For Claire…
Our wonderful friend and team member, Claire Mannion, passed away on Monday, 16th January, from leukaemia. We miss her and wanted to pay tribute to an incredible member of our small group.
Claire Mannion, EA Writing Team 2018-2023
Becoming a part of our team…
Claire was an integral part of the Writing Team and focused on the importance of storytelling to help create empathy. She joined us after her daughter took part in Desperate Journeys at Tonbridge Girls Grammar School. The event left a strong impression on both Claire and her daughter, and led Claire to offering her time to help grow the work here.
A talented writer…
We quickly saw what a talented writer Claire was and were grateful for the opportunity to use her gift. Claire’s compelling compassion flowed through her blogs as well as her own projects, and she worked especially hard to keep a bright light shining for Empathy Action during the long periods of lockdown - even when she first became ill.
Claire was a beautiful writer who understood the potential of language:
But getting the small stuff right was also crucial for Claire: she was (as we fondly recall) Queen of the Word Count; Defender of the Semicolon; and Seeker of the Perfect Phrase. As a shortlisted writer for the Primadonna Prize, Claire admitted: “Writers tend to want things to be absolutely perfect.”
However, when she found the right words, she often credited them to others.
More than just a writer…
Behind the scenes at Empathy Action, Claire’s personality, exemplified by her incredible smile, was impossible to resist. Her sense of fun was infectious, she was curious-minded and insightful, and she was thoughtful and kind. She would often share articles or quotes that she’d found inspiring, and she always pitched them with the recipient in mind: “This made me think of you!” was a frequent message. The reason Claire could do this with such uncanny accuracy was that she really, really listened; she knew when to be quiet, and she knew when to speak.
First and foremost for Claire came family, and she was an amazing hands-on mum to her two children. She had a seamless knack for knitting Empathy Action into her domestic life: “Just hanging out the washing and then I’ll publish. 😀(Living the dream 😉).” She also had a wonderful, down-to-earth messaging style: “Cool beans!” is a sign-off we’ll never forget.
Claire’s love of people and fascination with the human condition informed her vocation as a writer and fed into every avenue of her life. She knew that: “Where there are people, there’s a potential for connection.”
A valued member of our team…
All of us at Empathy Action and beyond will feel Claire’s loss deeply. And yet it is because of Claire’s love of life and language that we can hold onto her words and wisdom and vitality, and remember how much we must hold onto each other:
For Claire…
In the weeks, months and years to come we will surely see articles, read poems and hear podcasts which we’ll want to share with Claire and say: “This made me think of you!” She will be sorely missed. But if we try hard to listen, we might hear what she’d have to say.
Claire once shared Joe Biden’s recital of Seamus Heaney's poem from ‘The Cure at Troy’, and it somehow seemed apt to highlight Heaney’s own reading here:
Heaney’s poem, ‘Postscript’, also reminds us of her.
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open
