SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome to the Better Two Podcast. I'm your host, Donna. Today's guest is Jules Peters. She is the wife of the late Mike Peters. And we do talk a little bit about their latest record, but this is a podcast more about dealing with her loss for Mike, her cancer, and his cancer diagnosis, and going through that journey. And it's not your usual podcast as far as promoting a record. Yes, we do talk about some great memories with the alarm and we talk about the alarm fans, but there's more to it. So tune in. Hi Jules, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Hi, Donna. I'm doing good. Thank you very much. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

I'm doing good. I'm hanging in there. And we were talking off camera. We kind of got caught up in talking off camera before I even hit recording. That's that's that's a great thing. Um I want to touch on something, and we we were talking about it briefly, and I know the anniversary of Mike's passing is coming up next week. And I don't know about for you, but for me, when when my husband passed, I was constantly going, okay, he's been gone for one month. He's been gone for two months. And it's it was very weird because it's like I think for me personally, I don't know if you've gone through that, it's the experience of I can survive this long, I can survive this moment, I can survive this. And once you hit a year, that kind of settles a little bit. It's still hard on the anniversary, the birthday, the death day. Yeah, but you're not counting as much. And somebody asked me why do you count? It's like, I think it's just because you want to prove to yourself I've survived this long. Has that been something for you that you've that's so interesting?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

That's why you know doing interviews like this with people that have bought the book is is helping me enormously because I've tried to explain that. Yes, it's like a spreadsheet in my head to try and convince myself that I could get through it. And I I'm I'm not a fan of celebrating anniversaries really. I think I'd rather just face every day. But I kept hitting the the Tuesday that Mike died, week one, week two, a month, two months. Um yeah, coming up a year next. I can't quite remember if it's Wednesday or Thursday because I felt like I could justify it to myself. I did it with ages. Oh, Mike was 66 when he passed. Well, maybe he'd have lived till he was 86. So have I only lost 20 years? Um, a way of trying to reassure myself that it's not as tragic as everyone around me feels it, that to try and help me wake up the next day and go, this is okay. I was lucky to have Mike till I was 66. And the spreadsheet scenario has almost been driving me insane. Like, when am I going to just be able to relax into living and not counting the days? Uh, because it it's upsetting. It's um I'm I'm finding it I'm composed today, but I was just explaining I I returned from Mike and I uh started a charity after he was first diagnosed in '95 with non-Hodgkins lymphoma as a way of trying to turn something pretty negative, a cancer diagnosis, into something positive. And Love Hope Strength is very positive. And I've just returned home from hosting a hike uh to the El Camino, it's the pilgrim's way, and we hiked 100k from Portugal to Spain. Um, I was okay on the hike, I I could cope because I was surrounded by lots of people, many of them big alarm fans. I'm I'm happier when I'm with alarm fans because I know they understand Mike so well that it it makes me feel less lonely, less alone. So I had a wonderful week and my children were with me. I've got I'm very blessed to have two sons who are a wonderful combo of the dad. So so many things to be grateful for. You know, it's my my spreadsheet again, count all the gratitude, gratitude over sorrow. Um, but when I walked in through the door with my two children, but of course they both disappeared to see their friends, as is expected, and I felt at such a low ebb. I felt absolutely devastated. I pulled myself together to get in my car, and I'm lucky to have my parents still alive at the age of 85 and 82. Gratitude, tick, tick. Um, but I I drove off to see them and I just reverted to age 13, and I I don't want to upset my parents because they are mourning Mike every day, they were very close to him, but I broke my heart and probably a bit of being overtired, you know, just hiked a long way, had had very little sleep, but I felt on Sunday I felt pretty desperate. And the feeling it was was the idea that I've got through a year, but that I could still feel this terrible, and the idea of I just turned 59 while I was out in Spain, and the thought of he's never coming back, I've got to now face the second part of my life, whatever that is, however long it will be. I'm a breast cancer survivor. Um, the idea of the fact that Mike Peters is never coming back to us just hit me harder than ever on Sunday. And I I feel I don't know if that happened to you, but for the last few weeks it's definitely become harder. And I I know people say to me the first year there's a quite a lot of numbness, shock, disbelief, but then after a year, everybody settles into the the the new routine, yeah, and and and it becomes harder because it's like he's they're not coming back. I I think I'm probably luckier than most because Mike is is the singer of a band that people generally a lot of alamis fell in love with Mike and the Alarm when they were uh age 15. So I'm surrounded by a lot of love. Um I have I own the local pub, so alarmis come in every single day to pay their respects. Mike is buried directly opposite the pub. You couldn't write the script, you know. We own the chapel, we own the pub, the graveyard's opposite. So there's a lot of comfort there, there's a lot of positive energy, but I never ever thought that we'd lose Mike at 66. I I really believe that we had everything under control. Um, so I I think I'm just traumatized, um, really, and and it's learning how to manage that trauma. And the way I tend to do it is by sharing with everybody how I'm getting through it and hoping, and they do, you know, I'm very open on all the socials about every single day of how I've coped. Um, and what I get from that is I get fantastic feedback and response from other people who have walked the walk ahead of me, um, who offer me helpful tips, and and I'm I'm so grateful for all the love around me because this is a lonely business, as you know, waking up every morning and he's not there. You know, we were together 39 years. Um, he was my best mate, alpha male, life was very exciting. In fact, when he found the lump two years ago, uh we were packed, ready to fly to Chicago, um, ready to start a two-month American tour. Um, and Mike, being the wonderful guy he was, was negotiating or trying to negotiate with his doctors and to say, let me just go to America. I don't want to disappoint the alarm fans, let me go and do the tour, and then um then I'll come back and face the music. Um the the harsh reality was his leukemia transformed into a high grade lymphoma called Richter's syndrome. I never ever had heard of it, never knew it existed. Um, if you googled it, I did not Google it. I don't, I never I just trusted my doctors, but I know now if you Google Richter's syndrome, two words, poor prognosis. Um, and it it was a massive, massive shock to to everyone. You know, uh people all around the world, alarm fans, or just people that have have met Mike, took a lot of comfort from the fact that he managed to keep on going for so long against all the odds. Um and uh yeah, I think it's we're we're all mourning together. It life's not quite the same without without Mike Peters in it. But I I just try and I call it flipping the switch. Um when I feel myself hurtling down the rabbit hole of of of uh of grief. I I have to flip the switch and remind myself that I was the lucky one to meet Mike Peters. Yeah, I met him in my local hometown. He'd come back from a huge American tour. I'd come back from university. We collided, literally collided, and I'm like, there's that guy. And I had to ask my dad who he was, my dad knew who he was. Um, but a week later we met in the local club and uh I went home with him that night. I thought I was going back to like a fancy. I realised by then that he was the lead singer in a band called the Alarm. I thought I was going back maybe to this fancy penthouse. No, I went back to his mum and dad's house and he'd forgotten his key and his dad answered the door and apparently went upstairs to Mike's mum and said, He's got a blonde with him, she seems really nice. And one week later we got engaged, which is crazy looking back. I was only 19, he was 27. My poor parents. Hey mum, I met this random guy in the club, and we're getting married in we're getting married in two years' time. Uh, but they were amazing, and my parents and they they fell in love with Mike, and you know, it was a fairy tale. Um, it is still a fairy tale, but I I would really would have coming back to the spreadsheet, Donna, I would have liked another 20 years, but you know, life's not like that, is it? It can't, you don't I don't know how long I've got so uh a lot of um mental gymnastics all the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And and I mean people say instant love doesn't happen, it does. Um my first husband, I met and he moved in with me like within the first two days, which is kind of crazy. And he proposed to me three days later. And I'm thinking I look back and wait, wait, wait. I look back and go, my answer to him when he proposed was I don't know you well enough to get married. I look back and go, but you let this man move in with you.

unknown 11:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Which is a whole different story, but yeah. We'll come back to that one. Maybe that was that was one of those mistakes I made that I'm like, I wasn't secure enough with myself. He had two children. Um he was living with his ex-wife, and there's a whole long story about that, but I was scared of being alone, and I was I was in a big city. I was in Dallas at the time, and I was scared of being alone, and I was scared of being a mom. And so here this man is that will satisfy the loneliness, and he's got two kids. I get to be a mom too. So, you know, at the time it's like, you know, the mind is not completely formed, and I was I I wasn't 19, I was 22 at the time, but it was still one of those things where you're still not completely who you need to be yet.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

No, of course, yeah. And it's uh it there is an element of jumping in the deep end, isn't there, sometimes it it works for certain couples, but I was just lucky because Mike was as amazing as he was when I first met him. Um, but for some people, you know, you fall in love and then that person turns out not to be who you thought.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Well, and to be honest with my my second husband, my my lovely husband, we had 16 years together. It may, as you're doing the spreadsheet, for us, May would have been 20 years we would have been married. And so that's looming big for me because it's like 20 years finally, you know, after we could have had that, but we didn't. Um, but I knew him from a friend, and it was funny because I had taken this class, and this teacher was like, You need to you need to take my other class. I'm like, why? You need to take this other class because there's somebody in there you have to meet. And I'm just like, whatever. She was teaching astrology, and I'm like, finally, I I went, I acquiesced, and I took her astrology class and I met this woman, and this woman, her and I become friends, and well, her ex-boyfriend ends up being the guy that I will end up marrying eventually. But so the interesting thing was about my husband, and and it's so silly. On Halloween night, he was invited over her house. I didn't really know him, and we're she went off with another friend, and him and I are talking, and I'm telling him how I wanted to have a Barbie doll collection, which seems so stupid and ridiculous. I I know folks. But for that Christmas, he comes over to visit and he gives her some candles, he gives her daughter some candles, and in this he he hands me this present, and I'm like, I didn't expect this, I'm not expecting this at all. Um, I had been looking at houses prior. I picked a house that was across the street from his brother's to look at, and that's how we started building this bond even more. So I open up this package, and in it is Star Trek Barbie dolls. He actually listened to what I want, you know, what I was talking about, and it was just like, oh my gosh. And he wasn't this, he wasn't this guy who drips sex, he wasn't perfect. He was he there's a story about somebody that I actually joked one time, and my friend's like, Well, would you take him if he wasn't that? I'm like, I'd take him fat, bald, or broke. Well, the guy had the same name as my husband, and my husband would laugh because my husband was fat, bald, and somewhat broke. So it was a running joke. But he him and I had that relationship, like you, you just know you clicked, it was your happy space, it was the person that could make you smile over the silliest things. Yeah, and you have your own language.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

You be you so when you lose that, it's uh it's a massive uh situation. So how do you adjust to live in your best life without the love of your life? Um and you know, we all know uh um I I think maybe because Mike and I were the eternal rock and rollers, you you do feel so youthful, and you you really don't think that you're getting older. And even though Mike, like I keep saying, was in his 60s, he was the most youthful 66-year-old that I knew, despite the ravages of the last year that he went through. Um, but you you really you just never ever think it's gonna happen. You think you're gonna outrun uh cancer. Uh, Mike and I certainly felt that we were outrunning it all the time, that it would never catch up with us. And and and we'd have those conversations. Mike was eight years older than me. You know, how how would both of us because obviously he was in the situation of worrying about me when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, but it's like, how do you carry on? We we all know that we're on a one-way ticket. How how do you cope with surviving by itself? And I think there's probably certainly in the UK, I mean, obviously, I generally spent a third of my life in America. Uh some of my best friends are in America, but um, I feel like in the UK we don't really talk about how are we all going to cope as we head into the last chapter of our lives. Maybe we don't need to, maybe it's something that you only have to deal with when it happens to you. But I feel like I I feel like Mike's maybe it's a masculine thing. Mike would not accept towards the end that he was dying, which I love about him because he was the optimist right to the end, the eternal optimistic optimist. And but I think me as the female wanted to have the conversation about the fact that I felt I I would say, hey Mike, you know, don't don't you think we need to have the convers the conversation? No, no, I'm going to be fine. I am going to be fine. So I really in many ways feel like I never we managed to bring Mike home and he died at home. Uh, but I never really felt like we said goodbye. Um our tour manager stayed with us right to the end and lived in the house with us, and and he said to me, Jules, there was there was nothing to say, there wasn't a goodbye to say because you two said everything to each other every day. So Mike didn't really even want to say goodbye because for him it wasn't goodbye, it was just this eternal process. I I can speak these words now, you know, without without um getting upset. But I I think all of that, the palliative care, the how do you say goodbye, the funeral, how do you keep the memory going, but still looking forwards, uh, it it's tough. It's um this grief journey, it's it's why, you know, at the moment I the first thing that happens to me in the morning, I just feel possibly it's because I'm approaching one year, I d I don't know. I'll have a chat with you after I get through next week, but it it feels um it feels quite terrifying for that first 20 20 minutes of when I wake up because it's just you know, I'm in the bed that I I've lived in this house since I was 19 with him, and and I'm I'm confident, optimistic. I've uh Mike and I weren't joined at the hip because we had children together, so often he would come to America for huge tours. We generally tour together, but at certain points with the children I would stay back in the UK. Uh we're in we're very independent of each other. Um however, that I that sense that he's gone. In my funeral speech, I said, you know, it was something that Mike said for his mother's funeral, and I thought it was a beautiful idea that he said, you know, we uh his mother had just gone into the other room. And I said it in my eulogy about Mike. We had the most amazing funeral, by the way, and you can watch it on YouTube. It was pretty phenomenal, even if I say so myself. I think I should go into maybe being then a funeral organiser because I just I wanted the funeral to be um about uh I had so many people giving speeches. I didn't want one long, drawn-out speech. I want people from all different areas of his life to just come and give a couple of minutes, and so it was incredible. The vast uh most people, if that if people just know Mike randomly, they know him as the guy who wrote 68 guns, and he was so much more than that. And I'm happy to say that the funeral demonstrated that, you know, the eclectic nature of the of the man. We had 4,000 people came into our little village, yeah. The whole place, the police closed the road down. So much love and respect for Mike, and and that helped enormously. Um, but you know, it's all surreal. He's buried opposite the red where uh where I go for my cappuccino in the morning, and and I think in the beginning I thought that I had this notion that I would just traips across the road with my coffee and and stand at the grave and and talk to him, but I I find it hard. I I like the notion that there's a memory to him there, but because I'm not especially religious, I actually uh at the moment anyway, just find it incredibly distressing to stand at the grave, looking down at this grave. Um uh probably because I think I've got to sort the headstone out. And I've been uh I've got a little grave marker, so I'm thinking that maybe I I'm gonna put the responsibility of the headstone out to the Alarm family and get them to design it. And uh it feels too much of a responsibility for me. So yeah, maybe I can do that after after a year. It's just all the finality, isn't it? Um of all the I think I have responsibility, you know, because of the Alarm family of who I'm very close to, because like I said, I was 19 when I met Mike. I'd gone out with him for a whole year before he played his first show in Manchester at the International 2. Um, so I so Mike said to me, he said, um, do yourself a favour, get out into the crowd, don't hang out backstage, you know. Nothing, nothing comes from hanging out backstage. It's like get out there and and I did as I was told. I was quite um quite conscientious. So I headed out. I knew I didn't know what to expect. I I just met Mike as a as a normal boy who meets girls situation, and then he was quite shy, Mike, and yeah, then all of a sudden the lights went out, boom, it was a sold-out show in Manchester. I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna I'm going home with him tonight. It was like a completely different person on stage. Um, but I did as I was told, and I and so I went out, and so I know so many alarm fans, not just in the UK, in America, all over Europe, especially in America, you know, uh s most of my best mates are alarm fans that I will have met in the auditorium in Britain. Not so much. I was always quite taken by how um much more polite the the American alarm fans were, less rowdy written down in the mop pit, and I'd work my way down to the front and then I'd just look around, look for the tallest alarm fan, tap them on the shoulder, and then it was in the days where you were allowed to get onto people's shoulders. And I used to love getting on random guys' shoulders and then popping up and almost coming face to face with Mike on stage. So um, so you know, I've I've loved my journey with the alarm family, and and and I guess they put their arms around me now, and I put their arms around them. You know, I've I've there's there's so many men and women that that approach me um who I can see are are devastated devastated. I met yesterday I had um hundred bikers turned up at my pub. Um lovely crowd. And one of them was a massive alarm fan. I hadn't seen him for a few years, but he just said, you know, he was absolutely destroyed when the when the news was so sudden when we put the news out. Because for so many alarmis, Mike represented either the like older brother who they always thought was gonna be there. So it shifted a lot of a lot of people's life experience to lose Mike. But um, if any alarmies are listening, I just want to say how grateful I am for them keeping me going, keeping me moving forwards.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

And that's that's a gift to have that that community around you. The one thing I was gonna say is you were talking about the I remember when it w the to mark the year I decided I needed to keep myself busy. And as I had said, I think off camera, he died in 2020. So this was 2021 now, and I had started the podcast that March and it was June. And so I I booked a podcast. And I booked a podcast with this guy who was a model, because it was like, okay, I can I can do this. And it I think there was a mantra in my head because I knew I had to I we didn't have kids, so we I didn't have that distraction. I it was all about me just keeping going and I think I think that's destruction is the word, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 24:16

That is the big word, yeah. You've got to disrupt yourself through the grief.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So I I did the podcast and then I find I rem I forgot that I had a second podcast that day. So in the midst of this, I actually took a picture of myself because in the midst of this, between the two podcasts, I just broke down and cried. And in the last few years, um, I've had friends tell me, Well, you're still hung up on your husband. Oh no. But here's the thing. Here's the thing, and and this is one came from somebody who has never really had a relationship. I mean, 40-something years old never had a relationship, and telling me I'm still hung up on my husband, you don't understand what this is like. You don't understand what it is like to have your partner, the person that you had this relationship with that you love beyond belief, gone. And and something I'm gonna ask you in a second is because I went through, I was told the September in 2019 he had he had many heart procedures. He was a long-term diabetic, and he would say he was the poster boy for a bad diabetic. So there were all these complications, and he had already had seven stents. So he went in because he had heart complication, and the doctor calls me and tells me there's nothing more we can do with his heart. He is on borrowed time. Okay. So at that moment, then you're sitting there going, Okay, you tell his friends in your head, you're thinking of all the things you gotta do. You gotta get him to see his friends, you gotta get him to see this. He's already lost his family, his parents. You have to tell people. But when you go to pick him up from the hospital, the doctor told him, the doctor who actually did the surgery, not the one that you know, tells you tells him, Oh, the surgery went fine, you're fine. Nobody has told him that he's on borrowed time. And I'm certainly not gonna be that person. As much as I love my husband, I am not delivering that news because I don't want that attached. And so he had a physician's assistant come in from the nephrologist because he was on dialysis and everything, like I said, bad. And I told her, I said, you need to tell him. So when I bring him home from the hospital, on the way home, he has a massive panic attack. We get back to the hospital, he's in there for another day because they should have put him on oxygen as well. Okay. So long to move this along. When I get to the point where I pick him up from dialysis and he passes in the car, which is a whole nother story I've covered in the podcast. And I witnessed him passing, but he they ended up getting him back, and I ended up having to take him off life support. So I watched him die twice. But the where I'm going with this is at the very end of this journey, I go to our primary care doctor, because we had the same doctor, and she looks at me, and this is something this is where I'm posing this to you too. She looks at me and she says, Do you realize all the stress you've been under? And the thing is, when you are dealing with someone who's terminally ill, and you want to hope and pray that you're gonna have that other 20 years or you're gonna have that extra day, you don't think about the stress and the fear that you are putting down and tamping down, and it festers.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

And you don't have that that person to explain it to because you can't explain it to them. And right before my husband passed, he had a shirt that said it was a joke t-shirt that said, Fear me, for I have the power to destroy you. Well, he told me he told me the weekend before he died, he's like, um, go in the why don't you go in the bedroom, the guest room, and clean out all the stuff I don't need anymore. And I'm like, Are you serious? I don't want to do that because it feels like you're not here. He's like, No, no, go do it. So I pull out the t-shirt and I walked into our our bedroom and I said, Do you want this shirt? He goes, No, because I don't have that power anymore.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Uh today.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yeah, and I dropped the shirt off Monday, and when I picked him up from dialysis that night, that's when he died. In the car, and then he lived another he lived for another week because of me putting him on life support. But it was just one of those things where it's like you don't because and it it goes with anything in our life, anything tragic, anything that is massive, we don't look at the stress we're under because we're living it. It's it it just put and even with grief, you have to you want to be strong for your boys, you want to be strong for your parents, you want to be strong for the alarmies, you want to be strong. And the thing is, and I have to ask you who is strong for you? And I know you have that support. So I don't really I mean I know the answer to that, but how are you dealing with the stress of everything? How are you dealing with the stress of knowing that you're counting the days and that the treatment didn't work? And how am I gonna deal with that? So how do you handle all that stress and still put on a brave face?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah, I I did I I I don't think I do a brave face because I think I'm very open about about my feelings. Maybe maybe sometimes I uh no, I don't think I'm too open. I Mike and I always wanted to be transparent with people. So our own cancer journeys, it was always non-sugar coated version. We would say we're gonna show you how it is, and it's not easy, but we also are fortunate to live a fantastic life living with cancer. So I am aware that probably naturally I'm a worrier, and I think, yes, from the age of I was 29 when Mike was first diagnosed. I remember walking into the hospital with him. I always describe it as life went from colour carefree to black and white and very, very frightening. And but at the same time, it also gave us our best life because we lived every day, we knew what counted. We did anyway, because I think we'd been raised very similar by some four wonderful parents. Um, but I think from 29, yes, inwardly I've been a bit of a worry monster. Um, what happens if the bloods aren't right? What happens if the scan isn't right? Um, but I learned to manage it. And then when I got diagnosed in 2016 with breast cancer, not long before that, I was sat outside a hospital. My life was hospital appointments with Mike. But we turned them into a nice days, you know. We we were always hopeful and optimistic and grateful as well, because like I said, we're so fortunate to get all the treatment here in the NHS. But I sat outside the door and I immediately started worrying. My my wonderful, hard-working husband was sat next to me with headphones on, his laptop. He was a workaholic, Mike, about music. He was just had the most incredible ideas, and but he was the guy that would see through these ideas. So I felt absolutely concerned what would happen if we got bad news when we go in through the door. So I picked up his headphones. He wasn't reassuring me because he wasn't even thinking about to be worried. And I was like, Oh, I'm feeling a bit nervous and apprehensive. And he just looked at me as if I was the crazy one, and he was like, I said, How are you feeling? He said, How am I feeling? I'm absolutely fine. Because at the moment, I'm absolutely fine. If things change when I walk through that door, then I'll adjust. But right here, right now, everything is fine. So I kind of flipped his headphones back, crossed my arms, and I thought, Why am I, as much as I love him, to the top of the Empire State Building and back? That's what we always used to say to each other. Um, why am I torturing myself when nothing has even happened yet, other than it's a checkup? And I thought, what, why am I doing this to myself? And I've gone through and it's like, well, I'm worried because I'm scared that he's going to die. That was always my end worry. And I said to myself, he's not worried. Why are you wasting part of your life worrying when he's not worried? And I made a little deal with myself, and I said, I am never ever gonna worry about him dying again. And we walked in, and there was no bad news, I don't think, that day. There were many moments where there was bad news, but there was always another drug, another trial. But shortly afterwards, um, after we'd climbed Snowden, we took a thousand people up our highest mountain of Wales, and we were filming a documentary for the BBC called Being Mike Peters. Well, I gate-crashed that one and got the got the name changed. Uh, because when I after I got off the mountain, I was having a beer, we live in a beautiful part of the world, I was looking back at the mountains, and somebody on that trek had said to me, to me, which kind of links into the worrying, do you ever check yourself to me? And I said, Nah, I don't check myself because you know Mike's the one I worry about, and and and and also I had this again coming back to the spreadsheet, Donna. The spreadsheet in my head was one in two, one in three. So Mike has taken the cancer bullet for our family. Uh, so I'm not going to get cancer. But that day, having a beer, I had a little poke around and I uh found this lump on the end of my nipple. So I grabbed Mike, have a little feel. What do you think? He was the most laid-back man ever, alpha male, but incredibly laid back. And he just said, Oh yeah, that feels a bit weird. You should just phone the doctors tomorrow, get it checked, it'll be fine. Um, and that's what I did. I I phoned up the next day, and um within two weeks, I I knew when I saw the look in the doctor's eyes, but within two weeks I was diagnosed with full-on breast cancer, six months of chemo, radiotherapy, and so it was a pivot for our relationship where he be I've never been Mike's carer as such, you know, up until the last few months emotional care. But no, he it he was it's really hard to describe Mike without it sounding a bit nauseous, as if to say, come on, you know, there must have been something negative. In fact, a few months ago I said to my girlfriends, because I've I've had to go through his emails for certain bits of info that we need, found that very, very tough. All the emails that he used to send to me when I was here and he was in America. Um, we grew up in American years, you know. America was so much part of who we were. America was so much part of Mike's psyche because he came to America in his early 20s and he loved that can-do attitude, you know, and uh America's had a massive effect on who we both are as people. Um, but I uh I've lost my train thought because I've gone off on on a an angle. Him him being being the carers, he yeah, he there was that's right. When I was looking through his emails, I thought, you know what, it would actually be really nice if I could find something out really bad about him. And then I wouldn't feel this terrible grief. They all say, don't they, grief is the price you pay for love. So yeah, because I loved him so much, my grief is through the roof, and it's like I have had I I didn't find anything, um, which is a relief. But I was explaining to my my sons, I said it would just be nice to know something really bad about dad so I could just dislike him and and not feel as terrible as I'm feeling. So Evans, the youngest, went, Well, when you weren't around, he did like to give Ziggy, the golden retriever, snacks. So I'm like, is that the worst you can come up with about him? And he went, Well, when you weren't around, and you were at your council meeting, he used to say, Do you fancy getting in, take out pizza, and let's go upstairs and watch a movie together? I'm like, Evan, this is not, I need something much worse than this. So then he said, When we were in the car with Ziggy, he used to pull up at uh the petrol station and he used to buy big bags of crisp and then open them and then just throw them all across the back seat so that Ziggy could just nibble on them in the back. And I'm like, Oh, that's annoying. I can't believe he did that. So it was like all this again, the spreadsheet trying to find something that could make my grief um more bearable because I've actually I don't have it today, and maybe it's because I'm speaking to you and I know that you understand how I am feeling, so that makes me feel less alone and settles everything. But my physical feeling of grief over the last 12 months, and it's I can just I've described it all across my socials, you know. The first element of grief was just um like night nightmares. Um every time I woke up, I thought he was still alive. And uh how could I save him? I had a spreadsheet in my head about trying to save him, and then it moved into more recently into more like um my girlfriends take the mick out of me for describing it like this, but it just felt like a massive serpent of grief lodged at the bottom of my tummy, and it would just weave its way up like so toxic and poisonous, and then it moved into being like um seasickness, grief sickness. Just felt like I didn't want to move too much because it would just the grief is is like that the whole time and uh absolutely disabling. Um it's dancing has helped me, you know. I own the local pub in the village that Mike thought I was crazy to buy, by the way. So I'm married to the most optimistic, positive man, and when I said to him, Hey Mike, um I think it'd be a really good idea to buy the village pub because our the pub sits next to our chapel, which was Mike's recording studio for 20 years until we converted it into apartments six years ago. So we own the chapel here, and the pub's next door. And um, I think that's a terrible idea, said Mike the Optimist. And so I just kept it to myself. And long story short, I went to uh I negotiated, and one day I took him into the pub for a pint. Mike and I used to like going out for a hike and have a pint somewhere and come up with all our ideas and plan them, write them on the back of the placemat. Um, I took him in and we we had five American guys staying in the chapel. It was just as COVID was coming to an end, and uh we ran these events called Alarm Staycations, and Mike, who's quite reserved, loved being face to face with all the alarm fans. Because you know, when you're on tour, you can't you can't stop and chat quite the same, especially as the years developed and um COVID. Mike had to keep himself safe, so we didn't have a lot of contact. Uh he had to protect his own health. But in the in the chapel, we were able to, it was a much more relaxed. They stayed in the apartments, they'd come to the um the red afterwards, and so I said, Oh, come and have a pint. These five American guys, they'd all fallen in love with Elon when they were 15, and they'd kept in touch, they were such great, great guys. In fact, I've got a picture of them on my notice board, and um uh we had a gas with them, so I said they're leaving early in the morning. So normally we would meet. Well, by the way, the pub and a chapel, this idyllic little part of Wales, it's directly opposite of 70-foot waterfalls, so there's an amazing energy. Yeah, you'll you'll have to come, Dorna, when you when you come to the UK. Um, and uh Mike would meet all the alarm fans on a Sunday morning in front of these waterfalls, and so for these alarmees who'd followed Mike their whole life, it was just an incredibly beautiful situation. We did something ridiculous like 50 alarm stacations because COVID meant we couldn't tour, but we were allowed 22 people. The rules of Wales were you could have 22 people in a gathering. Um but I took them, so I said, Will you come into the pub and meet these American guys? Just have a bit of time with them. Mike always took care of the fans, and so he came in and we had a couple of pints, and then we left. We only live one mile up the road. So I was walking up the road, and Mike turned to me and he said, The fair dudes, that was a really lovely night. Thank you for for taking me to the fans. And I said, Yeah, and you never guess what? I've only gone and bought the fucking pub. And he was like, You what? I said, Yep, uh, we now own the village pub. And um, he grew to love that pub and he helped me with all the interior design. Um, he used to come in on a Friday night only three years ago. Well, I've only owned it for three years, and he would slip in through the back with his vinyl under his arm, and he no one would see him, and he'd have his decks, his turntables, and then he would order vinyl in the week, massive music fan right to the very end, stick his vinyl on, and he'd be DJing very discreetly, and then he'd build it up, and everybody loved Friday Night at the Red with Mikey Peters DJing. So uh he's a around us all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

And that's what you have to hang on to. You have to hang on to those memories. I do want to say, I want to go back to you say, well, you weren't his caregiver. The the moment you said that you you were worried about his health. This is the thing that I don't think we we as as women really own. Because and you're mother, you're a mother, you're a mother on top of it. There's always that undercurrent, even if it's not consciously, of okay, are they gonna be okay? Do they have everything they need? Is this gonna I I mean it's always there, and I think that it's just part of who we are.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, you're right. And it and I don't think men worry in the same way. I'm being very generalized there. There will be men that worry, but um I think when I got diagnosed with breast cancer, I do remember thinking to myself, you know, oh, I wonder if Mike will come in and accompany me. And I think there was a slight element, if I'm honest, because you know, we all we're all driven by ego, it's a natural part of the human condition. Mike was very prolific with his songwriting. When when it was determined that I had six months of chemotherapy, and we're only five miles away from the hospital. I think had I not said anything, I think Mike was thinking, Oh, well, I'll drop her off, leave her to a chemo and come back and pick her up. And I made it absolutely clear that I expected the same amount of care that of me sitting around him, making the tea, wandering around, speaking to the other patients, bringing him his little biscuits, and just sitting there. I actually think, if I'm honest, that he wasn't thinking about doing that. He may come down to curse me and say that wasn't true. But what he did do, and because you see, all the nurses loved him because he'd been treated where I was treated, and everyone adored Mike because he was lovely with everyone. There's my little baby come in. He looks just like a dad. Um, that I think um I made I must have just given him a look, and that's not how our relationship was, you know. We didn't he we were our own within the relationship, but I'd have been really pissed off had he not come and sat with me. I didn't care how long so what he did and the looks he got from all the doctors and nurses were hilarious. He moved his recording studio into the room when I had my chemo just for yeah, just and I'm like I did think to myself, could you just not leave it uh uh back in your studio? Could you just not chill out? And read the newspaper or massage my feet, but that's who who he was. He was very driven. And so he wrote and recorded his whole album whilst I was going through breast cancer. So some of the songs there are pretty emotive, you know. He he wrote a song called Heroine About Me, which when I w listened to it, and then we did a video. I I guess you can't imagine that anyone can love you that much. You know, we loved each other so much, but to hear it in a song um was pretty incredible. So uh yeah, I think I think he was more pragmatic. He my friends say that he was absolutely devastated when I got diagnosed, and and I remember we had those conversations that probably all couples do, where I said, you know, if I don't get through this, because I had quite a lot of area, I had three areas of disease in my breast. Um, I said, if I don't get through this, you know, I want you to go ahead and and be happy. And if if you have to meet someone, do women do that? We go, you know, you get my blessing to meet someone, translated to you better never ever meet anyone else. Um but Mike wasn't that kind of guy, you know. He he was like, if I'd have died, he'd have just been happy with his golden retriever, his boys, his music, and Manchester United Football Club, and that would have been for him. And I think you know, that's that's something else to talk about. I'm 59, I'm a widow. Um, but the notion of ever um meeting someone again is uh is something that I just could not possibly entertain. And I don't think it's because it's raw, I think it's because he was my big love, and I could never imagine sharing my life with an with another another man. Um it and I think that's a whole other podcast that would be interesting to talk about because I've met a few um I don't really like the word widow, but I've met a few. I hate that word, but go ahead. Well, I was gonna I'm starting a grief group at my pub. I I every night there's something different. After I do this, I'm going down to salsa at the red. Um, because I'll come back to dancing has has helped. I talked about that serpent in my stomach. Salsa has helped dissolve those terrible. I thought I I literally cannot get on with my life if I can't take any tablet, you know, to any medicine to heal this, and I can't keep walking around with this grief sickness, you know. And I'd I'd speak to people who are ahead of me, like you're you're ahead of me, and like, oh fuck, how long is this gonna, how long is this gonna continue? But one guy who he is about two years ahead of me, and he he's like, Jules, it's at least two years of this utter pain. I was like, oh my god, the pride, grief, the price I pay for love. But salsa dancing has definitely helped. So you'll see on my socials me getting on getting on down with uh Martin from Lima, Peru. I'm sure it raises a few eyebrows because it's we do bachata together and it's pretty sensual, but you know, it's like the the idea of I I feel like Mike was just so incredible to be married to that I have no desire. It's it's a nice thing that I'm saying. It's like I feel yeah, I feel so complete by having it that so the next stage of my life, and I think that's maybe what hit me on Sunday. The next stage of my life is very much as a single person, as a singleton, and I know a lot of single people, so and we all kind of gravitate towards each other. And guess what? I'm kind of in a weird way living my best life because I'm out every single night. Um, it's Salsa tonight, it's The Quiz tomorrow, it's Friday night at the red. Uh this weekend I'm heading up to Scotland and Evan, who is carrying on the um he's playing the music of the alarm, so he's Evan Peters presents the alarm, a whole other surreal world that I'm heading into. So I because I know Mike Mike didn't like a wallower, he was very understanding to everyone, but in the last two weeks of his life, he made me take him to this uh beautiful beach house that belongs to a friend of ours, and um he was because he didn't believe he was gonna die, and it was in the 24 hours where I took him there to this quite remote place, he deteriorated pretty fast, and I was terrified, I was frightened, and um he kept saying to me, Jules, everything's going to be fine. He always said that. He called me Trixie Vixie, was my nickname. Trixie, stop worrying, everything's gonna be fine. But as the hours ticked by, I was I was just me and him, and I I thought I needed to take him to the hospital in Manchester, which was a couple of hours away. I was like, Oh Mike, Mike, because he I had to put him to bed, he had laboured breathing. Oh Mike, you know, is it is everything gonna be okay? And he said to me, he'd had CAR T, yeah, which is like a stem cell transplant, but it messes around with you with your brain. And he he was a little bit more gruff at the end, I would say, and he just said, Trixie, stop wallowing. That's my dog Ziggy starters, hang on one second Yeah, he just said Trixie, stop wallowing. I was like wallowing, have you any idea going back to being a caregiver? Have you any idea how terrifying my life is right now? I am looking at you dying in front of me. You won't acknowledge that you're dying, what am I gonna do? But the the phrase stop wallowing has stuck with me. He would never have said that to me, he would never spoke harshly to me. He was the most loving man in the world, but but he was he was telling me that I had to I had to find some resilience, and this is a whole other subject that I do believe it no one likes that phrase, pull yourself together. Um but I I actually find that it's very helpful. Um I've got quite a few friends. If I phone them and I can feel myself getting upset, they can be quite matter-of-fact. Um come on now, resilience, stiff up a lip. Um people listening might think that that's harsh. It's not for everybody, but it it's what I said to Mike when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I said, I don't want you to be softly, softly with me. I want you to give me tough love, which was quite funny because he didn't know how to be tough. He he was such a softie, and I said, the only way I can get through this, I lost all my hair. I looked about 90, I lost all my femininity, I had my breast brutalized, you know. It was not a pretty situation, but I was lucky because I was alive, so he was so out of his comfort zone giving me tough love. I'm starting my office here, and it he he went the other way. He went so tough, it was too tough. I was like, find him, find a moderate. This one day I was really dipping towards wallowing, feeling very sorry for myself. And he came in here and he went, pull yourself together, get your wig on, get your stetson on. I've got loads of Stetsons from all my touring in America. Uh, get your Stetson on. We're going to the studio, we're gonna go meet Billy Duffy from the cult. I love Billy, we're gonna go meet Ian McNabb from the ice cream works. I love Ian. He said, and you're gonna pull yourself together and you're gonna put your game face on. And I'm like, you bastard, you know, like chuck- I've never chucked things at Mike in my life. It's like hurling things at him. I'm like, he went, You said you wanted tough love. Your mother's looking after the children, we're leaving in 20 minutes. And and the tough love worked. He got me in the car, he drove me to Liverpool, we walked into the studio. Billy and Ian walked in, and then they took me arm by arm and they said, Come on, we're taking you to the pub. And I sat there in my actually had a knitted hat on, and I had the best night ever with Billy and Ian. Mike stayed in the studio recording, and there was an element of if I'd have just stayed at home, I'd have gone down that rabbit hole and I'd have got more and more upset and sorry for myself. But by and I know it's not easy for everyone, but that's my advice to people with grief when you get diagnosed with something frightening. Try and cross the threshold of your house. There's loads of people out there that are all going through stuff, and you know, in in my little community here, because we've revitalized the pub, it's like a community centre with alcohol. Um, or not alcohol, you don't have to have alcohol. Um, but yeah, you can you can we've all got stuff going on, especially as we all hit over 50. And I think when you share that you're not a lot of the time, depression and sadness develops because you feel so lonely. But if you go and be open and tell someone, I'm really, really struggling today, I'm really feeling it, if you be open about it and share it to the next person, you'll generally find they've got something that they're struggling with as well. And by talking it through, you share it. We have a phrase in Wales for the Welsh football team, together stronger. You know, and I I'm a I'm a firm belief believer in this. If I hadn't got my community, I've got my alarm community who I communicate with every single day. Um, my dad ran the alarm fan club from the age of 50, and he's now 85. Wow. Um so alarm fans could just pick up the phone and call whales and they would speak to my dad. Pretty uh pretty unique, you know. Um, and so we've always been very, very open with the fans. And if it wasn't for the alarm family and then for my community here in in the village, uh I I really don't think I I would have got through in the way, in the way I have done. Um because yeah, the this this grief journey, it's when you lose your partner probably a little bit early, too early. I don't like to acknowledge that. I try and say in my head, well, Mike was 66, here's the spreadsheet. I do ridiculous things like, well, maybe he should have died around is 86 a good age? Well, I don't like to say that because my dad's 85. But I guess there's an acknowledgement that you know it's a good life living into your 80s, isn't it? And um, and then I think when Ozzy Osborne died at 76, I added that into my spreadsheet in my head. I was like, oh, so Ozzy was 76, so Mike's 66, so maybe I've only lost 10 years, 10 times 365 days. I'm like, God, Jules, you're losing the plot, yeah. Because I'm like, and you've only lost 10 Christmases, 10 summers. Um, but it's it's a crazy way of of looking at it. And I know it's because I'm grief stricken. I'm I'm trying to find a um something to reassure me that um that it's I I mustn't be sad about what I've lost because they were those years are not there for me to claim anyway, because you know, maybe I don't know how long I've got. So that kind of thinking doesn't help. But I will be honest that I you know, I went from travelling every couple of weeks, always on a plane, passport always out on the side ready to go, um, to in that year that Mike was diagnosed, he was diagnosed two years ago yesterday. Um, we went he wasn't allowed to travel. We we drove in a tour bus to Geneva to attend the World Cancer Congress. Uh but other than that, we never travelled. It was unheard of for us to for us to do that because Mike travelled during his chemotherapy, he just wants to come to America. He he always wanted to come to America. It kind of saved his soul, I I would say. Um, but this is the first time that I haven't travelled, and then when Mike died, the last thing I wanted to do was travel, and I would have well-meaning friends saying, Right, it's time now you need Manchester Airport for me, trigger, trigger, trigger of all the incredible trips that we took. I didn't want to go anywhere near that place. I didn't want to go away because, like I said earlier, I didn't want to come home, and coming home and the pain of him not being here just destroys me. So I've been away twice now. Um, I'm actually going away again in a couple of weeks. I have some very good girlfriends who just say we're organising a trip. So they're taking me away the day after uh, in fact, next Friday, they're taking me away uh to Italy for just a couple of days, and so I'm learning baby steps because what I was finding, I went away in January and I was okay in the morning and we would do yoga and we'd hike, but the minute I started seeing couples everywhere walking along hand in hand, older couples, it just I I found it difficult, which I'm not proud to admit that because you know I want everyone else to be happy. This is about my story, not their story. Mike would always say, you know, this is my story about himself, but um it was just too raw a reminder that I'm not gonna be walking into old age with Mike, and um that's upsetting, you know. So so as a grieving widow, a mother of two children, who I am very open with, by the way, you know, because they they've been incredible and they're very strong, and we all work together, so I'm very blessed for that. But uh they like me being honest with them, and I think they they take some kind of comfort of seeing how in love I am with their father. I think that's helpful for them. But what they don't need to see is my utter when I have those moments, which are few and far between when I'm really, really crying and raw the way I was with my parents, they it's important that they know how devastated I am. But I'm learning to make those kind of moments slightly more private. Um one day I was sobbing at the piano, very dramatic, and my uh Mike, Freudian slip, Dylan came down the driveway and he saw me before I saw him, and I looked up and his little face when he could see how distressed I was, he doesn't need that on top of his grief. You know, they are both they were best friends with Mike, they shared the same love of football, of music, and um they are they are behaving like Mike, they're being very strong, but I'm making sure that we all share our feelings so we we all meet at the end of the night, we live in the same house, they've got their girlfriends here, we're a busy household, but the one thing I cannot fake it with them, you know. I have to say, just hands up, guys, god, I'm missing him. It was the same this morning, you know. I'm struggling at the moment. I was like to my youngest, he's now just turned 19. Uh, he's been the strong one, and he was playing guitar in the living room, and he was playing um he was playing an alarm song, then he was playing a big country song because he's playing with Big Country at the weekend. He started playing a song by Big Country called Fragile Thing, and it just broke me. And I was like, Don't cry, don't cry in front of him. He's just getting up and he's he's okay, he's not, you know, he's managing his grief. And I started crying, and he was like, he just dealt with it so brilliantly. He was like, It's okay, ma'am, it's normal, it's it's fine to be like this. I said, I'm so sorry. Um can you just can you get dad back for me for a couple of days? I miss him. I just that's the main thing. I miss him. I just oh here he is. Bye bye. Um I just miss him. You know, if someone could just I he Mike was my best mate. Um, like I say, we weren't joined at the hip. But at the end of the night, at the end of the day, when he was here, we would always be meeting in in the we could, what do we call it, the great room. After coming to your wonderful America, we learnt this phrase called the great room, and it's all open plan. And we would always gravitate, you know, a beer, a cup of tea. How was your day? How was your and he's not there anymore, you know. I and I I can't even I can't watch TV because I would only watch TV with him at the end of the night, and he was my tech, and he'd set everything up and go, Oi, Trixie, come on, episode three is about to start. He made everything exciting, so now I just can't I can't cope with concentrating on anything. I I've always loved music, I can't I can't listen to the radio in the car. I have a lot of silence around me when I'm on my own. Um because I can't cope with songs coming on that make me think of us or make me sad. Yeah, I so at the moment, and I know it will change, I know things have to soften, um, I know things will get easier, but I wouldn't wish this on anybody. But it's the price we pay for love.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

Well, it is, and I mean when I first got with my husband, he was not he was having problems with his vision at that point, and he said, you know, we shouldn't do this because I'm gonna die. And I'm like, I could die tomorrow. You don't know that. I said, I'd rather love you and lose you than never to love you at all. And of course, now I sometimes go, was that really the smartest choice? But back to your you, you know, you seeing couples, it was interesting because there was my g my husband used to sew occasionally and make bags and stuff, and we were at a fabric store, and this woman came down the aisle and she looked at us and was like, Okay, we went down to another aisle, and this older woman moved down the other aisle and she's following us. Okay, so she does this several times throughout the store. So we're in the checkout line and she's behind us. And she says, Excuse me, I just have to say something, and I'm like, What? She goes, You two remind me of my late husband and I, and I just absolutely adore you. You can see how much you love each other. That's lovely. But that makes me think of what you you know it makes me look at that situation differently because I never thought about it that way from that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

And it sounded like it didn't make her sad though, it made her remember her bigger whereas at the moment for me it makes me feel um my loss even more, which is why I I think when people try and encourage the bereaved to travel when you when you are bereaved, I think you need stability, you need normal again. Yeah, I think I think for for me it helps for me just to be in one place to have everyone around me. I don't want any extra trauma on top of my grief. And traveling can be, you know, I've just I've just done 100k with a group of people, but it and and so they were my structure, so that was okay. But you know, things can go wrong when you travel, can't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

And um, I don't want any extra discombobulation on top of I I think part sorry to interrupt, I think part of it is that first year, year and a half, maybe two years, you're looking for some new normal. Yeah, because that normal that you've known for so long is gone, so now you're looking for something that's your new normal, your new life. Um and I mean a lot of what was written in the record is about living a different life. It's about keeping going. You know, you hear you hear his words about the inspiration about it's okay to feel down, but you gotta keep going. I mean, those aren't I'm paraphrasing. And I admit when when Ray sent over the press kit and I looked at the YouTube video, I ended up crying during it because there was my own moments during cancer that, especially with what's going on in the world, that it's like, what's the point? What am I fighting for? Especially doing it alone. Especially doing it alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Yeah, no, absolutely, darling. Yeah, you look like you're doing a great job as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

I try.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

So you can you can inspire me because you're walking the walk ahead of me, and and hopefully I can inspire people coming behind me by being open about how tough this is. But and of course, there are uh you know, you pi I'm I'm speaking to you at the moment feeling quite raw, uh, like I keep saying over these last few weeks, and I'm really hoping it will lift after last week. But the whole year I've I've there'd been so many moments of joy, you know, because I have wonderful friends and family, wonderful children, uh, a wonderful golden retriever, and I'm determined that it's my responsibility to keep the joy going. Because again, like I said, when Mike said that phrase, stop bother women, he would, he would, um, he would be disappointed um in me to he it it's quite incredible being married to someone who has such a wonderful positive optimism. And for those alarm fans listening to this, you know, he he oh his son number two. Um that I feel and I'm like I said, I'm I am a very optimistic person. You know, I'm the one that gets excited about the beautiful country I live in. I loved being in America, I loved talking to uh to Americans. Um of my My closest friends are Americans and but I'm not quite ready to jump on a plane yet. And but I want to honour our I don't want to become that sad person and I'm not, but I I cannot I want to help everyone else follow in in my footsteps to just say we have to stick together and we have to find the strength to honour the person that we lost by living our best life, whatever that is for each person. Um and for me it's to be, you know, I've just had a I've just been at a funeral uh at my pub. Uh it was a lady that I I knew when I was little, um, and weirdly it was an aggressive lymphoma that took her out of the blue. But there's been all generations of people, a hundred people in the pub just now. And you know what? We had the most incredible time. We all talked about all the people that we love. And Mike, Mike said about his mum, we were very close to his mum. His dad died at age 64, so I was very relieved when we got Mike past 64. I kept having this premonition that he would die the same year as his dad. Um, but Mike wrote uh uh uh spoke so eloquently at his mum's funeral and just said, Death is as beautiful as birth. And at the time I didn't quite understand what he meant, but he he refused to really get sad about losing his mum. His whole attitude was I had the best mum ever and I was lucky to have her. So I try, I try and take adopt that that notion of don't be sad that he's gone, be grateful that you bumped into him that day in Pristatin High Street. That day was a sliding doors moment, you know. Maybe if that hadn't have happened, I'd have hopefully still had a good life. But I I know I'm humble enough to acknowledge that I was very lucky to meet uh this guy who turned out to be a lead singer in a rock band, and you know, I was at university, and next minute I was jumping on a plane. Um he said, come and see me in in uh in New York. So I flew to New York by myself, and um he had organised a limo to pick me up, which wasn't my style really or his, but he was trying to spoil me. So I had like landed in New York, age 19. I was like, this is incredible because you know it was back in 1987, um, nearly 40 years ago, America was a very different place, so different to the UK. And uh when I pulled out, there was a sign waiting for me, and it wasn't a Cadillac limousine, it was a limousine bus with 48 seats on this bus. Um the message got uh miscommunicated. So little old me on this massive bus travelling all the way up to Albany, upstate New York, was my first ever experience of America, and um the theatre there, it was in quite a dodgy part of town. Lots of um I've I've I've returned to this theatre several times and it's it's got cleaned up a little bit, just like New York City. Um, but you know, how lucky was I? And and so when I feel myself slipping down that slippery slope, I'm like, come on, put yourself together, all those annoying phrases, resilience, give yourself a bit of a you know, you were lucky to meet Mike Peters. That's that's how I um yeah, that's how I how I pull myself around it. Um but yeah, if someone could just bring him back to me maybe for for a couple of days, that would be super cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

At least though, at least you have his music. And I mean, I know he sang to you at your wedding. And stuff I make Yeah, the fact that you will always have that endearing thing. I mean the last cr the last Christmas before John passed, I said I said, here, because we we decided he wanted a new tablet. I'm like, okay, he said, but you're gonna pick the tablet because it's gonna be yours. And I'm like, okay, fine. So I showed him the voice recording app. And sometimes when when I was not feeling great, he would sing me this song. So after he passed, I went to the tablet and there was because I said, record anything you want, record messages, whatever. And I have a bunch of voicemail messages still on my phone. I don't go listen to them, but they're there. And I went to the tablet and there it was what he was singing to me. Oh and telling me he loved me. And it's still one of those things, and yes, I feel a little vulnerable today too. It it's one of those things where I don't listen to it often. No, it does hurt, but it's there if I need it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

If you need it. Oh, that's beautiful, Donna. Yeah, uh, because I I I hope it will ease, and obviously I am surrounded by everyone sharing their photos, and and I have I have said on a post, I will put the word out, I want everyone next Thursday on the anniversary of Mike's death to to really try and harness their emotions to be positive and happy and grateful rather than to be sad and upset. So I want us as a as a family to kind of create a bit of a force really of positivity. Um but I struggle to so the video that you watched, um that was the morning before we took him into the Christie for like the final time, really, to have his car tea, and bearing in mind that um a hundred millilitres of his blood had been taken to the United States, re-engineered, and then transferred back. That's what car tea is all about. Um, and the the album, you know, Mike wrote this album called Transformation in the last six months of his life, and he was incredibly focused. Um he didn't think he was writing his swan song, he was writing his album so that he would then go and do car tea, then he would get through car tea, and then he was coming to America to perform all over the States, and he wanted to just come by himself, he didn't want a band around him. He he's mentioned to Evan that he wouldn't mind him popping up to do a few drums, drum tracks, but essentially he was coming on his own to do the biggest tour ever of America, and so he's very focused and very, very happy about what the next chapter of his life was going to be. Um, but the album can be interpreted in two ways. It can be interpreted very much as his Swan song. You know, the there's a song called uh Totally Free, and uh it he he wrote it uh to say that he was going to be totally free of cancer. That's in his mind, the last line of his autobiography, which he also completed just before the end, was uh it was going to be his consultant uh shaking his hand and saying, Mike Peters, you are completely free. Which what actually happened was yeah, Mike Peters, there's nothing more we can do for you, but uh totally free. He announced his own death, Mike, by he said he wanted the song Totally Free, and we just had a black page. He didn't discuss this with me, he discussed it with his tour manager, and the minute he passed, we we put this up totally free. And when you listen to the lyrics, we had it blasting out at the funeral. Oh my word, it was emotional. But it was like, yeah, he's uh if that's how you want to see death, he's he's totally free of cancer now, that's for sure. Um, so it's it's I would say the the best album he he's ever written, and and I feel a huge responsibility to be left alone to make sure that I present it to the world, you know, in the way that it was so important to Mike. Everything he did, he did it with such dedication. Everything he did for the fans was with such dedication. Yeah, we held an event every year for 32 years called The Gathering, which was Mike saying, I'm gonna go home after my very long tours, and I'm gonna invite the fans to come to my hometown. It was role reversal. The alarm fans get to go on tour, and Mike and I got to stay at home, and it worked a treat. The alarm fans loved it, they would come to North Wales and we loved it because we would just stay at home, and then we'd have two nights of gigs, and um I I feel I feel that responsibility on his deathbed, he said, I want you to continue the alarm, I want you to continue the gathering, and I'm I'm sitting there holding his hand, you know, how the fuck am I supposed to do that? And but I could I my whole feeling is I'm not living my life for Mike, don't get me wrong, but I want I want to honour his his wishes. So the gathering, he died in the April by the following January. We always held hold the gathering in January, and um nobody asked for a refund. I expected people just to not have it in their hearts to want to come to the gathering. There's no Mike, you know, Mike was the gathering, but it turns out the gathering is also about the alarm fans, it's by the fans, for the fans. So guess what? They all turned up, and Evan, my youngest, said, I can play the gathering like dad. And I said, Evan, you're only 19. Yeah, we were 18. I said, You're only 18. It's wonderful that you're saying that, but you can't possibly do that. Well, long story short, he wrote his set list, he wrote a Friday night set list because it was 40 years since Mike had played UCLA, um, the you know, the big MTV broadcast, and he played the set in the same order as The Alarm played it in April 1986. And he Saturday night, pen and paper, just like Mike used to be, he wrote out his whole set. So, you know, normally I would have gone to Mike and said, Oh gosh, what do you think? You know, Evan has said he can, and we'd have discussed it and reached a conclusion. When you're on your own, you've got to make the decisions by yourself. I'm like, what am I gonna do? How are the alarm fans gonna respond? Will he be able to do it? I knew he could sing because he sang uh at Mike's funeral. He sang Wonder Wool, the Oasis song, because that's the song that Mike used to sing when he first got diagnosed. It was 95. Um, and so he taught Mike, it Mike taught Evan how to play Wonderwool. But I didn't, I knew Evan could play guitar, he could play drums, but I didn't know that he could sing. And on Mike's deathbed, Evan, bless him, sat there, feet up on the bed, the nonchalance of use, acoustic guitar. I'm holding Mike's hand, and he just I've never really explained this before. Evan just started singing all the alarm songs, a medley of alarm songs, and I'm holding Mike's hand. We're in the last few hours, and I'm looking at Evan, how how does he know these songs? Well, in the last six months, Mike and Evan, unbeknownst to me, were going into the rehearsal room and playing the songs together, playing all the new songs together, and Evan has grown up on tour all around the States, mainly because we take them with us to America. So it's he said, Mum, it's in my DNA. It's just I can just recall lyrics, I can't explain it. So too much information, probably, but Mike was so ill at the end that we couldn't get him up the stairs. So luckily for us, Evan's bedroom was on the ground floor, and we moved Mike into Evan's bed. We can laugh about this now, but at the time Mike died in the spot where Evan goes to sleep every night, and um, all of that that's a whole other podcast of how do you deal with your beloved dying at home and and everything that comes following from that, and you're in a trance and you and you're grief stricken. But it's almost like some strange thing happened. Like Mike's superpowers were passed on to Evan. After that, I said to Evan, what are you gonna do? You are you are you gonna move back into your bedroom, darling? Evan says to me, Mum, Dad died in my bed. You've got to laugh at me. It's like the black email. And I went, I know, it's a silly let's move you upstairs. We'll change that room around. Three nights later, I come in. Um, it's rare for me to come in after my children these days, but I came in and the light was on and I looked in, and there was Evan fast asleep in the spot where Mike had died. And now we've never ever had a conversation about it. He's absolutely fine, he's back in that room, and it's as if there was some kind of extraordinary. I'm not like I say, I'm not very religious, but some something has happened, and it's it's comforting that that the spirit of Mike lives on. So in January, guess what? Evan delivered the two alarm sets, like he promised me. The alarm fans didn't know what to expect, and they absolutely loved it. Because Evan plays it like 1983, he loves all a lot of the early stuff, and he he he plays it with quite a lot of gritty, raw passion. But I always play keys, so I've got this most surreal situation where I I thought those days were gone. I was ready for those days to be gone. Even before Mike got diagnosed, I think I'd just reached a really lovely place where I said, Hey Mikey, don't take this the wrong way, but I think I think I'm done with touring with a big tour bus full of men, only me and all these men, uh, all getting older, everyone's getting older, and I'm like, and Mike was like, No, no, no, no, no, yeah, you have to come with me. You've always got to come on the road with me. So we'd kind of had that conversation, and I thought that that that part of my life was over. But Evan turns around and the rest of the band, and they're like, No, no, no, we want you to still carry on playing keyboards. I'm like, oh my god, I'm not sure. I'm 59, you know. Is this the life I want? So there I was on stage playing keys, but me and him just did a duet like a duet of and he played Warp Forever by his side, and he put his guitar to one side to the road crew, and I'm playing piano behind him, and I'm like, this is a surreal life, you know. There, I'm playing piano behind my son, who stood in exactly the same spot where my husband the whole place was in tears, apart from me. I'm like, we cannot screw up this beautiful moment. I was just concentrating, and uh it's a beautiful moment, and uh, and here we are, you know, um continuing the spirit, and it's I I know we'll get through it. I know we'll get through it, but it's for all the bereaved out there, let's let's try and get through it together by talking about it like this. You know, you've helped me today, Donna, by um by getting me to speak about it openly to somebody who and totally understands um, I hope together, you and I being open about what it is like to be. We need to come up with a different word for widow, obviously. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:23

I mean, I've said I've said this before about widow. It's like, okay, um if I file my taxes, I don't have to put divorce, but I have to put widow. You know, when I'm divorced, when I get divorced, I can just check off single. So I hate to say it, folks. Guess what? I've checked off single because just because I love somebody and they died, it shouldn't be a statistic. No, I agree. I agree. So yeah, I agree. Plus, you know, then there's that whole black widow thing, you know. You know, there's just too many negative connotations.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Well, that's why I I did want to originally call my grief group the the red widows. And then I thought, well, what about those widowers as well? Because the men are more than welcome, and um, and I was gonna turn it into, you know, it was gonna be uh pretty rock and roll, and so I'm calling it red or dead now.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

Because I was thinking red red grief would work too, but red or dead works, yes. Red or dead.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

Where people can just I've had the most insane conversations this afternoon at the funeral because you know what? The gloves are off. You're with loads of people that are bereaved, and you can have some great conversations, you know. Um so yeah. Maybe I'll pop over to the grave a bit later and say that I've been talking about it in the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:41

I know I've taken up a lot of your time and I I greatly appreciate it. Is there anything you wanted to add before I end the video recording?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:49

Oh gosh, I well I think because I'm speaking to you from Chicago, I think um I think I do just want to extend my gratitude again to the United States of America. Um, yeah, it was our our sort of second home. Uh I I used to joke that we were um Welsh American, so we'd we'd call it a Merry Welsh or Wellicans, or um, but I think um you know who who I am today and who Mike was um is very much part of our wonderful journey. We we travel to every single state apart from Alaska, and uh and I am so grateful, so grateful to the American people for welcoming us. Um I just uh and I knew it, you know, every single tour we did right up to the end, I was like, never take this for granted, Jules. Yeah, this is incredible. Americans just welcomed us into their hearts, and um and I think that that wonderful optimistic outlook that most Americans have was very cherished by Mike and I. So I just I just want to say thanks for that. And I I hope that maybe in another year or maybe less that I'll I'll have I'll feel less vulnerable and more um confident to get back on the plane and and get myself back back to my second home. You know, I've missed it, it's been two years since I've been been there. So uh that's the plan to get myself back over. Awesome. But yeah, just and thank you to all the alarm alarm family, uh, without whom uh I couldn't get through it, you know, that everyone's uh helping me. Uh and anyone in the States who's thinking about I have a lot of American uh alarm fans who've made the trip over, and you know, we're we're very open. We want everyone to go to the grave. I joke it will become a bit like Graceland, you know, because you can come and you can stay in the chapel, you can come, we say rest at the chapel, rock at the red, you can walk over to the grave, pay your respects to Mike. Um it's a beautiful thing, you know. We're developing the alarm archive. If you go to the alarm socials, you'll see every single day there is uh this day in alarm history. And you know what? It's a very as much as I struggle watching videos of Mike at the moment, but just the little snatches that we it it what an amazing life he had and the amazing crazy things. This morning I wake up and it's the memory of record store day, yeah. And I'll finish off with this story of Mike. Um, we learnt to ski in Aspen, Colorado, because guess what? We met um a couple of amazing alamis who said, When you're ready to learn to ski, come and stay with us in Aspen. So that's what we did for 10 years, and they tr they taught all four of us to ski. Um, so while I'm hiking with Mike in 2018, he turns to me and he says, Record store day, I want to do, I think we should do, you know, he grew up in Live Aid world where you had uh live aid in London and your live aid in Philly.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:00

I went to Live Aid.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:02

Oh, there you go. Okay. So Mike worked as a steward at Live Aid because the alarm didn't play Live Aid, so he wanted to be there, so he was a steward. But he loved the idea of that transatlantic aspect to Live Aid. So he said to me, We're hiking along, and he said, So I think we should do record store day, a bit like Live Aid, and we'll start off in Wales, then we'll go to London, and then we'll fly to New York, and then we'll fly to Los Angeles. And this was him, this was the exciting life, you know. This is my alpha male. But I'm hiking along, thinking to myself, that's a lot of work, you know. And and he was like a he was like a record company. He would just come up with ideas, but he would always be able to execute them. And and I was like, why do we need to do that? I could be quite um uh I think that's why we were at the yin and the yang. I was enthusiastic, but not that enthusiastic, you know. Pragmatic. Yeah, there you go. Why do we need to do this? And he because we've got kids, by the way, Mike, at home. Um, and so no, no, no, we're gonna do it. And then he grinned at me and he said, uh, and you've just got to bring your um, it's just yeah, I was very good at traveling light, leather jacket and my high heels, and I'm I'm done. And uh he said, Jen, you can only travel hand luggage because we've got a hot pop pop and we're going into like back to the future. And I remember going, I really don't think it's a good idea anyway. Of course, it happened, and um I was reminded of it today, and there's a beautiful video of him and all that he just exuded positivity and kindness with the alarm fans, and we did it, and we flew, and we ended up we did New York, and then it was like he was in a record store in New York and chatting to all the fans. And I'm like, Peters, we've got to get back in the cab, get back to the airport to jump to go to LA, and then we landed and we did the uh fingerprints record store in uh in Los Angeles, and that was life with Mike. And so every morning I wake up to an avalanche of memories, um, and I I think I'm I'm lucky because he was the lead thing of the alarm. Those memories will just keep perpetuated. Because I know, finishing on that, that I know a lot of bereaved say to me that it is difficult after one year, because of course everyone else has to get on with their own life. So people forget and and they think that you're back on your feet and then they don't quite know how to approach you. So actually, the bereaved person and the the person who died, they're not as in everyone's minds, but I don't really have that because I have you know alarmed people constantly keeping that memory alive. So um yeah, just gratitude. Like I started off the conversation, keep practicing gratitude over sorrow. Sorrow doesn't get any of us anywhere. We're all lucky to be alive, we're all lucky to keep breathing. Um and and that's that's what I'm gonna do forwards we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:52

And the one thing I will add that is very similar to, and I know we're wrapping this up, similar to the bereavement, the grief is the cancer diagnosis. As you're going through cancer, you have people that are there to lift you up, but they don't even your doctors, after you've gone through your treatment, it's kind of like those two really kind of go hand in hand, and that's that's that's I I'll wrap it up with that. But I thank you, Jules, for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:22

Oh, thank you for having me. Thanks for the chats. If you ever decide to uh make a trip to the UK before I get to America, uh come and stay.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:32

I will getting to talk to somebody that you can connect with on many levels is a is a gift. And as soon as I picked up the call with Jules, we started talking. And it was like, you know, maybe I should hit record so we can start this. Um, and even after we were done, we still had a conversation for a while. And we plan on doing something again. So hopefully that will come to fruition. I think sometimes when you find that person that is kind of a kindred spirit, it is it's an amazing gift because you can relax, you can be yourself. And the funny thing is, off-air, we ended up finding, you know, we ended up discovering that our paths most likely had crossed prior because Mike at one point had opened up for John Taylor when he was doing his solo stuff. And he played a date at the House of Blues in Chicago. And well, I was at that show. So there's a chance that we crossed paths back then and just didn't know it. So it's kind of a small world when you think about it. And, you know, dealing with grief and loss is a journey, and she is still early on in that journey, and you know, she'll have great days, we all do. But when you lose somebody, and this is something that somebody got after me, and I mentioned it on air. Well, you're still hanging on. When you have somebody that has been in your heart for that long, and they've made you happy, and they've made you laugh, and they've made you cry because the loss. But their their presence was always a gift to you. They always made you happy, they always made you feel like you had a partner, and maybe always happy is not the right word, but you knew you had a partner. And as I said on air in the in the podcast, that wasn't just a one-time occurrence. We had other people that would stop us and tell us how much they they thought we looked like we're in love. And the funny thing is, that being said, we also had people that would hold the door for me and my father. Um when, you know, and these are these are funny stories, and they're like, you know, at times John hated it because of the fact that you after his cardiac bypass surgery, he was in a nursing home for 30 days because I he was a bigger guy. There was no way I had the upper body strength to be able to move him around. So I went to dinner at the nursing home with him, and we're sitting down, and and this woman walks by and she goes, Oh, it's so nice for you to have dinner with your dad. And John's like, I don't look that old. I'm like, so then the hair dye started, but that's the story for another time. But there were several times when, you know, somebody's getting in the door, let me get the door for you and your dad. And it wasn't that he looked that old. I didn't think, I mean, there was only three years between us, but people perceived it, and it was always a running joke about his age. But that's the thing. When you have a person and you're lucky enough to have that person that you're connected to and it fills your heart, and the loss of that person, there's no way to explain it to somebody else. There's no way to really connect on a level with somebody else that says, Hey, do you know what I'm feeling? Sure. The loss of your parents, one thing, that's a totally different grief. The loss of your friend, that's a totally different grief. And we don't we don't acknowledge that that's grief. We just kind of go, well, you know, but it is grief. But the loss of your spouse, your partner, especially if you've been in a long-term relationship, it cuts you at your core. It digs into your soul because you wake up alone. You know, and if you go through cancer, as we're talking about, or a long-term illness, you're hoping that you're gonna have that partner. And I can't tell you how many times last year when I when I was going through my own chemo and I was doing it by myself, that there wasn't a time when I wanted to crawl in bed and and have John hold me and have him tell me everything's gonna be okay and that it's all gonna be all right. And the fact is that when I look at that, because of his own health issues, he wouldn't have been able to be around me anyway, because the whole cancer protocol, when you're under chemo, it's like the first three days, you're kind of toxic. So even if he were here, it wouldn't work. That's what I tried to tell myself. And something that we didn't really fully get into discuss, which I, you know, I wanted to, but we there was a lot to cover, is that when you go through grief, when you lose that partner, you're you're sitting there wondering, how can I could was there something I could have done differently? Is there something that I could have changed this outcome? And the truth is no. But your mind, you know, whether it be the spreadsheet or just you're trying to analyze things, you start trying to figure out, what if I did something different? What if I what if I would have done this differently? What if, you know, what if COVID wouldn't happen and he would have had something to eat and then he might have died at home. Would that have been better? I don't know. But the fact is there's a certain level of rationally, you know, you're trying to rationalize how you could change things when you can't. And I think that happens more than we realize. Like when my mom died, and we've addressed that my mom committed suicide. When my mom died, because I had saved her once, at that time I rationalized, well, was there something else I could have done to save her this time? She was nowhere near me, but was there something I could have done? I told my stepfather, so why didn't he do something? There was all the rationale rationalization of how did I, you know, how could I fix this? And I think that's the one of the our one of the tricks our mind plays when we're dealing with grief is how can I, how could I have changed something different? And it's not that you have regrets, it's just we're trying to place what we can figure out. It's got to be this, that, and the other thing. And how do we figure this out? So you just when you're going through grief, you have to allow those feelings, you have to allow those thoughts, you have to allow the rational mind to play with you. And then you have to go, okay, how do I do this? How do I keep going? How do I move forward? And you take it each day. It's like I said, you know, that first year, I was counting. Yes, I made it a week, I made it two weeks, and Jules is doing the same thing, and then you hit that year mark, and then it it's it's the holidays, which I didn't even address with her, but yes, the birthday, the anniversary, it's that, and it's the holidays, and it's those little bitty moments. And then of course, Facebook kicks you in and says, Hey, hi, and you're like, wait a second. But the fact of the matter is you have to keep going forward. And if you don't keep going forward, then you get stuck, and that's where the problem lies. And for me, the last six years of my life have been something that's been kind of awkward because in that time I lost my husband, and yes, I had some friends, and yes, I started evolving into my life as I started working at a metaphysical shop, and things were good, and things were I had a group, and that fell apart as I moved. And when I moved, I had a best friend, and then after cancer, that friendship kind of went south, and now I'm standing or sitting, looking around and realizing that the friends that actually support me are not real close. You know, one is 40 minutes away, the other one is in Michigan, and there's a couple other people, but they're not close. And so, who is my support system? Who is my community? And while I started at the why, I ended up with an injury, so I could not continue with the why. So that community kind of went south too. So, how do I build a community? And I think that's a big thing that all of us are asking because social media is not the way to connect anymore. We don't want to keep doing that. We want something real, we want something tangible, and we have to find a way to do that. So find your community. And I've talked about that before. Find the people you can trust. And yes, we should ban the word widow or widower. I we we lost somebody in love, and you know, I I think we have to embrace people that are that are going through things where they're at and try to understand them and not not chastise them because maybe six years ago they lost somebody and their heart is still heavy with that. I don't sit here, and this is the funny thing. I don't sit here and go, oh my gosh, I miss my husband. Do I have a picture of him on my desk? Sure, I do. And and do I have pictures on my desk of other things that make me happy or other people that have made me happy? Sure, I do, because that is my connection, that is the positive focus of my life, those things that made me happy. I don't want to look back at the moments that made me sad and go, okay, this is no, I want to move forward and I wanna I want to start a new life, start a new journey. And so I'm gonna tie this into the record. When you actually listen to the new alarm record, transformation, it's kind of important because it is he wrote that record thinking I'm gonna be free. But he thought cancer free. But he ended up being free in a different level. So what if what if today's the only day you got promise? What if tomorrow's and what if you got six years promised? You don't know that. But in that time, and I go back to being told he's on borrowed time with my husband, each day becomes a gift, each moment becomes something you think about. That you have to be mindful, you have to be present, you have to have gratitude. Because I look at at some days like I remember when he made he would he would go to the pioneer woman and he would make gluten-free uh a berry cobbler, which I had never had before, but he was willing to do that. And so embrace what you know, embrace the people you love, embrace the people and the moment. And next time you're at a concert while you're filming it, you may never look at that film again. Embrace the frickin' moment because that moment may never happen again. It sure won't happen again. But embrace that moment and just embrace life because you never know when that last day is coming. So, on that note, I thank you for tuning in. I thank Fast Susie for their intro and outro music. I thank Jules for the delightful conversation, even though it was intense at times. There's still hope in there, and I think that's what's important. And yeah, like I said a minute ago, thank you for tuning in. If you like the podcast, leave a message, leave a comment. I'm glad to respond. And um, yeah, I'll catch you next time, guys. Bye.