EULOGY FOR TRICIA SLATER Tribute Podcasts

I spent a lot of years with a scattergun approach to life, doing a bit of this and a bit of that, but always leaning towards my creative side. I worked for BBC Radio Drama, wrote and directed plays, self published a novel, trained and then practised as an Alexander Technique teacher, and wrote marketing materials for small companies, to name a few. Then the unthinkable happened, I became a full time carer for, and then lost, my lovely husband. Life didn�t seem all that appealing for a while, and I decided I needed to find a focus, to try to rekindle my enthusiasm. So I am now half way through an MA in Writing for Performance and Publication at Leeds University.

Wading through the treacle of grief, I started off trying to write very serious and worthy pieces, only to be told that they were funny. It seemed the more serious I thought I was being, the more people were finding amusing in the things my characters were saying. So I have come to the conclusion that embracing the comedy in life is no bad thing, and hence my contribution to Tribute.

I had the idea during a dispute with my neighbour, who can be very awkward. At the same time, many of my friends were experiencing awful problems with their neighbours. There was the woman who was obsessive about where other people parked their cars, the man who couldn�t bear for anyone else to build anything, reporting everyone around him to the planners, even though he happily went round building all sorts without any sorts of permissions, and the woman who helped herself to other people�s gardens, manicuring them neatly like a municipal park, whether or not the garden�s owner liked it that way. The stress that went along with these disputes as they escalated brought with it awful misery. Knowing where I had been emotionally in the last couple of years, I could well imagine how a neighbour of such awfulness as the Tricia of my piece could impact upon the emotional wellbeing of all around her, especially if the setting was a small row of terraces cut off from the outside world. So this was the starting point for my piece - a woman trying very hard not to show her relief at the passing of her awful neighbour. I hope you enjoy it.