Dying mother releases Bragg song
<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39839000/jpg/_39839671_bragg203.jpg" alt=" - " />
he's looking old though, old Braggie is A single mother dying from cancer is to release a song she wrote about her daughter, with music specially composed and performed by Billy Bragg.
Maxine Edgington, 47, who is being cared for at the Trimar Hospice in Weymouth, Dorset, was told in November 2004 that she had six months to live.
She wrote the song, We Laughed, to remind her 16-year-old daughter Jessica of their life together.
Mr Bragg put her lyrics to music as part of a workshop at the hospice.
The song, inspired by a photograph of Ms Edgington and Jessica, was recorded at a Weymouth studio in July.
Ms Edgington, who has described the hospice songwriting workshops as a "path to freedom and hope", said she wanted to be remembered as she appeared in the picture.
While unable to attend parts of the workshops, Mr Bragg wrote the music for her and he will perform the song to mark World Hospice and Palliative Care Day in London on Saturday.
Ms Edgington begins chemotherapy on Monday, but will speak at the event.
Mr Bragg said: "It was a photograph of Jess that inspired her. "She said 'I want to be remembered like this and I want to write a song that expresses that'.
"She said once the grieving is over for Jess I want her to have good memories. That's why she wanted to write the song."
Ms Edgington wrote on the Rosetta Life website, the group that organises the workshops, that she was "sceptical" at first about how songwriting would help her while she was preoccupied with her daughter's future without her.
She said: "My heart was breaking. I wanted to stay with Jessica, to be a part of her future.
"I came to understand that no one could love her more than me and that feeling was written into the song."
The song will be released on 31 October and profits will go to the Joseph Weld & Trimar Hospice and Cancer Care Dorset.
