Walter Ryan

Songs and Stories from the Centre – Trebus Record One was intended to be the first in a series of experimental collaborations between artists, composers, and people living with dementia. At a time when ‘art in care’ frequently meant colouring books I wanted to make something with high production values that people would like to own. 

Bruce Nauman described his work as ‘like getting hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat. You never see it coming; it knocks you flat'. That was exactly what I wanted for TR2. I decided it would either be a collage of ambient recordings I’d already made in nursing homes and hospitals or it would focus on one person (each track on Songs and Stories… involved a different care home resident). 

Walter Ryan

I talked to Walter almost every day for two years, initially in a care home where I worked briefly as an activity coordinator, and then in a terrifying mental health unit where he was sent after attacking a nurse during a manic episode. He told me about his tough upbringing in Ireland, the physical abuse he received at the hands of sadistic priests, and his life as a street fighter, boxing for money outside pubs. I recorded our conversations and later adapted them into a script, which actor Peter Marinker from the Samuel Beckett Theatre Company agreed to record.

Songs and Stories… picked up rave reviews. Mark Gould writing in The Guardian described it as ‘a startling collision of Tom Waits, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Samuel Beckett’, broadcaster Jonny Trunk said it was ‘quite brilliant for reasons impossible to explain’ and Harry Eyres writing in the Financial Times said ‘The Trebus Project throws down a gauntlet to the world of contemporary art, so often obsessed by youth, sensationalism and celebrity’. 

Walter decided TR2 should be about him, and came up with the idea of recording his favourite songs. Between my visits, he wrote the titles of songs he wanted to record on the back of pilfered drug charts. TR2 soon became Walter’s Album. 

A few days later I smuggled a small tape recorder into the hospital and we made a handful of recordings in Walter’s room while I sat on his bed – one of the other patients can be heard singing along during Walter’s booming rendition of My Way. I enjoyed the gritty, subversive quality of our work and sidestepping the need for an expensive studio - a friend described the project as Oliver Sacks meets Throbbing Gristle. This wasn't art therapy, and it felt new, exciting, and genuinely collaborative. 

Walter’s Album never happened. The fact that his singing is pretty bad didn’t bother me or him (as other people in the unit could testify) half as much as the thought that people might laugh at the manic, over-excited quality of his singing, which I knew to be evidence of a temporary madness (he returned to living in the care home in a calmer state after about twelve weeks). 

Twenty years on I think Walter’s Album would have been great: over the past 10 years we’ve grown used to people with dementia on TV and the radio – perhaps even bored with them – but at the time of the Trebus Project record and books this hadn’t yet happened. It’s clear from his introduction that Walter knew what he was doing and was contributing on his terms. 

You can download the album here: 

I you fancy making a small donation to the project you can do so here via Paypal: cables.clegg@gmail.com

Side 1. Walter’s story performed by Peter Marinker

Side 2.

1. Walter’s intro 
2. Moon River 
3. Danny Boy 
4. Irish Eyes 
5. You Made Me Love You. 
6. Shenandoah 
7. My Way 
8. I Gave Up My Senses 
9. My Lord (Walter’s own composition)
10. Come Let Me Love You 




Michael's Album

Stories about people with dementia, told in their words. 
What would you tell them if you knew your memory was failing and you met someone recording stories for a social history project? What would you want them to remember for you?

Jan's story performed by Dame Sian Phillips in 2006

Stories about people with dementia, told in their words. This story was performed by John Woodvince for the Radio 4 series Ancient Mysteries.

Morris's story - Performed by John Woodvine

Recorded by Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse for the Radio 4 series Ancient Mysteries.

Prudence's story performed by Rosie Cavaliero

Winnie Lawrence

A fragmented wartime memoir based on verbatim material. 

Sid's story, performed by Paul Whitehouse for BBC Radio 4

A narrative of love and war conveyed through the perspective of a woman with dementia, performed by Jo Brand - Rehearsal.

Olive's story - performed by Jo Brand (Rehearsal).

Jessie read by Juliet Stevenson

Sean Barrett - Aidan

We were recently interviewed by BBC Radio Sussex about our unusual home, which was built in 1890 on top of an ancient coach house. The interview is available here as a downloadable MP3.

The text below is quoted from the BBC News website:

At an unassuming address in Hastings lies a hidden cellar containing the long-lost remains of a 16th-century coach house.
The current owners of the property on Swan Avenue found it after uncovering a trapdoor beneath a rug in the dining room shortly after moving in.
Dark, cavernous, and seemingly untouched for generations, it turned out to have once been part of the historically important Swan Inn, with a history dating back to the 16th century.
"The coach house was completely buried in 1889 and this whole street built on top of it," said David Clegg, who bought the house with Steven Short a few years ago.
"The trapdoor weighs a ton and when we first got it open it was impossible to see what the cellar was like," he told Secret Sussex.
"It was pitch black down there and smelt terrible — we didn't venture inside for about six months."
Four and a half metres below what is now street level, the subterranean space's barrel-vaulted ceilings and cobblestone floors are a very real reminder of life in a bygone age.
"It's filled with little stories, this space," said Mr Clegg. "We've even had mediums contact us wanting to do séances down here."


BBC News UK: A Victorian Home on Ancient Foundations

Established by David Clegg in 2001 the Trebus Project has worked with over a thousand people with dementia in care homes and the community. It is now the largest archive of free to access interviews with people with dementia in the world. 

Clegg was awarded a British Empire medal in 2019 for his work with people with dementia. 

“Patients with dementia, though, they are thought to be different: they – so it’s generally supposed – don’t have anything worthwhile to say about own situation; in fact they don’t have anything worthwhile to say at all. David Clegg’s book shows otherwise, revealing that if patients are listened to, are spent time with, there is underneath all the jumble and repetition and forgetfulness, a story being told by someone ... sometimes desperately ... trying to connect.  Alan Bennett

 “The Trebus Project throws down a gauntlet to the world of contemporary art, so often obsessed with youth, sensationalism and celebrity.”  Harry Eyres - Financial Times.

“Imagine an audio social history of the 20th century, told in scattershot sentences, explosions of rage, elation and sorrow, and the odd bombshell of heart wrenching howling emotion.”  Jane Anderson - Radio Times.
“These remarkable monologues contain not only scattered reminiscences, howling rage and sudden shafts of joy, but grains of gold reminding us that the old were once young, in love and excited by life, and still have insightful things to say.”  Radio Times.

“Stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes moving, sometimes like a Samuel Beckett play in their bleakness.”  Kate Murray - The Social Issue.

“David Clegg and his team of editors have given a voice to a group of people who are not only marginalised, but are also on the whole perceived to have nothing left to say or contribute in any valuable way. These stories show that everyone has a story to tell, even if it can be sometimes fragmented or difficult to interpret. All people need is for someone to truly listen.”  Alex Walker - Associate Director NHS Central Lancashire

It is an honour to be involved in this project – to give voice to an anonymous soul. The words held so much of the essence of her. A kind of magic that you should have taken the time to capture her words. It’s all in us – and it is a kind of poetry - the poetry of being us. Listening creates compassion… which is what we need now more than ever. Fiona Shaw CBE

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