A Lanarkshire author will launch an emotional track about Hamilton this week.
Poet Martin Stepek wrote the lyrics to the monitor titled Hamilton Rain to spotlight the subjects of concern, trauma and restoration forward of this month's Psychological Well being Consciousness Week.
The track is narrated by a soldier serving overseas and on the finish of his tether, as he yearns for his dwelling within the Lanarkshire city.
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Impressed by his personal heritage, in addition to the continuing warfare in Ukraine, Martin tells a heart-wrenching story by his lyrics with a number of native landmarks referenced such because the Mausoleum and the Cadzow Burn.
It's carried out by Motherwell singer Pat O'Neill after being professionally recorded at Foundry Inventive Alchemy's studio, and is predicted to be formally launched by the top of this week, out there on Spotify and Apple Music.
Martin, 63, can be a mindfulness trainer and creator, and can maintain a particular occasion on Might 12 on the Burnbank Centre as a part of this yr's Scottish Psychological Well being Arts Pageant.
Right here, he'll talk about the making of the track whereas bringing consideration to essential points surrounding psychological well being.
Martin instructed Lanarkshire Dwell : "I keep in mind pondering I do not know a single track about Hamilton, the place I reside.
"So the pondering was telling the story of the horrors of warfare from a soldier's viewpoint, and now with the state of affairs in Ukraine, which is the place my dad occurred to be born by complete coincidence.
"I am a psychological wellbeing trainer so the problems of trauma and concern I learn about, after which additionally a track about Hamilton is nicely overdue."
Within the track, Martin writes "Oh Hamilton, I would like you. Your lions and the dome", in addition to giving a nod to different native references: "I wish to watch the Cadzow Burn move, and let it heal my damaged state."
Now he hopes individuals can have interaction with the psychological well being facet of the track at a neighborhood stage.
Martin defined: "I believed this was an excellent time to debate making a track about psychological wellbeing because the lyrics are each very darkish however left once more in direction of the top.
"The entire concept is mainly getting individuals to be empathetic in direction of others who're struggling, and the additionally to indicate individuals there are routes to restoration.
"My dad was not solely born in what's now Ukraine at the beginning of the Second World Warfare, he and his household had been taken to Russia to labour camps. His mom died of starvation and his father died within the Polish Resistance of their 30s and 40s.
"That's my heritage, so it does contact me rather a lot after I see issues on the information and it turns into a mirrored image about my very own historical past.
"It is actually simply an consciousness that tragedies like this and traumas isn't just a factor of the previous, it is nonetheless there, and there are nonetheless individuals residing in Hamilton who're most likely nonetheless making an attempt to get well from having served in locations like Afghanistan or locations even earlier."
You'll be able to seek for the track Hamilton Rain on the standard streaming providers from Friday, Might 6, below Pat O'Neill.
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