About

My name is Annie-Celeste Taylor and I am looking to make some changes in my life.

I come from a small farm house in the middle of nowhere (NE Scotland). Nearest house was a mile away, nearest village 5 miles.

My parents taught me that you can do whatever you want. By that I mean, they showed me that the path was mine alone to take and if I was responsible for myself, then everything was my choice. Lesson 1: Be who you want to be.

My dad was a wood turner. He could turn wooden bowls so thin the light would shine through the grain. Then one day he was diagnosed with ME. The doctor told him he needed to make a change to his solitary life or continue down what would be a fatal path.

So my dad, in his late 30s, went back to college to follow his 2nd love, computers. He is now a computer engineer and a punk drummer (because that is the most obvious combination). Lesson 2: It’s never to late to make a change for the better.

My mam was an avid follower of this lesson and as a result has worn many hats. She was a ‘lost case’, the nuns of her school would tell her. Only St Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Cases, could possibly be bothered with her. Oh how wrong these misguided people were. She was the best of us.

She left home young and rebellious, studied to be a secretary where she would perfect the most beautiful hand writing you have ever seen (another thing to be frowned on by the evil nuns of her childhood). She ended up in Botswana, where she helped to build a Camphill community; a village that cared, educated and gave work to people with special needs.

She later moved to Aberdeen to stay with people she had met in Africa as well as in Camphill villages in England. She befriended a midwife while she was settling, who asked her to look after a heavily pregnant woman. She was also asked to watch over the lady’s husband and his best friend who were perhaps not responsible enough for such a task (my dad was the irresponsible best friend 😉 ).

When I was growing up she taught Nursery at the Waldorf School I attended.

I have had the pleasure of both types of Education (State and Waldorf) and while both follow the same curriculum, one of the most troubling differences to me is this:

In a Waldorf School, a heavily dyslexic child can excel unhindered by their learning difficulties, they could even be top of the class. The teacher understands each pupil and how they learn because they have been with them since day one.

That same pupil’s experience in a state school?

Although in most subjects their Waldorf education puts them almost 2 years ahead, in the State system the child struggles to understand the curriculum and no effort is made to understand the child. Instead that child is branded unintelligent and a waste of time!

This child could do physics calculations in her head, two steps beyond the point where most teachers needed a calculator, was almost fluent in French and composed music with mathematical precision. Clearly, in a State school, the back of the class with a colouring book was the only way to deal with such stupidity (I should point out that I was never diagnosed as dyslexic until I was at University).

I didn’t stay there long that’s for sure. Following my dream to be an actress, I enrolled in the local college’s performing arts course and told my old school where to stick their education. Lesson 3: School Sucked!

Growing up in the country we had a different childhood to most. My boyfriend once asked me if I was ever lonely out in the middle of nowhere. The answer is both yes and no.

We were outsiders in most situations. When it came to hanging out with friends, it was always easier for me to go to them than for them to visit me. But for those very same reasons I discovered my independence. Mam and Dad had made the decision to live out in the sticks and as a result, they made sacrifices to make sure we had a social life. But it didn’t take me long to realise that if I offered to get the bus into the city, they could drop me off and get on with their lives and I could do what I liked. Win Win! Lesson 4: Do it for yourself!

When I left School to go to college, I figured moving to the city made sense. So as soon as I could, I found some flatmates and got a job. My first job: Burger King! To excel at this job you needed to be fast and efficient. I was both. I loved to find a system and make it faster. As a result I was promoted fast. Lesson 5: Systems make work easier and more enjoyable

Life was pretty perfect. I had the most amazing social life and was well on my way to becoming a successful actress gaining almost every lead in everything I auditioned for. I was also proving to be a handy technician. I just wanted to be involved, so I would source props, focus lights, make costumes, what ever was needed to get the show done.

On the 16th April 2001, my mam was picking me up to take me back to their place, as it was my little brother’s 16th birthday the next day. It was 1am as I was working a close that night, and mam and dad’s was a 30min drive out of the city. I offered to drive. On the way home, my tyre blew up. I lost control of the car and it cartwheeled front to back and rolled side to side, landing in the central reservation. I can still feel the rolling, my head hitting the road as we do, the taste of dirt in my mouth as the windscreen falls out of the frame, and hear my mam screaming for her mother and as she held my hand I remember thinking it looked like the clasped hands of Thelma and Louise. That moment felt infinite.

We survived.

My mother climbed out of the car window to look for both the dog (who must have flown out of the front window) and help. It took what seemed like an hour for mam to flag someone down: A man on his commute back to Dundee. It was nearly 2am. He held my hand as we waited for an ambulance. I was still in the car, in shock and now convinced I drove like my mother and crying uncontrollably.

My mother failed her driving test five times. Her driving instructor, who she literally paid with buttons that she and my dad had made, retired after her.

To this day, I do not know who that man was. If you ever read this and remember that pyramided red Citroen ZX estate (my first car, built like a tank and it saved our lives) and an 18 year old girl apologising profusely for driving like her mother, then I do not know where to begin to thank you. Lesson 6: Life is too short!

I didn’t listen to number 6. I feared it. Life changed for me that day. I became more distant, not immediately but over time. Looking back over it I see it now. I let my friends drift away from me.

I shut myself off.

I had auditioned for schools in London to study, but I had already started to distrust that world. That world now appeared to be so superficial. Growing up I had felt an outsider I now felt more outside of everything than I had ever felt before. I started to be scared to leave the house.

It was my singing teacher who spotted it. Singing is what I loved the most. She’d known something was off for some time and we’d skirted around it. But that day nothing would come out, she saw the fear on my face and she started to cry. I haven’t really sung since that day.

That day I got help. I was on Prozac for 6 months. But I was getting out of bed and I was facing the world again.

I still loved the Theatre but I couldn’t shake the superficial feeling I felt amongst other actors – I was never interested in cliques. At school it is either follow or be followed. I wanted nothing to do with either. It was people that interested me. If you’ve got time for me, I’ve got time for you. At that age, that’s just considered weird.

People had always said what a good Stage Manager I would make, so I decided to apply for Central School of Speech and Drama’s Stage Management degree.

To my surprise I got in. (I think it was the behind-the-scenes story I told about a Dali picture. In collaboration with Philippe Halsman, Dali wanted to express his fear and fascination with the atomic bomb. The original idea had been to blow up a live chicken and photograph it, but they knew it would be complicated with animal rights, so decided to go with throwing cats and water instead.)

The vocational course at Central was perfect for me. We were essentially Central’s techies for their shows and outside companies used their students in exchange for professional experience.

I still felt outside, I didn’t trust the actors and didn’t think I fitted in with my uni group, but I was enjoying what I was doing.

I wanted to get into working at concerts, events and festivals. After a chat with my tutor, he put me on work experience at a London festival; Paradise Gardens. That is where my life changed again.

I met the most amazing woman who would become my hero and my friend. Before I had finished Uni, I had secured a job at Glastonbury, working the office at the gate where the artists and infrastructure come in.

I was due to do another job for the man I worked for at Glastonbury, running the door for a huge charity ball. After Glastonbury, he told me that my talents would be wasted on the door and introduced me to the founder of the charity. I ran those balls and other events for her for 3 years.

The daughter of the man I worked for on the gates at Glastonbury, was the Artist Liaison to the main stages. She needed a new assistant for the next year and after a recommendation from her dad, offered me the job. I have been Assistant Liaison Manager to the main stages for 4 years now. Between the two of us, we now deal with 6 stages and 10,000 people.

My job has taken me all over the place. I’ve run stages with countless artists, run logistics for Africa Fashion Week in Lagos, and run fashion shows in Marrakech.

The experiences I have had are amazing, but the job is a stressful one and a political one. I find I am giving more and more of myself to the job, and every time, coming home a little more broken. It’s not a job you leave at 5pm and go home to put your feet up. If something isn’t done or isn’t working, you have to fix it then and there. I once did a job where I didn’t stop working for 5 days straight. My boyfriend was bringing me food and clothes and begging me to have a sleep on the couch, just for 5 minutes. But I couldn’t. No job should require someone to go 5 days without stopping.

Glamorous as it is, I was still living hand to mouth. Towards the end of 2012 I started thinking there has to be more to life. When do I start getting to afford time to myself?

In 2010 I met the love of my life. I was very much enjoying my single life. I was not looking for anything serious and actually told him I couldn’t give him anything serious. I wasn’t looking to tie anyone down. “Great! Me neither! Lets just enjoy ourselves.” Three and a half years later, I am head over heels and in a more wonderful, adventurous and honest relationship, than I had ever thought possible. Lesson 7: Real love exists and its totally awesome!

I mention this because Matt showed me there was more to life than working myself into the ground. He showed me that life was to be enjoyed. It was like I’d looked up for the first time and noticed where I was. For the first time I was asking myself: ‘Are you enjoying what you are doing?’ What shocked me the most was that the answer was ‘NO’.

This totally pulled the floor out from under me.

‘Have I wasted my whole life?’

‘I’m nearly 30!! what the hell am I gonna do now?!’

‘Is it too late?’

‘I’ve never done anything else. What are you going to do? Think woman, THINK!!!’

Since then I have felt lost. Little did i know it I was about to get more lost.

Around the 25th March 2013, my mother fell ill. Four days before she was due to retire on her 65th Birthday. Four days before she left her job as a home carer. She had cared for people all of her life, as a co-worker, as a teacher, as a nurse, as a home carer, as a friend. Four days before she took time for herself and her dream to be a puppeteer.

When I was a kid, Mam’s puppet shows were famous. The parents were asking her for encores, never mind the kids. She’d make puppets out of wool and silk and set out an entire world on a table top full of moss and trees and caves and bridges and mountains. They were magical. I had tried for years to tell her that if that was what she really wanted to do, then she should just do it.

And FINALLY she was gonna do it!

On the 1st of April she was admitted hospital. A week later she was diagnosed with Sporadic CJD: A rare form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It is not known how it is caused, only that it is to do with the prions in the brain failing to fold correctly and causing a chain reaction that spongifies the brain.

Specialists from London and Edinburgh came to visit my mother, not because they could treat her, but because they might learn from her. The first specialist told us, there is no treatment and it is fast. How fast they could not tell us, rare cases can live years but for most, it is months. There is a strange amount of hope in that sentence and not in the way you would think. As the brain becomes more affected, her abilities would start to shut down. One day my mother would wake up and may not remember how to swallow, or perhaps not be able to breath.

They could not treat my mother, but they gave us something that I think few have the chance of getting when a loved one is dying.

I mentioned that my mother worked in the Camphill community. In one of the Camphill villages in Aberdeen there was a nursing home; Simeon. I had spent a lot of my childhood running through those halls. A friend at school’s parents had been ‘house parents’ there and we had played in the gardens and eaten our dinners with the residents. My mother had cooked there and had friends who both lived there and were residents.

I think it was the start of the 3rd week of Mam being in hospital. I got a call from a woman who worked there. She was a friend of Mam’s. She wanted us to know that there was a room available and that Mam’s friends were ready to take care of her should we need support.

At first I was shocked, but then I realised, Mam could not come home. Mam and Dad’s house was in the middle of nowhere. She was already staying in the nearest hospital and that was 40mins drive away. To fit the house for her to come home would take longer than she might have. We had no choice but consider a home. There was no better place than Simeon, where people she had known since the 70s would be caring for her.

The CJD Support Network put us in touch with their care co-ordinator, Margaret Leitch. She could provide a care package that would assist us in getting Mam into Simeon. On the 22nd of April 2013, Mam left the hospital and arrived at Simeon. She was received by friends and earlier that day, we had been to decorate the room with all of her things.

My mother died on the 1st of May 2013. Just 9 days later. She died in the arms of her family, who had been given the chance to stay with her in her final days. Lesson 8: Life is too short! Are you listening now?

While I sat with my mother in those 5 weeks, I learned more about her than I had learned in my 30 years. It was important to us that Mam knew how loved she was by everybody, so as a family we made a decision to tell everyone that if they wanted to visit her while they still had time, they were welcome. The stories I heard were amazing, astonishing and beautiful, just like her.

In Simeon, Mam was reunited with her puppetry inspiration, and Matt and I made a friendship that we shall always cherish. Marianne Gorge, is at this moment 92 years old and still hitch-hiking. She would sit with us by my mother’s bedside and tell us stories of her life, all of them starting with something like “I was hitch-hiking through Egypt and…” or “when I was in prison…”. Every one a wonderful adventure, full of enlightenment and wisdom and such passion for life. When Matt asked her what her youthful secret was, she replied “Love the World” Lesson 9: Life is for living!

So this is how I ended up here, my life has been turned upside down and now I really know that I have to make it count. But still, I have no idea what I want to do, what direction to head in or even who to ask, if anyone.

I know I’m good at what I do. My CV alone is proof of my talent and there is so much I can take from that life to use in this next chapter.

I’m both excited and terrified by the concept of this blog, but the idea that it might take me somewhere wonderful is too much to resist and something I know my mother would encourage.

So here I am on the edge of discovery.

Lesson 10:….

Annie-Celeste
London, January 2014