To end the demonstrations, which began three months ago. Now on bbc news, blind comedian Chris Mccausland hosts a comedy and storytelling show featuring funny and fascinating stories told by disabled people and those with Mental Health difficulties. This programme contains discussion of adult subjects and some strong language. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host for tonight. Chris mccausland applause hello, ladies and gentlemen welcome to ouch storytelling live at the Edinburgh Fringe my names Chris Mccausland. I am blind, that is what qualifies me to be here tonight. Thats a question i get asked a lot. People ask me whats it like being blind . Is it like nothing . No, its not. I imagine everything in me head. I live in a fantasy world, you know . And its not a conscious thing, i dont try to conjure it up in me head, its like a unconscious thing. I summon this imagination around me at all times. Maybe i did used to be able to see in my brain tries to function visually, i try to picture it, but im wrong about everything. Im wrong about everything all the time. The world in my head, i mean first of all, it is built on assumptions and deductions based on what i can tell and hear and feel and then all the gaps are filled in with pure flights of abstract imagination. Im wrong about everything. Im wrong about what people look like. And you will do this yourselves to an extent. You know . You be at home, youll have the radio, someone will be on. And then you see a photograph of what they look like and you will be wrong, because people dont sound bald or hairy, do they . My wife said to me if you got your sight back tomorrow what is the first thing you would want to see . Of course its my daughter sophie. Because its notjust what she looks like that im missing out on, its all the wonderful, interesting and Amazing Things that shes been doing and she does. It started with the crawling and the walking and the jumping and dancing in the dressing up, the drawing, the smiles, all the smells, of course it sophie. My wife said good. And i would be second, would i . I said yeah, yeah, you can be second. And she said, second . I said it depends. Are we counting Mohamed Salah in this . Hes doing things i cant imagine. Every day of my life i was a good see my daughter, every week of my life i could wish i could see Mohamed Salah. She said i cant believe you love salah more than me, i said no, i love you the same. Its hard to keep up the innovations, the inventions, its all getting more and more. There are still a few things you cant get, you cant do wheres wally, thats not an audio book. Not wally, not wally, not wally not wally. A bloke that looks like wally, but no, hes not wally. Moving down to row two, not wally, not wally. Wally not wally, not wally. He was in the top left, just because you find him early doesnt mean you dont have to listen to the rest of the picture. We have a series of storytellers today who each have a disability or a Mental Health difficulty. Some of these guys have never been on stage before. The theme this year is lost and found and weve let them interpret that however they want. The only criteria is that the stories are all true. So guys, let me ask, are you ready for your first storyteller of the show . Yes please welcome Janine Hammond applause youre going to have to brace yourselves for this one. Ive lost my nipples. Its really annoying, because nipples are really great, arent they . They feed your babies, theyre little pleasure domes, and they warn you when you need to wear a coat. I mean, its not all bad, is it . Because the fleshy bits of the breast are surely the best bit, arent they . Except ive lost those as well, im so careless. I have got something going on here, those at the front might notice it, its not my socks in my bra just to let you know, i havent got prosthetic breasts or anything or implants, hold on for this one, ive got flaps. Yeah, ive got flaps. Now the reason i say that is im a ex nurse and in the world of medicine, we love abbreviations, we love acronyms, we love all that sort of things, we havent got time to say the big words. So ive got tram flaps, nothing to do with trams. That would be weird, isnt it . They are tram, because they stand for your transrectal abdominus muscle, so youve got two, thats like your sixpack, i dont know if many of you have seen a sixpack, but anyway, its part of your sixpack. Ive only got a four pack because two of my muscles are in my chest. Weird, i know. And it basically takes two surgical teams to do the operation. So ive single handedly drained the nhs in my local area. Basically, the top team take your breasts off and the cancer, that is the key bit, and then the other team split you from hip to hip and take the whole front flap of your abdomen off. Its a lovely, gory operation and they basically pull the muscles up with all their blood supply and nerve endings and then a just pad you out and make breasts. Its amazing. Now, the first time i had Breast Cancer it was triple negative, but in those days it wasnt even called triple negative, theyjust called it invasive cancer. So i was 32, my kids were little, ijust started a newjob, and of course lifes like that, isnt it . Fast forward 15 years, and i find myself in my local hospital, a different surgeon walks in this time, its been 15 years. He bounces in and he goes, well, its back. And i thought, well, hes got a nice bedside manner, doesnt he . Thanks, mate. So i knew what i wanted him to do because id have 15 years to think about it. I said can you do the operation in one go . And he said yeah, i can do that. 12 years under anaesthetic i woke up and i tell you, that operation stings. So it takes a long time to get over that and weird things happen to your body after this operation that they dont tell you about. So it feels like ive got a bowling ball in my stomach. It looks like ive got a bowling ball in my stomach but ive had scans and i definitely havent got it. Its just crisps. I know weird this time i had a different chemo, we like a selection. I had fuc. Its easy to say that. It also left me bloated like a sumo wrestler. I had to go to the pain clinic and i had a lot of medication, but they suggested, why dont we do mindfulness, and i thought oh, that will be good. Ill give that a go, that will work, but somehow, trying to meditate with ten other people in what was effectively a storeroom, itjust didnt work for me. So i said to the psychologist, this mindfulness doesnt work for me and she said, oh, lets think of Something Else that might help. And i noticed that i like to make up stories, ive got a weird imagination, and i ended up starting to write stuff. And that was really nice, so i put a play on not long ago and i have some stuff coming up in manchester, which is lovely. But, lets go back to my nipples because. I am not happy about something here. I said to my surgeon, what about nipples . And he said, oh, theyre a faff. A faff . thats what he said, they are a faff. You spent 12 hours slicing and dicing me like the bride of chucky you put me together and then you say its a faff . Thats not right, is it . He said, well, you know, i can do thm but, you know. The registrar said, janine, theres one thing you need to know. When you make nipples, they have to really stick out, when we make them, because they do shrink back. So youre always like, pointy . I was like oh, god, i cant be pointy so i was given some prosthetic nipples. Theyre just stick on nipples. Thats what they are. And i thought, you know what, i cant wear them. What if they came unstuck and worked their way up and i was talking to someone and they were all youve got a nipple on your neck it would be even worse if you were single and it got stuck on someone else. The only time ive worn my nipples is i wore one nipple on the middle of my forehead and i did my david bowie circa ziggy stardust impression to cheer myself up and they do it quite regularly, if im honest. So when i wrote this little play, there a method in my madness, i thought im going to write for the first time about a female who has had my operation but she is single and has to reveal herself every time a relationship fails, and she would have to start again, so i thought that was awful but. In the middle of the play she has to stick the nipple on her forehead and does her best ziggy. Now, most theatres dont stock prosthetic nipples, in fact they dont stock them at all. So my nipples get supplied for my actresses to do this, which has meant a very exciting chapter in my life because i get e mails now saying janine, please can i have your nipples . Yeah, i like to open those e mails on a packed train when i know someone is reading over my shoulder. Ill just say, today, someone is coming to collect my nipples, no lie, ive got them with me, and they then taken to manchester so they can appear on another actress head for another three day run, im kind of resentful. My nipples are appearing in theatres without me. Theyre having a life of their own. They are neglecting me. I think they are going to get an agent and they are going to dump me, i really do. So, when i said to you ive lost my nipples, i have. Ive lost them to cancer, and ive lost them to the fickle world of show business. Thank you. Applause well, ladies and gentlemen, Janine Hammond i am a comedian, and my disability is so new it hurts like new shoes. The attachments to my ears are called shoes. They do cost a fortune. They do pinch like hell, but it is worth it, they make me feel amazing, and confident. The first time i noticed anything was wrong, i am on stage, what happened is, i am a performer and i am on stage, and i am being hilarious, absolutely bloody hilarious, but didnt have a clue why, right . I was not intending to be. It turns out that when i was talking to people in the audience i was repeating back completely the wrong thing, i would be like, hey, sir, how did you meet your wife . You met her in a cuban trans club, did you . Turns out he had met her in transit in cuba. My hearing had gone to my left ear and it was quite simple, and i was told it was just the one ear, and you can adapt, i got a hearing aid, it was fine, it was all cool, it is pretty easy with one hearing aid for moderate to medium hearing loss. Two years ago, i took on a commission, it was for a play to be written over four months. And during those four months my right ear hearing started to go, my right ear. The good ear. And i went back to the emt and they told me that obviously the hearing is now going, it will be permanent, but they cant tell me how long i have got. They have no explanation of why the hearing is going. I get fitted for a new set of hearing aids. These hearing aids are horrendous, they are awful. They have wires sticking out of them, i look like an 0od from doctor who. The silence is deafening if i take them out. 0n the other hand if i put them in, oh my god, when did the world get so scary and loud and tinny . It is so loud and horrible. They told me they dont know how long i have got with my hearing. Over the course of those four months, my hearing went day by day by day, as i wrote my play. And i am now profoundly deaf. And it is horrendous, i am alone in my own head, right . And i cant hear anything. And people are starting to treat me like an idiot. Basically they are starting to treat me like i was when i was an immigrant, when i came to this country. Six years old i got earaches all the time, but they stopped when i arrived here. And they are treating me like an immigrant now. I had just come out of a gig, and this guy comes over and started to have a conversation with us. And i think he must have come from my show, and judging by his smiling face, clearly loved the show, oh, the ego of the performer. And the thing is, i think, what a lovely, sweet, friendly man. As a performer, i am a tad needy. So a man, right, who is smiling at me, literally has me at hello. My friend saw the guy, walking behind me from the street, not from the gig as i had assumed, she sees me walking behind me and she comes up and heard him say look at you two, look at you two why dont you go back to where you came from . Wow, there is one bonus out of all of this, which is that i dont actually have to hear racist bigots outside comedy clubs anymore. All i have to do is just turn my hearing aids off and smile at them. Thank you. Applause ladies and gentlemen, shajila kershie keep the enthusiasm going and welcome to the stage, thomas leeds my name is thomas and i am a writer, which is something i never thought i would be able to do. What i love about writing is that i can give my stories a beginning, middle and an end. They make sense. They feel complete. Unlike my own life story. Surprise, i have a brain injury. Hard to tell, as i like to keep my brain on the inside. I survived a nasty Road Accident when i was 19. I was very luckyjust to wake up, i had broken my back, but though it was painful i could walk and talk, which was amazing. But a lot was missing. I was alive, but not the boy who had crossed the road that night. He was gone. I had lost my childhood memories. Nowadays, you might not know i have a disability. When i am having a good brain day, which is how i keep managing to blagging my way through life as if i have a clue what everyone is going on about. But other days it can be hard. The scar tissue in my brain caused me to have seizures, and i can no longer recognise people. I struggle with noises and smells, and i get very tired. But it is not all bad, i have a very cool scar which my three year old loves to poke. It has affected my long term memory but my short term memory is temperamental too. My wife now that i have a catchphrase, when i have forgotten something, i often insist, i would think i would remember that. Apparently when i have set it on the morning that i am convinced that someone else has eat my breakfast, even though ijust made it for myself. I say it on mornings when i have gone through half a bottle of shower gel even though i am pretty sure i havent even washed my face yet. And she is still laughing about the day i called her into the room with great excitement because our two year old had somehow dressed herself perfectly. My daughter was making a little face silly daddy, you just dressed me yeah, i think i would remember that i have come a long way since my accident, but i will take you back 16 years to the start of my search for all those lost memories. There was 2003, there was a lot going on and so much to learn. I was learning so much about trying very hard to remember and it took me a while to realise just how much i had lost. That is the thing about amnesia, you dont really know how much you have forgotten until people start telling you the things you should know. And i kept telling them, i think id remember that. I started my journey with a lot of hope. I was trying to catch up to everybody else who was born in the 80s and 90s in london, that something or someone or someplace might unlock some of those memories. I went to all the places i have been to as a child, all the parks and shops and my old schools, but nothing was coming back to me. I went to places we had been to on holiday, and travelled the tube and all the routes are used to take in my teens, still nothing. I went through all the pictures i had drawn, letters i had written, and went through every hilarious photograph of me in my adolescence and various phases and styles, and still nothing. And even in all the time i was being retrained as a fully acceptable british adult, nothing was ringing any bells. Nothing, when i was schooled in the essential english custom of beginning and ending every conversation with sorry. Nothing when learning thatjohn lennon and lenin were not the same person. I knewjohn lennon was political but i had to wonder. My family was teaching me that as a fully grown british adult i didnt need to hug people so much or cry so much or be quite so excited on christmas eve. My family have been so supportive, and they tried everything to help me regain those early years. But as time was going on, the boy with my name in so many stories and in photographs remained another person in another world. The first few years it did not really bother me so much, all my siblings and friends were so young, and everything was about the present. But as our 20s ticked by, things started to change. With our parents pushing 70, suddenly childhood was everything, and soon i could not go a day without hearing remember that summer, and remember those holidays, and it started to feel very unfair. I had lost so much of ourfamily life, those early years that make us who we are. Im going to stop, sorry. Sorry. Applause it is really weird that i am so forgetful today. Im doing better than i thought i would. 0n the eve of my 30th birthday, and the decade of searching my brain drew to a close, i decided tojust try and accept that it was gone forever. I had a Bright Future ahead of me, about to marry the girl i loved, so i decided to focus on that, and face the big 30 with optimism. We were planning a 1980s themed birthday party, because i was born in 1983, and i started to put together a playlist of suitably abysmal 80s music. I started going through all the tracks, it was late, i went to bed i put my headphones in and shut my eyes. I started going through the music, track by track. Adding each song to the playlist. After ten years of radio, i knew each track by heart, but then i pressed skip one more time, and that is when it happened. The most surreal moment of my life. A song i had somehow not heard in all that time, the whole of the moon by the waterboys began to play. Song plays and i was transported. Suddenly i was sitting on a strange blue floor staring at a silver stereo, then suddenly i was in another place, and walking in bright Sunshine Holding a giant mans hand beside the fence. And in a flash i was in another curious place, and another, and another, until i suddenly saw some coloured glass light and an enormous christmas tree. Near the tree, standing in the doorway, there was a woman. She was young, she was smiling, and she didnt have grey hair. She was my mum. And i was her little boy. And it was real. I was finally there with her at last. Its such a short moment and nothing much was said, but it is mine, and that changed everything for me. Since then, a few more early memories have come back, not many, but at least now i can face the rest of my story with something ofa beginning in my mind. 0k it was that magical night that inspired me to start writing. I always leave blank pages in my books, not just because i am lazy, but because the hero has epilepsy and a brain injury like me, and when he forgets a part of his life, it doesnt stop him being the hero on the next page. He is still in the adventure, he is not lost. I am still on my adventure, and i am now even more obsessed with all things 80s and 90s. My wife has very mixed feelings about this, particularly the music. But it is a new chapter and we are now making new happy memories with our little girls who now play in the same parks i am told i played in at their age. I am still going to have seizures and get frustrated with my dodgy memory, including today. But at least now i can put my thoughts down on paper and know they will still be there for me tomorrow. This has been amazing, sharing my story with all of you here at fringe on the bbc, a truly unforgettable experience. And next week, when i have forgotten it. Laughter please think of my wife as i am telling her i think i would remember that. Applause what an amazing story, make some noise for thomas leeds. Applause make some noise for everyone you have seen today you have seenJanine Hammond, shajila kershie, thomas leeds. Thank you for being an amazing audience. Good night, thank you applause this time last week we were saying goodbye to hot Continental Air which had lifted temperatures above 30 celsius in some spots is inevitably cool air celsius in some spots is inevitably coolaircame celsius in some spots is inevitably cool air came back from the atlantic and looking at the jet stream, coming across the atlantic towards us, it is the atlantic influenced weather that stays with us, occasional dips in the jet stream will bring low pressure systems rein oui will bring low pressure systems rein our way, will bring low pressure systems rein ourway, rain at will bring low pressure systems rein our way, rain at times, not all the times and a lot of it will affect northern and western parts of the uk but all of us will see rain at some stage of the week. It will be breezy and temperatures even below average for the time of year. This is our monday shaping up and some of the rain coming into scotland will be heavy, especially in the west. That moves further across scotland, further rain in Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland and north wales and wales in the south west could be drizzly in the hills but much of the midlands, east anglia and south east england will stay dry and at least the start of the week sea temperatures come up a couple of degrees compared to what we had with sunday. Looking to tuesday, further weather fronts coming our way and whenever you see these you know there will be cloud and some rain at times, and most of it on tuesday towards the north and west of the uk, and as you can see, not raining all the time and the further east you are in scotland and england it might stay mainly dry and you could see some sunny might stay mainly dry and you could see some sunny spells especially in the east anglia and south east england, and may be lifting the temperatures further, 2a in the warm spots with tuesday the warmest day of the week. The mid week onwards, temperatures come down and on wednesday, that is because of a cold front moving through, and look at the isobars tilting round to the north is the cool air comes back and look at the flow of air and the wind arrows, in fact are northerly in northern scotland. Early rain which might be welcome in south east england, further showers run through scotla nd england, further showers run through scotland and Northern Ireland and northern england, just 12 or 13 degrees in northern scotland, 20 in the south east and these are temperatures trending below average for the time of year. For thursday after another chilly start, a lot of sunshine around, cloud bringing some showers and northern scotland later in the day and thats as another western weather system comes and carried on thejet western weather system comes and carried on the jet stream and takes outbreaks of rain as we go through friday and then another cooler air push behind that. Monday looking like this, outbreaks of rain pushing south and then a few showers to follow. A lot of attention at the moment on the other side of the atla ntic moment on the other side of the atlantic on a catastrophic Hurricane Dorian impacting the bahamas and this is how it looked on the satellite picture, and look at the distinct ie, always a sign of the power of a hurricane but there are Big Questions about what happens after the devastation that it wrought in the bahamas. Its going to move to the west, then take a turn to the north, and when that turn to the north, and when that turn to the north, and when that turn to the north happens, it will affect how much of the usa feels the force of dorian. It might not make la ndfall force of dorian. It might not make landfall but it will bring big impacts to the south east, and then by next weekend, look how it accelerates by next weekend, look how it a ccele rates a cross by next weekend, look how it accelerates across the atlantic, what is left of dorian, carried on the jet stream and it might end what is left of dorian, carried on thejet stream and it might end up near iceland with a trailing weather and coming back across the uk. If that were to happen, the impact on the uk would be negligible compared with the truly awful weather that is happening in the bahamas at the