MALDWYN POPE

‘YOUR SONG SAVED OUR LIVES…BUT’

It was back in May 2020 as lockdown started to bite that the number of domestic abuse cases started to soar.

One of the songs of Mal’s recently released album ‘Butterfly’, told the story of one such woman. 

‘You Are Not Alone’ was soon picked up for use in a National campaign to promote The LIFE FEAR FREE helpline. #youarenotalone

 Women, and men, wanted to share their stories.  It was one woman, who Mal refers to as Jane Doe, who really made Mal think.

‘Your song saved our lives…but’.

For years she had lived in constant fear of a violent attack, usually verbal, occasionally physical. But she felt the opening lines  were wrong.

In Mal’s song the woman packs her bags and waits until the morning.  Jane told Mal that if she had packed a bag, and it had been found, she didn’t believe that her partner would ever have allowed her or her little girl to leave that house. It was the next part of the story that broke Mal’s heart. 

Jane had called her parents asking for help and they had basically told her she had made her bed… and she had to lie in it.

Even though the song is entitled ‘SO SAD’ it really is a song of hope. You can be strong enough to walk away.

What Jane wanted Mal, and all of the other victims of domestic abuse, to know is that it is possible to break the cycle. 

There are people, strangers, who will stand by you, help to pick you and to start again.