5742 Days
A Day in the Life of a Book on the Underground
17 July 2014 by Catherine Holdsworth in 5742 Days, Book publishing, Entertainment
This morning I started my day at Dalston Junction. The weather was so lovely and hot I wanted to stay overground for as long as I could. I’ve got my lovely new sticker on my front so that people don’t throw me away. It says, ‘Pick me!’, ‘Read me!’. I could be their new favourite book.
Oops, excuse me, watch out there, I’m only little. It’s a bit of a squash on the train this morning, people must have important jobs to go to. I can keep you company on your journey, take me home. It’s hard to find a seat amongst all these commuters.
Phew! I manage to get a seat at Caledonian Road. Oh, somebody’s picked me up, yay, I hope you like me.
This afternoon I’m going underground. The escalators are really high for a small book like me. I’m at Whitechapel, on the District Line, going west. Whoosh, this train is coming very fast, it’s a good job I’m standing behind the yellow line! I hop on and zoom, we’re off. All the way under the city, I speed past Westminster, ‘Hello, Prime Minister!’ and on to Earl’s Court. Oh, careful with me. Somebody has put me in their bag, I wonder if we’re going to the London Book Fair…
My final ride of the day is the Bakerloo Line, what a funny name! I get on at Baker Street, such a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, you know, I wonder if he will enjoy reading me. Oh well, no time to stop, racing all the way up the line to Paddington. Is he there? Perhaps I could share one of his marmalade sandwiches? Just catch the fast train to Oxford, I think I’ll pop in to the Infinite Ideas office and tell them about my adventure!
If you enjoyed reading about 5742 Days, Anniversary Edition’s day on the London Underground, check out the book, which is available now. Special thanks to @BooksUndergrnd for distributing our books.
Bereaved mother wants to spread the word about consequences of recreational drug use
7 July 2014 by Rebecca in 5742 Days, Lifestyle
An Oxfordshire mother who wrote a book documenting her experiences after losing her only daughter to recreational drug-use is making free copies available to readers around Oxford city centre in the hope that, by reading of her experiences, others can avoid the fate suffered by her daughter.
Sunday 20 July 2014 is the first anniversary of the death in Oxford of Martha Fernback. To mark the occasion Martha’s mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, author of 5,742 Days: A mother’s journey through loss, and her publisher Infinite Ideas will leave free copies of a special anniversary edition of the book, published this month, in various parts of the city. These free copies carry a sticker inviting ‘Infinite Readers’ to take the book away, read it and then bring it back to the same spot for someone else to experience. The book will be found in public places throughout central Oxford on 19 July 2014.
Anne-Marie has recently called for drugs to be regulated. She says:
“What is crystal clear to me now is that strict and responsible regulation of drugs is vital. This means taking drugs out of the hands of dealers and treating them in the same way as pharmaceuticals. Licensed drugs are labelled, ingredients are listed and necessary dosage information is provided.
Under prohibition, it is impossible to fully educate people as there is no way to tell what drugs contain, but despite this, many people are still willing to take risks.
It is important to stress that we need to do what we can in order to deter young people from taking drugs. However, had Martha known that what she was about to take was 91% pure, she would probably have taken a lot less, in fact I’d go as far as to say that she might still be alive.
Martha wanted to get high, she didn’t want to die. No parent wants either, but there’s one of those options that’s preferable to the other.”
Anybody who finds a book can let Anne-Marie and Infinite Ideas know via Twitter @5742Days; @Infinite_Ideas.
ENDS
For further information contact:
Catherine Holdsworth: catherine@infideas.com
Telephone: 01865 514888
5,742 Days
A Mother’s Journey Through Loss
(Special 1st Anniversary Edition)
Anne-Marie Cockburn
£9.99 | Publication date: 7 July 2014 | ISBN: 9781908984333
Paperback | 198 x 129mm |174pp | Published by Infinite Ideas
Notes for editors
- Books will be left in restaurants, cafés, museums and public places around the city centre on 19th July, exactly 52 weeks after Martha Fernback died.
- As a legacy of Martha’s death, Anne-Marie set up a website to encourage others to become involved in safeguarding the lives of young people: www.whatmarthadidnext.org
- To commemorate Anne-Marie’s last perfect day with Martha at the beach the day before she died, she’ll be holding a public picnic on Saturday 19th July from 12.30pm at Hinksey Lake, where Martha died. Just bring along a picnic and a blanket to sit on.
New edition of 5,742 Days calls for drugs to be legalised and regulated
7 July 2014 by Infinite Ideas in 5742 Days, Lifestyle
Martha Fernback was 15 years old when she died on 20 July 2013 after swallowing half a gram of MDMA powder (more widely known as ecstasy). Since then her mother Anne-Marie Cockburn has suggested that the criminalisation of drugs contributed to her death.
At Martha’s inquest in Oxford in June Anne-Marie made her strongest call yet for senior politicians to enter into dialogue regarding fundamental reform of UK drug policy. After the inquest she invited Theresa May, Norman Baker and Yvette Cooper to “start a sensible dialogue for change, from prohibition to strict and responsible regulation of recreational drugs. This will help to safeguard our children and lead to a safer society for us all by putting doctors and pharmacists, not dealers, in control of drugs.”
Now a new chapter in the anniversary edition of Anne-Marie’s heartbreaking book 5,742 Days: A mother’s journey through loss brings the story up to date with the sentencing of the youth who supplied the MDMA, her public forgiveness of him, and her now public position that drug supply has to be taken out of the hands of criminals and given to pharmacists and GPs. The public response to Anne-Marie’s story has been incredible. She has received letters from all over the world, from prisoners doing time for drug smuggling, members of the House of Lords, other bereaved parents, to worried parents who have their own teenagers to contend with. It is for those teenagers that she has started her campaign. She writes:
“What is crystal clear to me now is that strict and responsible regulation of drugs is vital. This means taking drugs out of the hands of dealers and treating them in the same way as pharmaceuticals. Licensed drugs are labelled, ingredients are listed and necessary dosage information is provided.
Under prohibition, it is impossible to fully educate people as there is no way to tell what drugs contain, but despite this, many people are still willing to take risks.
It is important to stress that we need to do what we can in order to deter young people from taking drugs. However, had Martha known that what she was about to take was 91% pure, she would probably have taken a lot less, in fact I’d go as far as to say that she might still be alive.
Martha wanted to get high, she didn’t want to die. No parent wants either, but there’s one of those options that’s preferable to the other.”
For further information contact:
Catherine Holdsworth: catherine@infideas.com
5,742 DAYS
A MOTHER’S JOURNEY THROUGH LOSS
(Special 1st Anniversary Edition)
Anne-Marie Cockburn
£9.99 | Publication date: 20 July 2014 | ISBN: 9781908984333
Paperback | 198 x 129mm |174pp | Published by Infinite Ideas
Notes for editors
As a legacy of Martha’s death, Anne-Marie set up a website to encourage others to become involved in safeguarding the lives of young people: http://www.whatmarthadidnext.org/
Resigned Resignation: Anne-Marie Cockburn on surviving grief
27 May 2014 by Infinite Ideas in 5742 Days, Lifestyle
by Anne-Marie Cockburn, author of 5,742 Days.
As I wander around this new world having quickly learned a new dialect and obtained my new identity, I wonder where this takes me. Do I want to go there and do I have a choice anyway? Does any of us have a choice, or is there a faint map of our lives before we breathe our very first breath?
I wander back to the perfect day at the beach, the day before my girl died. Was that the most extraordinary coincidence or was that a gift I was awarded as some compensation in anticipation as to what unfolded the very next day. My map showed a big black hole that I could never have predicted as I stepped backwards into it with my girl and she was gone forever. I survived and I now have to tolerate and find my purpose as a survivor who doesn’t feel as though surviving was the most rewarding of the two outcomes.
Despite being able to still feel joy and recognise that my life is precious and interesting, it’s as though there are two versions of me now, one who is getting to know herself and one who knows who she is, but knows she can never be that person again.
I was saying to friends last night that it’s all very well for me to do all the right things in order to take good care of myself, physically and emotionally, but death is pretty permanent and that is the problem with this journey. The end result is the same and that throws me out of kilter, do I have the strength to keep contending with that, or do I run out of determination and drive at some point and curl up to merely exist?
How do I do this, and can I – that is more the point? Can I actually do this? Who’d want to have my job – being a bereaved parent is the worst job in the world. Thankless and joyless – worse than having a stroppy, ungrateful teenager to contend with! At least when Martha was here, we’d calm down and then giggle at how stubborn we both were. But that giggle is gone and I now need to draw on my own stubbornness in order to find the strength of character to face the grief, and grief doesn’t have the same sense of humour as me.
I hate you grief, but you seem to love me and cling to my ribs. I stand on grief’s fingers as it hangs on defiantly, a villain on a cliff edge. I peer over and crunch the fingers with glee and beckon grief to let go, but grief disappears and then appears behind me whispering eerily in my ear, “I always win in the end”. Acrid breath filling the air, as I turn around and am pushed – I fall to my life that isn’t death and isn’t life either, a hybrid place where the residents look as hopeful as tourists after an uncomfortable long-haul flight.
I hand in my letter of resignation, I don’t want this job, I didn’t apply for it, but grief, my boss sits there smoking a big fat cigar, his phone constantly ringing, providing no space in his schedule to read my letter. I’m ignored and the frustration builds up inside me. LISTEN TO ME, “you can’t do this”, I say. But this isn’t a job you can resign from, so I dutifully turn up on a daily basis and look forward to my lunch hour.
Anne-Marie Cockburn: The journey so far
14 February 2014 by Admin in 5742 Days, Lifestyle
Earlier this week BBC News reported that a seventeen year old boy had admitted to supplying controlled class A drugs at a court hearing. The hearing followed the death of schoolgirl Martha Fernback, who swallowed half a gram of MDMA powder and suffered a cardiac arrest at a lakeside in Oxford last summer. Her mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, immediately turned to writing as a way to cope with her grief and Infinite Ideas published her first book, 5,742 Days, in December last year.
Anne-Marie has since launched a fundraising campaign and is working with Oxfordshire Community Foundation towards advances in teenage education and drug reform. She has written several blog posts including one following publication, and ‘Poker Face’, in which she writes openly about her fight with bereavement.Anne-Marie Cockburn on publishing 5,742 Days
18 December 2013 by Infinite Ideas in 5742 Days, Book publishing
by Anne-Marie Cockburn, author of 5,742 Days
I get a call from my publisher to say copies of my book have arrived. I jump on my bike and cycle the two miles into town to collect a few copies. I bring them home and sit quietly looking at them – Martha’s beautiful face on the glossy cover stares out at me. Am I doing the right thing Martha, I wonder? Too late now, I add. What am I worried about? I suppose it’s fear of the unknown, which is fair enough – over the past few months I’ve had enough shocks to last a lifetime.
I think hard about why I’ve gone as far as publishing a book; it’s not something I planned strategically. The writing flowed out of me every day and this activity instantly made me feel better. I didn’t write thinking it would be read, which is why it’s written entirely without any self-conscious filter. The book is a by-product of my reaction to Martha’s death and my use of writing as therapy to help myself cope.
I needed to place my focus somewhere and make use of all that hope I had been channelling into Martha’s life. Having something to do, a new project to occupy me, distracts me from the darkness that echoes around my mind. The book is helping to shift the focus away from my first Christmas without her.
Today, the Guardian published my first official interview, which includes excerpts from the book. I was shaking last night as I thought about where this will all take me when my story is out in the public domain in such a raw form. I’m not media savvy and despite my inner strength, I’m also never too far from fragile, so I understandably don’t want to jeopardise my recovery by adding any undue stress. So I remind myself that writing has enabled me to gather my thoughts and journal experiences I would otherwise be likely to forget. Simple as that.
I don’t need to worry about how this is received by the wider media as the story really speaks for itself – no need for any embellishment or added drama, it’s sobering and grounding in its simplest format.
Anyway, I felt that the Guardian feature was a beautiful account and the overall tone was faithful to my voice and emotions. The headline is ‘Losing Martha’, which made my stomach churn as I glanced at it for the first time, next to her beautiful photograph. I read the story eagerly and was relieved that there was nothing to be concerned about.
One comment on the Guardian website read, ‘So stark. So beautifully written – but so hardwired from the heart, it is almost too painful to read.’ I like to think that this opinion will change once the reviewer has read the entire book, to something more like ‘Positive and uplifting, full of hope and determination’, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. At first glance, you would definitely think that my story would be too much to take – but in reality it is not like this; it’s a journey, an interesting, gripping and hopeful one.
My way of grieving is personal to me, but it’d be nice to think that I can show people that there is another way, one that can include laughter, joy and self-belief, alongside the inevitable emotional turmoil and anxiety. I’ve deliberately avoided wearing black and I’ve been tough with myself. For instance, if I was reminded of Martha in a specific shop, I’d force myself to go back there a few times so that the reference is no longer about her but about me. I don’t want to be constantly haunted but there are sixteen and a half years of rewiring to do and that would be an impossible thing to try to achieve.
I wonder how people felt as they read the article: did they have to stop and move on to something lighter such as the food section, relieved that they are not me, or did they persevere to the end? Did my story make them grab their children and hold them tight for a moment, glad that they’re safe and well? Or are there others out there like me who have outlived their own children, my story reminding them of their darkest hours?
I receive an email from a mother who saw a recent article written about me. She said, ‘…Heartiest condolences, I have no words that could properly express how sad I feel at what happened to your daughter. I would like to thank you for sharing your raw grief, I feel it will help other people a lot. Personally I will make sure my two daughters read your book before they try any drugs if they choose to. I believe children should be helped to make up their own decisions, and your work helps to show how dangerous a single moment can be and provide a perspective on the issue that is often lost. It is a great help to me as a parent to be able to present this information to my children.’
This email helps to banish any doubts that seep into my mind and confirm that what I’m undertaking is going to help others. It’s great to receive feedback of this type as it endorses what I hope to achieve over the next few months.
Today’s newspaper is relevant for 24 hours. It’s now 22:02, so as the piles of today’s newspapers are gathered up and dropped into recycling bins, my beautiful girl’s face looks up at them and fades like a ghost. I can’t close the newspaper and forget, I can’t sigh with relief and be grateful that it didn’t happen to me. I still struggle and find it hard to believe that it did happen, but I have to detach myself from the truth sometimes in order to cope. I wish I could glance through the article and be horrified for someone else – but I stop myself as I wouldn’t want to inflict what I’m enduring upon another living soul. I wish this wasn’t my story though, I don’t like this story. I’ll take my story to the library and swap it for another one – something lighthearted and fluffy would be nice.