Sarah Jay Hawley - Mary Did You Know
Channel: Sarah Jay Hawley
Date: 2021-12-24

Sarah Jay “SJ” Hawley's haunting vocals and uplifting melancholic songs tap into the deep stuff. Trip Hop band Massive Attack called upon her to write and sing “Dissolved Girl” on Mezzanine and “Wire”, movie soundtrack to “Welcome to Sarajevo”. 

Then The Light (Christmas 1975) 
Excerpt from Sarah Jays memoir “Zen, Drugs n Rock n Roll”.
As a kid, Christmas was crazy. We suffocated under tinsel, paper chains and hanging stars. Cupboards were stuffed full of food, that we weren’t allowed to touch til the Christmas gorge-fest. Mum n Dad (Duke and The Duchess) played and drank their asses off in Skegness clubs and bars, every single Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year throughout my childhood.
From as young as I can remember we were left in alone at night. Sometimes they forgot to lock us in and weirdos would wander into our room. Being a Mum myself I’ve no idea why they did this, especially after what happened to Steffi and Andy? But on Christmas Eve, they’d leave our door open so me and Ray could rise at dawn and climb onto their bed, light the coal fire and fight over who’d peel the gooey eyeliner and eyelashes clinging onto Mums tired eyes. Pillow cases full of sweets, games, paints, nuts and tangerines, hand-made clothes for us and our dolls. All second hand, re-conditioned, re-claimed and scrubbed up. Full of love and guilt. We ate Christmas dinner in Auntys’ flat in the basement, squeezing at least fifteen people round the make shift table. Cousins and girlfriends and boyfriends, old people from up the road, maybe a tramp or two and stragglers from the pub. Engrossed in some art project or other, I’d hide and watch, joining in with the sing-songs. Everyone had a voice. It was  a noisy, messy and boozy family occasion. Uncle would drag Danny Boy out of the closet. After too much rum he’d lurch at my budding breasts with his bony yellow nicotine stained  fingers shouting, “when are ya fried eggs gonna turn into boiled ones?”
Some Christmases are more memorable than others – like the one in 1975. The day before Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night, sirens woke up the whole street. I'll never forget standing out on the street on a cold winter pavement in bare feet, warm in the heat from the furnace, watching number nineteen, (Grandads other house) burn like a house made of straw. As flames licked the brick, the blue paint coiled and turned black. I heard the budgies final tweet coming from the ground floor flat. Phyllis and Arthur emerged from the basement, coughing and spluttering. Old Bettie wasn't so lucky. The firemen arrived. We all stood back as hoses closed in on screams from the flats. Thank God Kate (who lived in the attic) was still out drinking eh? Saved by the booze for a change. “Time for bed girls, come on, get inside.” Then Mum went back out onto the street to check who else had died.
From the memoir "Zen, Drugs n Rock n Roll".