Thread by @HI_Voices

So I’ve been talking a fair bit about fire service work in #Skye with a few references to my former life in a rock band. I’ve had a few questions from people on here about how/why I made the switch from this guy to this guy.

In 2016 @BedlamSix split up after ten years on the road. I threw myself into writing a musical about political spin and populist governments loosely following the structure of the Oedipus myth. You can read all about that here: louisbarabbas.com/jocasta/

Here’s one of the songs (of course I cast myself as the villain).

Musicals are a famously collaborative medium, one shouldn’t really attempt writing them solo. So by the time I’d written this thirty song epic, secured funding, recorded a cast album and staged a showcase at The Lowry theatre I was REALLY tired.

I later realised I’d experienced total burnout. I hadn’t really processed the end of my old band, just got stuck into a new project, kept moving, I felt utterly hollowed out. At this time my grandfather died and I went up to Skye to sort out his house.

I’d been coming here since I was a baby, sometimes staying for long stretches but never calling it home. This time, however, I felt a huge weight drop from my shoulders, a massive knot of tension I hadn’t even realised was there.

My partner and I decided to move in. Just for a bit. To work out our next steps. We’d both just finished jobs and weren’t sure what to do. We’d only ever lived in a one-bedroom flat in Manchester so being surrounded by hills and trees was a phenomenal change.

I know a lot of people in Skye are sick of incomers talking about the restorative powers of the island so I’ll avoid that sort of language, but the move transformed me. The clean air, the wildlife, the lack of advertising billboards constantly highlighting one’s shortcomings.

Bryony got a job in a shop and I drifted for a while on the dregs of my dwindling song royalties. We adopted a neurotic dog with a traumatic past and became a strange little family. We couldn’t go back now, Lorna would never be able to handle a city.

So I quit music altogether and applied for the fire service. Why not? That’s a natural trajectory isn’t it? A way of finally being a useful person to society but still getting the occasional bout of applause. Here I am graduating from initial training in Oban.

The crew at @DunveganFire fills the hole left since my band split. Indeed it feels very similar. A bunch of friends hurtling towards a crisis at high speed. What’s more rock and roll than that?

And I was already very used to quick changes in a shared dressing room.

A lot of people think “oh I couldn’t do that!” (I know I did) but you’d be surprised what you’re capable of. If you have even half an inkling you might like to be an on-call firefighter check out the website firescotland.gov.uk/careers/on-cal… or ask my crew @DunveganFire for info.