what I can do, we agree to disagree. I don’t force my opinion on anyone and I expect the same treatment from others. I strongly disapprove of what mediums do when they walk up to a stranger in the street and start giving them messages. What if the person doesn’t believe, what if the message isn’t wanted?

“I worked as a floor manager in a department store until I was in my early thirties, and then everything changed. My adopted brother died. Just because I do what I can do doesn’t mean that I am immune to grief. The traditional view of heaven is of it being far, far away, which maybe it is, but it is also near and close, your loved ones are just a breath away, and just a thought away. Whatever their personal journey is when they pass over we can keep them close, we shouldn’t think of them as lost, they are just out of sight. They leave their body but their personality and spirit continues. We aren’t born fully formed, we develop from a baby to an adult, and then we die, but we continue to develop, it’s a natural progression. Death is the beginning of the next stage of our existence. Heaven is where we continue to learn and to grow, to progress.

“I’ve travelled around the world doing demonstrations. When I was in Japan I was involved in some non-invasive experiments: they wired me up whilst I was working. They couldn’t draw any conclusions but the theta brainwaves which are normally flat when you are conscious and active when you are asleep were peaking.

“You have to be quite diplomatic when you are passing messages over, even if you do get a connection your loved ones may not think about things in the same way as you do. I remember giving a message to a gentleman from his son, and his son was asking him to be more realistic with his memory as he had been painting his son as a paragon of virtue rather than the real person he had been.

“One of the things I have advocated is that mediums should get some basic counselling training, the communications I receive often are the start of a healing process for a bereaved person. When I am working with an audience sometimes I pick up information that needs moderating, there is no need to be explicit and embarrass people. You have to take responsibility for what you do: some people are very fragile emotionally. As a medium you have to be 100% committed to it as people are hungry for help and support and information and you have to understand that.

“As the years have gone on I have realised that my entire audience at a demonstration isn’t going to be a believer, or interested in spirtitualism. The demonstrations have to be fun as well as interesting. I don’t take offence at that or get precious about it, I can’t. I have taken flack for moving from churches to theatres, but I would demonstrate in a coal cellar, I don’t care where I do it. My feeling is that the function is more important than the location.

“Being a medium is not an entirely passive process, you have to dictate your own rules of engagement with the communicators. I get them to form an orderly queue, otherwise it gets too noisy and I can’t deal with them all at the same time. I get them to give me a good description of who they want to speak to or communicate with. The messages I have to pass on can be very emotional, they give hope and comfort, they’re life changing sometimes.

“I don’t have any particular rituals or things that I do before I give a demonstration. The night before I will be in Majorca I will be in Hayes. Then I will go home, have a cup of tea and go to bed. Then we will get up very early in the morning and fly to Majorca and check in to the hotel mid morning. I’ll have a rest and a shower, go to the Son Amar theatre, and do a sound check and then at 8pm I will walk out on the stage and I will do what I do. If it is there it is there, I don’t need to create a mystique. For most of the people who are coming they will know about me from my TV show, but you should come with the idea that you are there to witness. My evenings are about the message which is for the life of you you cannot die, and you should never think of people as lost.”

 

Colin Fry will be appearing at the Son Amar theatre on May 4th. For information call 971 617 533 or visit http://www.giltroseproductions.com

‘The People’s Medium’, Colin Fry was speaking to Vicki McLeod

©Vicki McLeod

First published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin on Sunday April 15th  2012

Click here: Colin Fry

 

 

You’ve got to follow your passion

David Diley

“It was in 1982, when I was three years old, that I saw my first shark. My parents had taken me on holiday to visit my grandparents in Porthoer in Wales. We were walking on the beach when we found a dead Tope shark washed up on the shore. I was fascinated by it, and my dad, who is a keen naturalist, was able to tell me a lot about the animal. Later on, when we were back at my Nana and Grandad’s house a trailer for the movie, Jaws, came on the TV. My dad mischievously said that what we had found on the beach that day was ‘the son of Jaws’, and right there my lifelong love affair with sharks began. I find them completely awesome, they’re the masters of the sea, powerful, majestic, graceful creatures.

“Back in the 1980s it was hard to get your hands on information just like that. I collected everything I could find about sharks: books, videos, newspaper articles. By the time I was ten I had started to correspond with marine biologists. Amazingly they would write back. The Australian shark experts Ron and Valerie Taylor, who are my heroes, even sent me a book which is still one of my most treasured possessions.

“I started to write articles myself exploring my theories about shark attacks. I didn’t agree with the way that the media portrayed them as evil killers. By the time I was fourteen I was corresponding with Ian Fergusson of The European Shark Research Bureau and was made an honorary member. My theories were controversial, I didn’t agree with the ‘Rogue Shark’ concept, and now years later, I’ve been proved correct.

“We had careers advisors at school of course. They told me that if I wanted to be a marine biologist that this would probably mean I wouldn’t get to spend 24 hours a day with sharks. I decided that I wanted to be an underwater explorer and film maker. But if you went to a meeting of these sorts of people, closed your eyes and turned around and pointed you’d be pointing at money, lots of it. And my family just weren’t wealthy enough for me to be able to go off on those sorts of adventures and holidays to places like the Bahamas, so I couldn’t get the practical experience I needed.

“I ended up working in recruitment just as the world economic crisis hit. What could previously have been a good job just seemed to get more and more stressful. It was a horrible, negative feeling. I didn’t want to be there. I spent my whole time in the office with this overwhelming sense of dread. Was this what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life?

“One Monday morning in 2010 I woke up and I decided to quit my job. I went in and told my boss I was leaving. I told him I was going to go to Fiji to make a film about sharks. I finished two days later. On Thursday morning I woke up, jobless, with only enough money in the bank to pay my rent for two months. I had an idea and that was literally all that I had. I didn’t have any connections in the film or media world, I had no idea of how I was going to survive. But the feeling of absolute release and relief was amazing.

“I had had the idea for a long time to make a movie about people encountering sharks for the first time. I had wanted to see what would happen when ordinary people (not shark obsessed ones like me) swam with sharks. I wanted to change people’s perceptions that sharks are man eating monsters: they are a vital part of the underwater food chain, but their survival is threatened by modern day activities such as finning. Did you know that Spain is the developed world’s third biggest exporter of shark fins? 100 million sharks are killed worldwide every year due to commercial and recreational fishing: this has a devastating effect on marine ecology.

“Then I met Brad Robertson and Bea Esparza from Ondine Escape in Mallorca and the project fell into place. Brad leads shark encounter dives at the Palma Aquarium and Bea and he are both passionate about the sea and the natural world. So it was a perfect fit.

“I knew that there have been great white sharks here in Mallorca, but that not a lot of people knew about that.  The second largest , recorded, Great White Shark ever caught was in Mallorca in the 70’s. Yep, Mallorca, less than one hundred metres from the shore in a popular tourist resort. Surprising yes? In the movie we speak to the man who caught it, Xisco Perez.  And we watch what happens when the volunteers (who didn’t realise they were volunteering to swim with sharks, it was a total surprise to them) encounter these awesome creatures.

“I want people to watch the movie and be surprised. I expect there will be people who don’t like the fact that we have told this story, purely because of the image that the shark has. It’s a real ‘feel good’ film. And there’s a purity about the film, there’s not a single moment in it where people are sad”.

 

‘Behind Blue Glass’ will be premiered on Monday May 28th at 21.00 at Mood Beach Bar & Restaurant in Costa D’en Blanes, Calvia. Entrance is free, and everyone is welcome to attend. For more information about David Diley and his next film project about sharks in Fiji, ‘Of Shark and Man’, visit http://www.officetoocean.com 

 

Underwater explorer and film maker David Diley was speaking to Vicki McLeod

©Vicki McLeod

First published in the Majorca Daily Bulletin on Sunday May 27th  2012

Click here: David Diley