Coping with a cancer diagnosis requires the support of loved ones, so when Sim Pattison’s girlfriend was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the young singer-songwriter couldn’t think of a better way to support her than writing a song.
Sim wrote Ellie’s Song two years ago when, at the age of just 17, his girlfriend Eleanor Sedgewick was diagnosed with the rare cancer.
The 20-year-old Needham Market lad met Eleanor at Stowupland High School, and they began going out just a few months later.
Eleanor, who is now 19 and from Elmswell, had to undergo six months of chemotherapy and happily she is now in remission.
“It was obviously such a hard time and I wasn’t really sure how to react except knowing that I had to be strong for her,” said Sim. “It’s not about me it’s about Ellie and that was my thinking.
“At the time of the diagnosis I was just starting a music course so I had just started writing songs. Ellie’s Song was the second song I had ever written.
“Every song-writing piece of advice I had been given was to write about personal experiences and, even though it was a hard time, I wrote down all of my feelings and made it into a song.”
Sim wrote most of the song in a 15-minute flurry, however he then hit a block and for several weeks he didn’t know how to finish it.
“I just blocked and didn’t know where to go with it, but then it came to me,” he said.
In another spell of inspiration Sim finished the song and performed it for Eleanor and her family.
When she heard it Ellie cried, said Sim, “She loved it and her mum loved it and everyone loved it because they could relate to it, and everyone who knew me and what we were going through could relate to it so there were lots of tears, but also a release.
“As hopeless as I felt watching a loved-one going through cancer, it felt like something I could do to help.”
Sim will perform Ellie’s Song and more of his material at a concert in aid of CLIC Sargent later this month.
Tickets are available online and all of the show’s profit will go to CLIC Sargent.
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