The story of the ‘Cohesion’ album by Pam Dawes
written in 2001 for an assembly at Blessed Thomas Holford School, Altrincham. Reproduced in part in The Big Issue in the North 12/3/01.
Good Fri April 2nd 1999 Geoff Mullarky, MaK Founder, Britannia Inn, Urmston, Manchester. Myself and four mates decide we’ve got to do something. We just can’t just watch TV pictures of increasing suffering of the Albanian people in Kosovo and then get on with our own lives. These are people just like us with kids. The publican agrees. We’ll use the room upstairs in the Brit to store clothes and blankets and somehow we’re going to get it get it over to them.
Fri 9th. Word’s got round. The pub’s completely inundated. Aid’s flooding in on a massive scale and we’re in a crisis ourselves. Where do we put it? How do we sort it? We contact the Co-op. They respond quickly. Within a day have the keys for a huge empty super-market over the road. My sister knows a local church. We agree… ask.
Sun 11th We, the mainly non-church going Brit lads hold a meeting for church leaders! We should be at a crucial MU match (MU are close to winning the Treble). It feels like something extraordinary is happening. The hall’s packed out. Churches and organisations from all over the city, and beyond. Everyone listens to us. 50 collection points are arranged then and there throughout the city. Crucially, financial administration, charity registration and help with the logistics of transporting emergency aid to the Albanian camps has already been offered by Flixton Fellowship, the small church my sister knew.
Mon 12th Pam Dawes, volunteer, Altrincham: Drive over to the co-op, my car laden with black bags.Veronica said my help was needed. I’m so busy already! I’ll go once and do my bit. I’m made extremely welcome, given a name badge, get stuck in sorting, and am supplied with regular drinks from Tom who never gets mistaken about your sugars! Really doing something about Kosovo helps the pain. People are happy here. The commitment and compassion amongst the Urmston men knocks me out…some work all day then come here and work all night. The quantity and quality of aid is overwhelming. Volunteers stream in. Well in fact people call in with donations of food, clothing, blankets and many just stay and work. It may be for their lunch hour or for a 12 hour day. Often they’re back the next day or even after work. Like me. The committee meets in the pub regularly and seems a highly unorthodox mixture of pub and church. I have a foot in both camps but plan to avoid the committee side like the plague.
Mon 24th Veronica sets up a prayer corner where she is sorting hundreds of pairs of shoes (and praying for the protection of each future wearer) Loads of people go to her, for the refugees, for themselves. Home’s hard. Sitting rooms are beginning to look like refuse tips of black bags. We don’t cook we thaw. Phones never stop. Many decide to stop working for money…businesses are neglected. Our own needs seem as nothing next to the the Kosovar people. They are nothing! Every-one is becoming acutely aware of how much we possess but how little we need. I wear the same clothes daily, layer upon layer, dressing in seconds. It’s very cold. Appearance is unimportant. The Urmston guys have a sad red eyed look from exhaustion but the jokes keep coming. And the warmth. Elevated from sorting and packing I’m now on the phone with others high in a kind of control post right in the centre of the floor. Pallets. Chemical toilets. Tin openers. A fork lift truck. Pallets. Nappies. Food. More pallets. First lesson: the sympathetic PA or secretary is the direct route to the boss’s heart…Words of deep compassion and encouragement expressed by strangers. Do the Irish really have the biggest hearts I wonder or do they just express their love? We get everything we ask for and more. We are told to tighten our security. Jill Dando has been murdered after heading up a BBC Kosovo appeal.
Wed 21st Geoff Mullarky, Trieste: I fly out to Italy and cross by ferry to Albania to visit camps. The aid organisations are overwhelmed. It’s the logistics of transportation that’s the nightmare.I need to see what’s needed most and where. They’ll cope at the Co-op.
Thurs 22nd Pam Dawes The army come in plain clothes in the dead of night to help load the artics knowing we need a military operation to cope with this lot.
23rd April Our convoy of 15 HGV’s is to leave the Trafford Centre and then Urmston. I race right across Manchester to collect a donated pallet of crisps (much valued on the long haul across Europe but the drivers are still off crisps!) take some drivers to their wagons at the Trafford Centre then drive in the convoy to collect the medics and support team.. Police escorts, sirens, crowds. Tears and emotional goodbyes to girlfriends and families. A St Christopher thrust into my hand. I hang it from the mirror. For all we know they could be driving 2000miles into a war zone. Albania, their destination and location of the camps, looks precarious. NATO has just bombed a civilian convoy by mistake. Emotional and exhausted after arranging money, food, endless papers, sleeping bags they’re finally off. A young GP, Linda, a volunteer from the church, will negotiate their way across Europe and back consulting tirelessly with police, embassies and port officials.
Little do we know today that we are to collect, sort and distribute another 700 tons of aid. This second leg of the aid programme is led by 73 year old MaK volunteer, Veronica, at our new depot, Manchester Airport Freight Terminal and Veronica will work a 12 hour day for the next 6 months to make it happen.
Sun 25th April We hold a benefit concert at the Trafford Centre. A charming unknown tenor, Russell Watson, headlines and sings his socks off. Local singer Helen sings her own song for the refugees, ‘Let love Live Again’. We have pressed up CD’s to sell. Eamon and I look at each other. The words hardly need to be spoken. We’re going for an album. We’ll pull it off in a couple of months!
Mon 26th Ancona Paul Guest, Manchester Ambulance service para-medic with the convoy Ancona: We had roughed it for 3 days. Now the port was heaving with the constant arrivals of the military taking precedence. If we crossed to Albania we’d been told we could only have a single ticket and there were no guarantees as to when we might return. People were worried. Worried about losing their jobs in England. Everything was falling apart with groups of lads discussing the dilemma and some wanting out. Perhaps we should abandon the loads right here at the dock?
Then our Dr Irvin Allen called us together. ‘I know you guys have totally knackered yourselves for weeks. You have totally knackered yourselves and why? Because you have a hope. That’s the word, hope, to do something which is going to help people who are suffering like you have never seen suffering before. You have got the hope to help. That’s why you’re here’ He was right. It needed saying. Everyone applauded him. Some of the lads cried.
29th April Pam Dawes I meet Eamon at the Brit and we draw up an odd list of possible artists. Will Oasis help? We’ll do some phoning and meet soon. Enquiries to various pop giants seem to get nowhere. Oasis want details and a final track listing. Mick Hucknall has said ‘No’ as he plans to do his own thing. In contrast, a phone call to Manchester’s ‘City Life’ for help results great encouragement and an intriguing list of recommendations: Andy Votel, Doves, Elbow, Badly Drawn Boy, Mr Scruff, Faith and Hope Records, Grand Central. New names to me. But these people are different. They challenge me to explain but then immediately offer help! And music. Eamon hasn’t heard of any of them either except he knows Doves are good. With a look of slight anxiety tells me to get on with it. It is now reported 800,000 Kosovar Albanians have been driven out of the province by Yugoslav forces. The land is ‘cleansed’. Almost.
May 1: I am on the committee! Having seen an appeal for help from MAG the Manchester based Mines Advisory Group I suggest that supporting mines clearance in Kosovo could be a priority for us if we have any money to give. The drivers also want to support a camp director Bob Johnson’s work. There was love in his camp.
May 10: I meet Guy Garvey from Elbow in a bar in the Northern Quarter. Helping me provides an outlet for his intense concern for Kosovo. Elbow arrange for their lawyer, a top London music specialist, to deal with all the album legalities. Guy’s manager sends music a few weeks after our meeting. ‘Noise Box’. It’s the most exquisite EP I have ever heard. Every track is perfection: wonderful lyrics and voice. I watch the clock thinking I shouldn’t call too early. I phone Guy. ‘Is that your voice?’ ‘Yes’ he says shyly. ‘So why are you at home and why am I watching this rubbish pop at Glastonbury on TV?’ I ask…… Silence.
Paul Guest: Every bit of the aid got through to where it was needed. The poverty we saw in Albania and the suffering in the camps changed us as people.
Pam Dawes: The Manchester managers and record companies prove to be a are decisive group. Music begins to drop through the letter box. I start to negotiate my choices then legalities, publishing. At a visit to Factory I am encouraged to contact New Order. New Order! I phone. Gavin (our lawyer) consults with New Order’s manager, an ex-colleague. Members of New Order have befriended refugees evacuated to Manchester. They will give us an unreleased track performed live at the Reading festival. I ask for a Joy Division song.
June 3rd After 11 weeks of bombing Milosevic accepts peace terms
June 5th New Scientist reports an environment contaminated by depleted uranium in Kosovo.
June 12th NATO forces enter Kosovo to begin the task of restoring peace.
June 20th All Serb forces leave Kosovo. Close to a million Kosovar refugees, including several hundred particularly vulnerable families evacuated to Manchester and also many still in hiding in the Kosovo hills begin to dream of a return to their homes. Most will discover their homes have been destroyed.
July I contact MAG and we agree to hold a Cohesion concert in Manchester. My friend and neighbour, writer Paul Abbott, gives me the keys to his central Manchester flat. ‘Use it’ he instructs me. Visit Water’s Edge festival and am introduced to artists by MCR Music who have already agreed to do the Ritz for me. Someone gives me Nova’s phone number. ‘He’ll help you.’
Aug 20th Rebecca gives me ‘Atmosphere’ at a meeting at the old office of Rob’s Records close to the Hacienda. Elbow put me in contact with Tony Crean (‘Help’ album and Travis). He loves the track listing. ‘Keep it Manchester undergroundy. Keep it cohesive’, he advises. ‘The timing’s good.’ Nova also becomes a big support and source of encouragement. ‘This album has to happen’ he often says.
Oct.10th The Ritz, Manchester. Cohesion concert. Bernard Sumner watches the Kosovars dancing in huge circles. The women are glamerous and dramatic. I spot Elbow dancing with little children. Camp Director Bob has joined us. He is emotional as he watches too. This is like a wedding and has not been seen in the camps. ‘They’re beginning to recover’ he says. Andy Votel walks in with Jane Weaver (who is to sing an exquisite set) straight from DJing at ‘Bugged Out’ to do 2 sets for us. They are overwhelmed at the sight of families dancing ‘Are they the same people who were so traumatised?’ Andy later proves to be a major support to me within in the music industry whose kindness knows no bounds.
We need an interpreter. Valter Galica interprets all night. Michael Spencer Jones (Oasis and Verve photographer) comes to take pictures of Elbow but is drawn to the refugees; passionate, dramatic people who have such dignity.
Oct 11th Michael Spencer Jones volunteers to do the CD art work and we visit MAG office and examine mines and sub-munitions
November Meetings with artists continue at Paul’s flat. Guy comes one day and brings Elbow’s just completed first album ‘Asleep in the Back’. I know our track, ‘Scattered’, so Guy suggests he plays ‘Newborn’. I stand transfixed, overwhelmed, moving right next to Paul’s speakers. Paul talks to Guy and I wonder how he can. Later I leave him Elbow, Andy Votel, Waiwan and encourage him to use their work. One day I share with Paul that I feel a fraud in the music industry, I know nothing. He corrects me. ‘You’re like me Pam. In fact you are the only one who knows what you’re doing’. This helps. We talk about Paul’s childhood and how it could be shared. Later it emerged as ‘Shameless’.
Jan 2000 Continue with formalities, liaising with managers, record companies, publishers.
I take Michael to photograph refugees in Manchester. I grab my black velvet dress for a backcloth. Many of the children have been shot. Their beauty and gentleness overwhelm us both.
March Nova and his friend Andy Wood decide to form Collectiv and agree to launch the company with Cohesion. They generously agree to cover most initial costs in advance of any income from sales and the company will also donate all profits to the charity. We agree to a 3 CD set with good packaging.
April I’m shown a poem Kosovar boys I know have written for an assembly at their Altrincham (Manchester) School. Begin to understand that many of the children I have met have suffered gun-shot wounds and are the now motherless survivors of an appalling massacre in Podujeva. Women and children were herded together and shot indiscriminately whilst the fathers were hiding. We re-record the boys at a friend’s studio. They collapse into giggles as one of them continually mispronounces the word ‘stress’ (end piece CD2). We buy sweets and drinks and Adrian shouts out the window to all the passing teenage girls in Stockport, ‘Look! Look! I have coca-cola.’ I love to see them happy. They are grateful for every little thing. The boys teach me some Albanian.
June I am invited to go on a Field Trip to Kosovo with MAG and the Imperial War Museum. Driven the length and breadth of Kosovo on appalling roads (now demined) I visit minefields, hospitals, schools, KFOR centres, and also the apartment of Manchester refugees who have returned. I film continuously The Prishtina Hospital memories will never leave me.. . mine strike victims, a forlorn but serene driver with a seemingly dead hand… a dying child, his whole body heavily bandaged, in Intensive Care, his brother already dead from the same mine-strike incident. Another child dies in front of me… staff throw and thump but he has gone. The head of the hospital asks if I am OK. I feel numb, beyond tears but know I must keep filming. Here is the reality of ethnic cleansing and the legacy of the war it took to end it. I know I will never forget burnt out villages, bombed cities and two little boys who went out to play in the sun one June morning. Distressed, weary young adults sit on the grass near the entrance waiting…waiting. The arms industry, the manufacture and sale for profit of these child killers and the scale of unexploded ordnance lying in farmland, woods, even gardens and playgrounds, the costly legacy of bombing campaigns, begins to hit me. So many big issues up to now I have avoided. I am stunned by the realisation that at the end of the twentieth century one man yielded the power to manipulate people until they believe in their own ethnic superiority to the extent that mass eviction, rape and murder were acceptable. Kosovo is full of exquisitely beautiful, vibrant children. But many are dead. Many young teachers are also dead. Albanian secondary schools were illegal and had to struggle underground for 10 years. Finally many teachers took to arms.
Road accidents are also the cause of death or injury. The roads are a mass of potholes and there are many illegal drivers, paperwork and plates being removed by the Serbs. I found mass unemployment, mass graves, no state benefits, limited food and medicine, no rail service, an erratic water supply, no postal service, a poor telephone service, and people living in tents ….oh and the country is littered with mines and unexploded bombs. But gracious people, street life, and music…music everywhere. As I said it was the trip of a lifetime and it changed my life.
July After approx.1000 tons of aid has been sent we vacate our free warehouse at Manchester International Airport.
August I finalise licensing, legalities and the track listing text. The album is mastered and samplers prepared at the Forge Studio, Oswestry. Most nights the sound–engineer Martyn and I finish at about 2.a.m.then I make the long drive home listening to our work. I love the studio. Martyn and I work together well. He labels up the dats with me as ‘assistant engineer’..the best title I have ever had!
Black September the record company is anxious and says that they are being advised there is too much music on the track listing. Despite battling to retain it all, I lose, though I am able to keep the bulk of the work I value most and successfully negotiate 80 minute long CDs. Martyn and I have to re-do some of our work and I also have to approach all the rejected artists, managers and publishers. Such a painful time when I am exhausted.. I nearly go under.
Sept 24th Milosevic defeated at the polls but resists
Oct 5th Milosevic concedes defeat and is ousted by the DOS reform alliance in a mass uprising.
Jan 2001 Oasis never came up with anything. The door remains open. We have many gems. The new work from canonical bands and the highly musical, emergent Manchester stars is creating huge interest. The music press responds with generous praise.
Jan 28th Elbow Room London Launch. Andy arrives from our amazing manufacturing company The Producers. Hot from the press the product looks and feels excellent. We are all excited. The musicians are knocked out too and then Michael arrives and is equally thrilled with the reproduction of his own painstaking art work. Passionate sets from from Guy and Mark from Elbow, I Am Kloot, Natham with Alpinestars and the legendary Arthur Baker (our host) DJing between live music. The place is packed, the buzz is electric. We speak to loads of people about MAG and MaK. Everyone is interested! Amongst many delightful surprises is Alex, a war artist who finds herself here unexpectedly. She has done mines awareness with kids in Kosovo through football. Impulsively 2 days later she drives herself up to Manchester for the northern launch and also arranges to see MAG. One of many extraordinary new beginnings. We know we will try to work together.
Jan 30th Lowry Manchester Launch. Kathryn and I have liaised with technical, catering and admin staff for a few weeks and scrounged free booze! We proudly stick our great reviews all over the bar which just happens to look out over the new Imperial War Museum North and the Manchester United stadium. It’s a success. 400 -500 invited guests attend, Kosovars, the Brit guys, many MaK volunteers including convoy drivers, many musicians, PR, press. Badly Drawn Boy donates both his beloved woolly hat and his gold disc for ‘The Hour of Bewilderbeast’ (perhaps the most highly acclaimed album of the year 2000) and later bids for his own donated hat buying it back for £1500 at auction. Stunning music all night with one of the most amazing sets from an 18-piece Homelife. The Lowry staff do absolutely everything within their power to make it a success… ….and then offer more.
Feb 9th Visit school with the children. Their small room full of laughter..the boys sign posters and albums and decide to add ‘peace’ in Albanian. They like the album. Jehona tells me she loves ‘Not Enough?’ most. Melanie sings of ‘the child, with no parents to speak of, from where will the love come?’ Now motherless Jehona regularly visits a Manchester hospital for her own gun shot wounds. The school infer the album has been good for the children in that it has given them a voice. The children all love Damon… ‘he is rich but he looks poor?… he paid so much for his hat…he sang for Kosova‘. I tell them the hat is special, knitted by a grandma now dead. They are all strangely silent and I realise how close this brings him to their own experience. Do they wear treasured garments knitted by their murdered mothers? A remarriage and new baby in one family has brought great joy. I tell them Damon has a baby girl. They laugh. They have a brand new friend who cares about Kosovo and their pain. ‘And he has a baby too!’
Feb 15th Drop a card off at Damon’s house from the children with a portrait of him on the front and numerous messages of thanks and congratulations on the birth of his baby girl. They were thrilled to see him on TV. ‘He’s really famous!’
16th Feb A coach containing Serb families visiting Podujevo, part of a 7 coach convoy escorted by Swedes, is bombed by Albanian extremists close to Gate 3.
19th Feb Cohesion hits the shops. I film with Doves and Guy Garvey at their Salford rehearsal studio for BBC News tonight. On camera Jimi says the project is ‘worthy’. The feature is strong, opening with film footage of mine strike victims and Princess Diana and ending with Badly Drawn Boy.
Feb 21st Doves leave for a massive tour of America. I wonder will Jimi think of a new song during long hours on the tour bus.
Feb: 23rd A phone link is set up with Newsbeat and Jo Whiley (Radio 1) and Doves in Miami. Coldplay are ill and Doves will headline tonight. Newsbeat praise ‘Cohesion’.
Feb 25th Rade Markovic, former head of Secret police and member of the Milosovic inner circle arrested in Belgrade. A key aid, Markovic is likely to be used to build up the case against Milosevic.
Feb 26th Gavin, our lawyer phones. He loves the album. Finally it’s there! I tell him without his input it would never have happened. Incredibly, after so much work for so little, he says he’ll be happy to help with a new War Museum project.
Feb 27th I’m invited to speak at an assembly Mass at the Kosovar children’s school. Everyone I mention it to wants to come along, MaK, MAG and musicians. ‘Cohesion’ continues to evolve and grow. Muslim children in a Catholic school with a Protestant giving the address. So is that what ‘Cohesion’ is about? For now anyway. God knows where we’ll end up?
Mar 30th 2000 near Belgrade, Milosevic arrested on charges of corruption and embezzlement. ‘The Butcher of the Balkans’ is described as being responsible during his decade in power ‘for misery in Europe unseen since the Second World War’ Daily Telegraph 31.3.01
Special thanks to all who volunteered as packers, loaders and drivers, to all the individuals and companies who all who donated goods and money to Kosovo through MaK, and to those contributing in every way to the Cohesion album. All net profits to projects in Kosovo including MAG, re-building and widow support.
On 11 March 2006 – former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic dies in his cell at The Hague. (ICTY)
Seven Years On 2006 – watch Elbow, Badly Drawn Boy, Graham Coxon, I Am Kloot and Lou Rhodes at Cohesion Live Platt Fields, Manchester, with Real fresh TV
Twelve Years On 2011 – Elbow play Glastonbury Pyramid Stage with U2 and Coldplay. MaK release their second album ‘Ten’ and the charity’s first vinyl record.
Thirteen Years On 2012 – Elbow produce the BBC Olympics theme and perform at the closing ceremony in London.
