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 name's chris mccausland. i am blind, that is what qualifies

me to be here tonight. there's a question i get asked a lot. people ask me "what's it like being blind?" is it like nothing? no, it's not. because i imagine everything in me head. i live in a fantasy world, you know? and it's not a conscious thing, i don't try to conjure it up in me head, it's like a unconscious thing. i unconsciously summon this imagination of what's around me at all times. maybe i did used to be able to see and my brain tries to function visually, i try to picture it, but i'm wrong about everything. i'm 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. i'm wrong about everything.

and i'm wrong about people. i'm wrong about what people look like all the time. and you will do this yourselves to an extent. you know? you be at home, you'll 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 don't sound bald or hairy, do they? me wife, she said to me if you got your sight back tomorrow what is the first thing you would want to see? i said it's my daughter sophie. of course it is. because it's notjust what she looks like that i'm missing out on, it's all the wonderful, interesting and amazing things that she's been doing and she does. it started with the crawling and the walking and the jumping and dancing and the dressing up, the drawing, the smiles, all the smiles, of course it's 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. we counting mohamed salah in this? he's doing things i can't imagine. every day of my life i wish i could see my daughter, every week of my life i could wish i could see mohamed salah. she said "i can't believe you love mohamed salah more than me, i said i don't, i love you equally the same." it's hard to keep up the innovations, the inventions, it's all getting more and more. there are still a few things you can't get, can't do where's wally, that's not an audio book. "not wally, not wally, not wally not wally." "a bloke that looks like wally, but no, he's not wally." moving down to row two, not wally, not wally...

wally! not wally, not wally... he was in the top left, wasn't he? just because you find him early doesn't mean you don't 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 we've 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! ladies and gentlemen, please welcome janine hammond! applause. you're going to have to brace yourselves for this one. i've lost my nipples. it's really annoying because nipples are really great, aren't they? they feed your babies,

they're little pleasure domes, and they warn you when you need to wear a coat. i mean, it's not all bad, is it? because the flashy bits of the breast are surely the best bit, aren't they? except i've lost those as well, i'm so careless. it's really unfortunate, isn't it? i have got something going on here, those at the front might notice it, it's not my socks in my bra just to let you know, i haven't got prosthetic breasts or anything or implants, hold on for this one, i've got flaps. yeah, i've got flaps. now the reason i say that is i'm an ex—nurse and in the world of medicine, we love abbreviations, we love acronyms, we love all that sort of thing, we haven't got times to say the big words. so i've got tram flaps, nothing to do with trams. so — that would be weird, isn't it?

they're called tram, because tram stands for your tra nsrectus abdominis muscle, so you've got two, that's like your sixpack, i don't know if many of you have seen a sixpack, but anyway, it's part of your sixpack. i've only got a fourpack because two of my muscles are in my chest. weird, i know. and it basically takes two surgical teams to do the operation. so i've single—handedly drained the nhs in my local area. so basically, the top team take your breasts off and the cancer, that's the key bit, and then the other team split you from hip to hip and take the whole front flap of your abdomen off. it's a lovely, gory operation and then they basically pull the muscles up with all their blood supply and nerve endings and then theyjust pad you out and make breasts. it's amazing. now, the first time i had breast cancer it was triple negative, but in those days it wasn't even called triple negative, theyjust called it invasive cancer.

so i was 32, my kids were little, ijust started a newjob, and of course life's like that, isn't it? fast forward 15 years, and i find myself in my local hospital, a different surgeon walks in this time, it's been 15 years. he bounds in and he goes "well, it's back." and i thought, well, he's got a nice bedside manner, doesn't he? thanks! thanks, mate. so i knew what i wanted him to do because i'd have 15 years to think about it. i said can you do the operation all in one go? and he said yeah, i can. i can do that. 12 hours under anaesthetic i woke up and i tell you, that operation stings. so takes a long time to get over and you've got — weird things happen to your body after this operation that they don't tell you about.

so it feels like i've got a bowling ball in my stomach. it looks like i've got a bowling ball in my stomach but i've had scans and i definitely haven't got it. it's just crisps. i know! weird! this time i had a different chemo, we like a selection. i had fek. it's easy to say that. it also left me bloated like a bloaty sumo wrestler. it's not my best look, but you didn't see me in the 805 in my leg warmers. i had to go to the pain clinic and i had a lot of medication, but they suggested why don't we do mindfulness, and i thought oh, that will be good. but somehow, trying to meditate with ten other people in what was effectively a store room, itjust didn't work for me.

so i said to my psychologist, this mindfulness stuffjust doesn't work for me and she said oh, let's think of something else that might help. and i noticed that i like to make up stories, i've 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, let's go back to my nipples because... i'm not happy about something here. i said to my surgeon, what about nipples? and he said "oh, they're a faff." a faff?! that is 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 it's a faff? it's not right, is it? he said well, you know, i can do them but, you know.

the registrar took me up to one side and said, janine, there's 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 you're always like, pointy? i was like "oh, god, i can't be pointy!" so was given some prosthetic nipples. they're just stick—on nipples. that's what they are. and i thought, do you know what, i can't wear them. what if they came unstuck and worked their way 7 and i was talking to someone and they were all "you've got a nipple on your neck!" what's going on? it would be even worse if you were single and it got stuck someone else. can you imagine that? hey, doc, i've got a nipple down there... the only time i've worn my nipples is i wore one nipple on the middle of my forehead and i did my david bowie ziggy stardust impression to cheer myself

up and they do it quite regularly, if i'm honest. so when i wrote this little play, there is a method to my madness, i thought i'm going to write for the first time about a female who's had my operation but she's single and has to reveal herself every time a relationship fails, and she would have to start again, so that was awful but... in the middle of the place she has to stick the nipple on her forehead and does her best ziggy. now, most theatres don't stock prosthetic nipples, in fact, they don't 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, and i like to open those e—mails on a packed train when i know someone is reading over my shoulder. i'll just say, today,

someone is coming to collect my nipples, no word of a lie, i've got them with me, and they then taken to manchester so they can appear on another actress' head for a three—day run, i'm kind of resentful. my nipples are appearing in theatres without me. they're having a life of their own. they're neglecting me. in fact, i think they're going to get an agent and they are going to dump me, i really do. so, when i said to you i've lost my nipples, i have. i've lost them to cancer, and i've lost them to the fickle world of show business. thank you. applause well, ladies and gentlemen, janine hammond! it isa it is a gentleman could you please welcome to the stage cg literacy?

(applause) i am a comedian, and my ability 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, so what happened is, i am a performer obviosuly and i was on stage, and i am being hilarious, absolutely bloody hilarious, but didn't 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. 0bviou5ly i'm losing my hearing, right? 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's going to be permanent, but they can't 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 — they're horrendous, they're awful. they have wires sticking out of them, i look like an 0od from doctor who. 0n the one hand, 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's all so loud and horrible. they told me they don't 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 it is horrendous. i am alone in my own head, right? and i can't hear anything. and people are starting to treat me like an idiot. basically they start 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. but 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, eh? and the thing is, right,

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 up 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 don't you go back to where you came from?" wow, there is one bonus out of all of this, which is that i don't actually have to hear racist bigots outside comedy clubs anymore. all i have to do is just turn my hearing aids off and just smile at them, right? thank you, guys. 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, a middle and an end. they make sense. they feel complete. unlike my own life story. surprise, i have a brain injury. it is hard to tell, i know. 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 that i have a disability. when i am having a good brain day, which is how i keep managing to blagging my way through adult

life as if i have a clue what everyone is going on about. but other days, it can be hard. the scar tissue a brain cause 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 3—year—old loves to poke. it has affected my long—term memory, but my short—term memory is temperamental too. especially after a seizure. 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 haven't even washed my face yet. and she is still laughing about the day when i called her into the room with great excitement because our 2—year—old had somehow

dressed herself perfectly. my daughter was make 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 but also 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 don't really know how much you have forgotten until people start telling you the things you should know. and i kept telling them, "i think i'd remember that." but i started myjourney with a lot of hope. i was told that in the process of trying to catch up to everybody else who was born in the ‘805 and ‘905 in london, that some thing or someone or some place might unlock some of those memories. i went to all the places i have been to as a child, all the parks and shopsand my old schools, but nothing was coming back to me.

i went to places we had been to on holiday, and travelled the tube on all the routes are used to take in my teens, but still nothing. i went through all 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 the word "sorry." nothing, when i finally realised that thatjohn lennon and lenin were not the same person. i knewjohn lennon was political, but i had started to wonder. in all the time that my family was teaching me that as a fully grown british adult, i didn't 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 grainy photographs remains 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 205 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 long 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. um...|‘m going to stop, sorry... sorry. applause it is forgetting. it is really weird that

i am so forgetful today. i'm 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 to just try and accept that it was gone forever. i had a bright future ahead of me, about to marry the girl i loved, and so i decided to focus on that, and face the big 3—0 with optimism. we were planning a 19805 themed birthday party, because i was born in 1983, and i started to put together a playlist of suitably abysmal ‘805 music. i started going through all the tracks, it was late, i went to bed, i put my earphones 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 man's hand behind the fence. and in a flash, i was in another curious place, and another, and another, until finally i 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 didn't 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. um...it‘5 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 of a beginning in my mind. 0k! it was that magical night that inspired me to start writing. i always leave blank pages in my books, notjust 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 doesn't 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 ‘805 and ‘905. 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 two little girls who now play in the same parks that 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 that 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... ..plea5e think of my wife as i am telling her, "i think i would remember that." guy, 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, goodnight, thank you! applause

sunday is the first day of meteorological autumn. and for the early days of september, it will feel a little on the chilly side. we have got this band of cloud that swept across the country yesterday. it is behind that that we are drawing in this cooler, fresher air on a north—westerly breeze and that will bring some more showers, particularly across northern ireland and scotland overnight. in between those showers, there is still a chance of catching the northern lights for northern areas. further south across the uk, we will have some longer, clearer skies. with that cooler air coming down, temperatures will drop away and it will be chillier than it was last night. 7—9 degrees in towns and cities. cooler than that, though, in rural areas. a sunny start for many parts of england and wales. scattered showers for a while in northern ireland, some heavier thundery ones pushing eastwards across scotland,

across northern england and down towards the wash. very few showers for the midlands, good chance it will stay dry in southern england. temperatures may sneak up to 20 degrees. further north with the showers, it is a cool 15 or 16, but at least it will not be as windy on sunday. those heavy showers should clear away from eastern areas. another band of cloud and showers pushing through northern ireland and heading towards scotland. some breaks in the cloud overnight and again another chilly one, particularly in north—eastern scotland where temperatures could be down to about 3 degrees or so. into the new week, and we will replace the north—westerly winds with milder, cloudier west—south—westerly winds. around the top area of high pressure and feeding in those weather systems, piling in the rain again for north—western areas. england and wales, probably a dry start, chilly, some sunshine, clouding over a bit more from the west. we have rain coming into northern ireland, pushing into scotland, into cumbria, some very wet weather

over the hills late in the day. 15 degrees in glasgow, 22 in london in the south—east. a touch warmer i think on monday. similar sort of weather pattern really for monday into tuesday, we've still got these brisk wind off the atlantic, a lot of weather fronts on the scene, but essentially northern and western areas will have most of the cloud. a better chance of catching some rain and that rain could be heavy again over western parts of scotland. very little if any rain, though, through the midlands, east anglia and the south—east and temperatures similar to those on monday. as we head towards the middle of the week, though, the wind direction will change again with high pressure to the west of the uk, drawing down cooler fresher more north—westerly winds, bringing sunshine and some showers.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: a mass shooting at two locations in texas leaves five dead and many more injured. police describe the lone gunman as an ‘animal‘. running battles and brutal violence in hong kong, in some of the worst clashes yet between police and protestors. it is the very centre of hong kong, and look at it. they warned them not to protest today. the government buildings under siege and it is complete mayhem. and — bearing down on the bahamas. hurricane dorian threatens catastrophic damage. it could hit the islands within hours.

commemorations within hours. are under