In 1990 I started working for a large multinational Computer Corporation.
One of my first jobs there was in the software laboratory situated in Uithoorn
near Amsterdam. After about a year or so I was relocated from my nice room
with a view of a small pond to the new modern wing of the building. I didn't
like the surroundings at all as the windows were all heavily filtered and
looked black from the outside.
Also there was no healthy social climate there and people just didn't socialize
with each other as I was used to. Well after about 6 or 7 months I had
had enough. After seriously contemplating throwing my 3270 terminal through
the black window in orderto get some sunlight into the room, I realised
that I needed to take a "time out" so I could get myself together
before completely breaking down.
I decided to take a two week vacation on my own without my girlfriend and
son. Portugal was the destination, and having never been there before,
I was quite looking forward to it.
For the first week I had pre-arranged a trip around Portugal with a car
which I had rented for the first week only. This went fine, however the
second week, I started to get homesick, which was very strange for me,
as I normally loved to travel and also didn't mind doing so alone.
This it was different and I wanted to get back home as soon as possible.
I went into Lisbon to change my flight, but soon found out that all the
flights were full and that there were no alternative trips by train or
such without spending and enormous amount of money. I was so frustrated
by all this and all of a sudden I felt like a prisoner there instead of
being on vacation. I realised at that time that I was not in good shape
mentally, and bought a pile of UK newspapers and locked myself away in
my hotel room for a day or two.
In the Sunday Mirror, I stumbled on an article that caught my eye. It was
about a young model, 16 years old Michelle Lomas, who had just committed
suicide.
The newspaper seemed to focus on two major points:
Firstly, her natural father so happened to be Frank Clark, a famous soccer
star and apparented Frank had ran out on Michelle's mum and had no part
in her life until she re-established contact with him just before her death.
Secondly; Michelle had been doing some modelling for the cosmetics brand
Oil of Ulay and appeared in one of their TV commercials.
Although the newspaper journalists TIm Willcox and Julia Stone had headlined
with "Soccer star 'Tragic TV Girl's Secret Dad" I decided to
headline my song with the morbid title "Child Suicide" as I found
that this issue was not given enough attention.
Whatever the case, the story distracted me away from my own miserable circumstances
and within an hour or so I had the story encapsulated in a song and was
feeling a lot better with myself as a result.