Blue

Today is World Parkinson’s Awareness Day. But do health awareness events really make a difference year-round? And what happens when other events take centre stage?

When I was a young editorial secretary with industrial strength Pitman shorthand, I often found it hard to transcribe my notes. One day I couldn’t work out why we were asking a freelance writer to submit his article with a ‘typical pig’:

I had the consonants right, but I wasn’t on the right notebook lines for the vowels. What I should have written was:

As I settled into the job I realised that my editor was very keen on ‘topical pegs’ – linking your own story with something else that is happening in the world. Fingers crossed, you hope that Something Bigger doesn’t happen to banjax your plans and force you to pull all your scheduled social media content.

Blue light

Early last week I received an email suggesting that one way for me to mark World Parkinson’s Day would be to display a blue light in my window. I’m afraid my cheeky first reaction was “Who do they think I am, Dixon of Dock Green*?”

I digress. I looked up what other people and organisations were doing about blue decorations and found that Parkinson’s Scotland had planned Light up Scotland for Parkinson’s,  which will bathe 30 venues in Scotland in blue light. It promised to be a fantastic light show. And it still will be, after a bit of rapid checking in case any of the venue organisers think it’s inappropriate. While we’re feeling sad about the Duke of Edinburgh, lighting up Edinburgh Castle in blue seems entirely appropriate to me. Is there a danger people will miss the Parkinson’s message?

Year-round activity

I have to confess that I’m not entirely convinced about awareness events. We build up to a day, week or month of activity. Then what? We tip our hats to condition A and then move on to condition B without a backward glance? My goal here will always be to raise awareness of Parkinson’s year-round with a gentle trickle of information and support.

In the time that I am rummaging in the attic for coloured Christmas lights and then remembering that we traded them in for white ones, I could be writing some helpful tips to share here. Or I could be on the other end of FaceTime for someone who’s just feeling a bit s*it today. These practical tasks are more important to me than lighting up my window. 

However, I am new to this game, and only Level 1 on my soapbox. If you have compelling facts and figures on the benefits of awareness days, please let me know.

Play > Carey > from the album Blue > Joni Mitchell

Blue is my favourite Joni Mitchell album, but I’m not as keen on the title track as I am on belting out the vocal range in Carey “I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne.” It’s a perfect track for speech therapy exercises.

*This 1950-60s TV cop drama opened with PC George Dixon standing under a police station lamp we knew to be blue, although we were watching in black and white. It was a spin-off from a 1950 Ealing Studios film called The Blue Lamp.