Now, trust me, is not the time for Hanging Around!

Due to some harrowing personal, and very hands on experiences, Hazel O'Connor ('Will You,' 'D-Days,' 'Eighth Day',' 'Hanging Around') has recorded a Hospice charity single ... and would like to now tell you all about it.

NEWSFLASH!! Come see Hazel O'Connor and her star-studded friends perform at The Assembly, Leamington Spa (England) on November 16th. The concert will be filmed for the ITV Breakfast Show! Tickets can be purchased from the venue directly:

www.leamingtonassembly.com

Ladies and Gentlemen, Hazel O'Connor ...

Hello Everyone,

After the 2009 Autumn tour of Beyond Breaking Glass with Cormac (and thank you everybody who came to the shows and helped make the evening so complete), I went back to Coventry to stay with Mum who was getting very poorly.

Well she just got worse and worse and I went home to Ireland for 2 days only and raced back to Coventry where Mum had now been admitted into hospital. She seemed to be failing - it is awful to see such a spirited person as Joyce O’Connor “losing the battle”.

Thanks to a wonderful Doctor Elliot and the nursing staff at Walsgrave University Hospital and her community Matron, she managed to pull thru and was given 2 weeks respite care at Myton Hospice – which turned her/ my/our lives around.

She blossomed there and I came to admire the work everybody does in the hospice: so to say an eternal THANK YOU, I have now offered my services to the Myton Hospice Fundraising team.

Indeed, my mother went thru Xmas and into the new year 2010 ... she slowly gained strength and courage as a result of those excellent nurses, doctors, staff and volunteers of Myton Hospice (and all hospices).

And so, I have written a song, and will perform at various events to raise Hospice awareness and funds – the first being my upcoming new Xmas song, entitled 'Re-Joyce.'

Featured on this wonderful new Xmas single, with Grammy-winning Coventry producer Roger Lomas producing, Mark Roberts and Kevin Lomas on preproduction, will be such artists as:

Carol Decker (T'Pau)
Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Toyah Wilcox
Pauline Black (Selecter)
Vince Hill
Ranking Roger (The Beat)
Neville Staple (The Specials)
Moya Brennan (Clannad)
Neil O'Connor (The Flys)
The Subterraneans
Bob Brolly MBE (West Midlands BBC Radio Presenter/Singer)

Also, this song, 'Re-Joyce' was my Xmas present to mum and her partner Geoff (Geoff passed away at the end of February), but we celebrated our time together and that is any of us can do.

Mum came out of Hospice in January and is still here today ... how long, who knows, but as the song says, "... we are here today."

It's real wonder is that these artists want to help in a world where we feel so helpless in the face of wars, death, and disaster ... and yet we can help as a united front to bring money and awareness to Myton Hospice and also to the help the Hospice Charity in the UK.

One of those artists aiding her cause is the lovely Carol Decker (T'Pau), who has this to say: "I offered to sing on the Hospice song when I got into conversation with Hazel. These Hospices do a wonderful job letting families just be together in as positive and loving an environment as possible - under the sad circumstances of a patients final months.

They are saints. I found singing the song very emotional as although my Mum doesn't have cancer she has a bad heart condition - and I do worry about her now she is getting older.

I had to have a bit of a cry. Hazel gave me a big hug and then I was able to get on with it. Life is so precious and flies by so quickly (and so) being involved in the project really brought that home."

Hazel continues: (As you have read above), many of these artists are dealing with death and illness in their own families and could do interviews of their own experiences with terminal illness. But the journey we are all on, doing this record together, it is not about being depressed its about celebrating our loved ones and the lives they have lived - and the lives we live to honour them.

And the Hospice and nursing profession who come into our lives as a parent or friend or family member is dying. Well, most of these artists, if not all, would be willing to do interveiws ... and we could go into various Hospice's to talk to the staff also.

It all comes together with the song ... which has a release date of December 6th, 2010. Which means this is Hazel's "D-Day"!

Here, "D-Day" means Download Day as they try to get downloads that week to get a high chart position ... which will, in turn, sell more for the Hospice! So make sure you download the single on that day ... NO EXCUSES!!

More info will be forthcoming on this page AND on both my Facebook and Myspace pages re: how to download the song, so please stay tuned ... and I hope you love this idea as much as I do.

Love,
Hazel O'Connor
xxx

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