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Up over the Clashmach

A photo essay

Like Gerry I am from a small town, only I grew up 4000 miles away and 48 years after Gerry. As a kid, Gerry had a horrible childhood. His dad was an alcoholic who used to beat up his mom every evening after spending hours working in mines. I met him on the edge of a fort in Edinburgh; where he asked me if I wanted to explore  Edinburgh and have a curry. We shared curries and stories and tried understanding each other's past. We had spiritual discussions and read each other poems and passages from mythologies and spiritual books. 


Gerry has had a turbulent life so far: he is banned from seeing his son as he suffered from alcoholism in his 40’s. He worked in the  Royal Army in the ’80s; being stationed in Germany and Ireland he experienced the horrors of military service first hand.

He fell out of his marriage and decided to stay alone and devote his life in prayers to God while spending most of his time with monks at a Christian  Abbey in Morham. He is never fixated on one religion and says every religion talks of the same unknown force that we call God. In the discussions we had, we always found a way to go beyond nationalities and talk about humanity as a whole. In the past few months, he has grown a rare form of vestibular migraine which is draining his health. Up Over The Clashmach is my spiritual journey with Gerry into the remote mountains and villages in Scotland.
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