Newcastle woman recreates her late father’s lullaby

Nearly 60 years ago, when Karen Teasdale-Robson was nine months old, her father wrote her a lullaby.

In a family plagued by violence, Brian Teasdale took care of her and sang “Little Girl” whenever she was sad.

But his daughter said when she suffered brain damage from her son’s assault, she thought she would never hear him sing again.

Mrs Teasdale-Robson, who now lives in Newcastle, said life at home had not always been easy.

She said her mother and brother had mental health issues and that she and her father had been physically assaulted by them.

“At that time, the only loving person in my life was my father,” she says. “He took me out of the house, away from all the bad stuff, and took me for walks.

“I think he was embarrassed by my mother’s aggression. He tried to keep me away from violence and make me feel loved.”

Mr Teesdale-Robson believes the father stayed for his daughter’s sake because he feared his wife would get custody if the couple separated.

“We spent our whole lives trying not to make her angry,” she says.

Mr. Teasdale was endlessly creative, winning a poetry contest at age 8, learning how to play the guitar and writing songs “all the time,” his daughter said.

“After John Lennon’s death, he wrote a song in his memory and sent it to Yoko Ono on record.”

He did everything for his daughter when she was young because his wife wasn’t feeling well, and it was around this time, she says, that he wrote “Little Girl.”

“He used to sing this song to me and say, ‘This is your song, Karen.’

But in October 2011 everything changed.

“My father was assaulted one last time by my brother,” Teesdale-Robson said. “He left my father with severe brain damage.”

Her father lost the ability to communicate more than one or two words at a time, and was no longer able to write.

“He went from being a master of words, an intellect, to someone where I taught him how to speak,” she says.

“They said it might take years to see what capacity he had left, but I knew he was out there somewhere.” Mrs Teasdale-Robson says: “So I read out one of his poems.

“My father couldn’t speak, but he made sounds to the beat of the poem. The neuropsychologist said it gave him goosebumps.”

She bought children’s books and read them to her father every day.

“The day he said my name in December was the best Christmas present I ever received,” she says.

In 2012, Ms Teasdale was transferred to Chase Park, a specialist brain injury facility in Wickham, where her daughter visited daily.

“He said things like, ‘Don’t forget me,’ and ‘You used to be smart.’ It broke my heart,” she says.

“I knew what it would do to him not to be able to write, that his work would be lost. So I promised him that I would take a look at his work.”

In 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic, when Chase Park warned Teasdale-Robson that her father didn’t have much time left to live, she said, “I don’t think people realize how talented he is.” I panicked, thinking I was going to die.”

Shortly thereafter, while digging through an old briefcase, she found an old brown reel-to-reel tape that had recorded her own lullaby. A store in town made a CD of the song for her, and she said, “I can’t believe I’m hearing him sing again.”

However, the recordings had deteriorated, and her beloved songs were cracked and distorted.

She turned to BBC Radio Newcastle for help and her appeal reached one of her lecturers at Sunderland University’s music department.

Tony Wilson says that when he played the recording to his students, they immediately wanted to re-record it.

“The whole room struck me with its sheer beauty,” he says.

“I immediately thought it was similar to the old classics from the American Songbook. It had a real quality to it, like ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ or ‘Blue Moon.’

Mrs Teasdale-Robson said she “couldn’t stop crying” when she heard the new version.

“I promised my dad I would let people know how talented he is, and now he’s texting me saying they love his music.”

Still unable to meet her father in person due to coronavirus restrictions, she had to ask a family liaison to play the song via video link.

“He could barely speak at that point, but when he heard it he would point at himself and imitate the words, as if to say, ‘That’s mine,'” she said. says.

“It was an incredible moment. He knew I kept my promise.”

A few months later, in May 2022, just after his 90th birthday, Teasdale passed away.

“I know it was a dream come true for him for people to hear his songs,” his daughter says.

“But we felt like there was more work to be done. We were talking about putting this song on a teddy bear someday.”

Not knowing where to start, I turned to Project North East’s business advisor, Brenda Wilson, who told me that Little Girl was “so beautiful that it gave me goosebumps when I heard it.” .

Now, two years later, Mrs Teesdale-Robson has her own business and sells 600 ‘Teesdale Teddies’ that play her father’s songs.

“When my father passed away, all I had left was singing,” Mrs Teasdale-Robson says. “That’s all I have about him.

“If this business takes off, I would like to use this song and my father’s story to raise awareness about domestic violence against men.”

She hopes this lullaby will mean as much to strangers as it has to her.

“So many people heard it, loved it, and helped get this idea off the ground,” she says.

“We never thought finding that old tape would lead us here.”

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