ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author collaborates with people facing terminal illness and together they make films, write songs and poems, or take photographs about things that matter. The process is about the creative empowerment of those whom life-threatening illness has disempowered. It is about the resurrection of voices that have been silenced by illness. John lives in a small council flat in South-East London. He greets author from his armchair, surrounded by the paraphernalia of lung cancer–oxygen machine, mask, pills. John's lung cancer was diagnosed in 2003, when he was 70. His hopes for a life of relaxation and ease were cruelly shot down by a terminal diagnosis. The author has been thinking about John's wife Gina so he e-mailed Steven back. It was his realisation that she had Alzheimer's that sowed the initial seed of John's song. There are several songs on the programme–the fruit of other Rosetta Life collaborations between musicians and people like John.
