THE frontman of Scottish band Constant Follower has revealed how the poetry of Norman MacCaig helped him recover from an unprovoked attack that left him partially paralysed.
Stephen McAll was just 17 years old when he was jumped by a gang of men in Glasgow who knocked him out, then took turns jumping from a wall onto his head until they were stopped by passers-by.
The catastrophic head injuries left him partially paralysed and unable to write or play guitar and with no memories of his childhood.
A formerly promising student, he could no longer concentrate on his school work and “pretty much dropped out”.
Speaking to the Sunday National after the Stirling five-piece became the first band to record a live session on top of the Wallace Monument, McAll said the poems were initially the only prose he could follow.
Prior to the attack, when he excelled at school, his English teacher had given him MacCaig’s (below) book of poems, The World’s Room. Some time afterwards, he picked it up and realised he could take time to try to understand each line.
“In poetry, a line is like a story in itself, so it was like reading in a way I could grasp, and my imagination began to expand from all of these wonderful stories within stories and poems within poems,” he said. “In a way it was how I learned to read again. And it was the catalyst for me to pick up a pen and write my first song.”
Eighteen years on from the attack, McAll is still weak on his left side and also suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and debilitating cluster headaches.
“That’s the most painful condition known to man, according to the Migraine Trust,” he said. “In the USA, they call them suicide headaches because of the high incidence of people taking their own lives, but I’ve found a way to manage my life around this to some extent.
“Did I recover fully? I haven’t, and probably never will, but everything that’s happened up until now has made me the person that I am and brought me to this life with my family, my daughters. It’s funny to say, but I feel the luckiest man alive… and I see the happy days ahead.”
While poetry and music have contributed to his ongoing recovery, the attack and its consequences, he says, have little to do with his music.
“The songs are of themselves, but if people would like to think I’m writing about my past, I don’t mind,” said McAll.
Constant Follower, who released their debut album last year to critical acclaim, have now treated their fans to a unique recorded live session on the top of the Wallace Monument, featuring tracks from the album, Neither Is, Nor Ever Was.
For McAll, it is especially poignant.
“I don’t remember my childhood, but my mum took lots of photographs, and I look so happy in the pictures of us at the Wallace Monument,” he said. “I see how magical it is for my own children – the building, the mythology, the huge sword – and can only think it must have been the same for me.
“I see it every day when I open my curtains and wonder what it would be like to play up in the crown overlooking the city and why no one had done it already, so it was a great surprise and an honour when Stirling Council made it happen. To be able to play while stretching our eyes over this beautiful landscape – sometimes it was hard to sing for the lump in my throat.”
The film, directed by Martin J Pickering, was made with support from the PRS Foundation.
Pickering, who is one of McAll’s oldest friends, said he wept when he watched the edit of the “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
“On a good day, Stirling has the most beautiful light,” he said. “It’s shimmery, golden and silver and just amazing for photography and film. It was a physical and brutal shoot because it was freezing and extremely windy, but that all lent itself to an amazing end result on camera. I cried when I watched my edit back.”
Constant Follower are currently gearing up for a string of concerts across Scotland in October, while McAll has just finished a collaboration album with Scottish musician Scott William Urquhart, which features a couple of MacCaig’s poems, spoken by MacCaig himself.
“We managed to get audio recordings of his voice,” said McAll. “That will be out in spring and is a real moment for me. Something coming full circle.”
