We caught up with Sheila Hayman, Co-ordinator of Freedom from Torture’s Write to Life group, a unique creative writing and performance group for survivors of torture. Write to Life members are taking part in two concerts – Finding My Voice and New Accents – this autumn.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

I am primarily a documentary filmmaker, but have always written as well, and when my children were small and I spent all day either with them or writing, I started to get cabin fever. So I looked around for a local charity and found Freedom from Torture. ‘What can you do?’ they asked. ‘Well, I can write’. It turned out they had just started this writing group and needed volunteer mentors. I took over coordinating it in about 2006 and have been there ever since.

Sidiki Dembele and Write to Life members share music and writing in a recent workshop.

How did Write to Life at Freedom from Torture get started? Could you tell us more about Write to Life?

It began as a small group just writing for themselves and each other. But writing is hard – writing in your fourth or fifth language harder still – and they wanted there to be a point to it, for their stories to be read, and understood, to help those still in danger, or other survivors not lucky enough to be looked after by such an organisation. Luckily we made contact with the Edinburgh Book Festival where authors read our stories as part of the Amnesty sessions. But the writers wanted to read their stories themselves, so another lucky encounter – or three or four – led to coaching by top theatre directors, performance coaches and voice practitioners. With this new confidence, we were able to engage in collaborations with (among others) The Roundhouse, both Tate Galleries, the British Museum, The V&A, Tamasha Theatre, Rich Mix…. etc. Not all of the writers want to perform as well but those who do, really get a lot from it. More than one has said that it’s like having a mirror held up, in which the audience’s response reflects them, and affirms that, after all they’ve been through, they do still exist.

What do you think makes writing such a therapeutic process for people who have experienced trauma in their lives?

Writing serves many purposes. It takes the monsters from your head and pins them on a page, so you control them not the other way round. It can assuage survivor guilt. It can explain your story to yourself. And, most importantly of all, it bears witness to the awful things still being done to innocent people around the world, and to the amazing resilience of those like our writers who somehow survive, and emerge stronger.

What makes the collaboration between Write to Life and NW Live Arts special?

Music and words are natural partners. Speech, with its natural rhythms, its ups and downs, is already half way to song. We wanted to explore that transition, from silence to speech to song, in what we produced and how we collaborated. 

Musicians Laura van der Heijden and Alice Zawadzki and a Write to Life member explore ideas in a recent workshop.

Which songs/pieces of music would you take to a desert island?

A lot of opera, quite a bit of pop, the Mendelssohn Octet and Fanny’s Das Jahr (and not just because she’s my 3x great grandmother and I’m busy making a film about her!). It would have to include a lavish selection of show tunes, especially from Hairspray, Cabaret and Chicago.

The group of performers for Finding my Voice / New Accents

Finding My Voice is on Friday 30 September at 8pm at Kings Place, Hall 2. Book your tickets here.

New Accents, part of Bloomsbury Festival 2022 is on Thursday 20 October at 7.30pm at The Art Workers’ Guild. Book your tickets here.

Find out more about Write to Life and Freedom from Torture here.

Find out more about Sheila on her website.