Glasgow Stories: My name is Geraldine, I inspired one of Glasgow's greatest songs and now I save lives

Following a career that has seen her work in social work and then a complete career change that saw her managing bands, Geraldine Lennon is now the head of service at Medics Against Violence. Founded in 2008 by three Glasgow surgeons - Dr Christine Goodall, Mr Mark Devlin and Mr David Koppel. The initial aim of the charity was to try and address that cycle of violence that was rife in Glasgow, the city was dubbed the “murder capital of Europe” by the World Health Organisation in 2005.

“The medics thought ‘we need to do something’, because it's the same people that they're getting in weekend after weekend after weekend,” Geraldine said. “You know, one weekend they would be the victim of violence, and next weekend they would be the perpetrator of the violence.” Part of the work also saw them attending schools where they dealt with misinformation around violence - such as that there are safe places to stab someone.

“It was a lot around education and a lot around schools, a lot focused on young people up until September 2015 when the Navigator programme was launched,” Geraldine explains. The Navigator programme was originally introduced in Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, from 2015 until January 2017 when it was moved to Edinburgh - where Geraldine joined.

However, before joining Medics Against Violence, Geraldine worked with Glasgow City Council as part of the local authority’s addiction service. By 2008, however, Geraldine said she was “totally done”.

“It was just really difficult, a really difficult job to do as well at that time, and some stuff going on in my own life as well, it didn't make it easy to be that person who is skipping into work every morning,” Geraldine explained. “So I had an amazing opportunity back in 2008 to go on to work for my friends' band.”

That band was Glasgow’s own Glasvegas. And if Geraldine’s name sounds familiar in that context then it’s not without merit. She lent her name to one of the band’s biggest hits. With the song, in part, drawing on her experiences.

“It's my name, but I think a lot of it was more James [Allan, lead singer of Glasvegas] listening to myself and Denise, who is James's sister, and the manager of the band as well. Denise worked in the same office as me, so I think it was probably James listening to a lot of our conversations and frustrations and stuff,” Geraldine explained.

Geraldine has had a mixed relationship with the song, however she acknowledges that the song has touched a lot of people over the years. “Before I had left social work in 2008, even though the boys hadn't brought out the first album, I knew of the song, and I had heard the song, and it was weird, because there were days that I would listen to that, if I was driving at the work and I was thinking, I'm an absolute charlatan, because I don't have it,” She said.

But the song’s meaning has changed for Geraldine, she is now able to recognise that it represents the special relationship between people and their non-familial support network. “They're not family, they're not friends, it’s not that kind of emotional attachment, it is very much this therapeutic attachment, where somebody does see the benefit that human connection can give to another person,” She said. With her time in the music industry coming to an end, two of the artists she was working with at American label Daptone Records had been been diagnosed with cancer - “I'm not going to luck out again with another amazing artist,” Geraldine said, so she “decided to become a grown up again.”

After being pointed in the direction of the Navigator service by her paramedic sister - who saw the impact of the service first hand, Geraldine said she felt her reasons for doing the job in the first place had come back. Eight years on, and Geraldine is embodying the spirit of her namesake song. The service, she said, is about ensuring that people have the support they need to make fundamental changes in their lives.

“I think that the people we support through the hospitals, they're already carrying so much shame and guilt over a lot of stuff that they don't need anybody else dictating to them what to do or judging them,” She explained.

Whilst it is impossible to avoid the reality that not everyone is miraculously going to see their lives turned around by the project, for Geraldine every single person supported by the project has a wider, positive, impact on the community.

“We've supported a lot of beautiful people who have they've lost their lives, either through suicide, through drug related deaths. But we've also supported a lot of people who have been able to make just enough change that they are feeling a little bit happier and they're feeling a little bit more safe within their communities,” Geraldine said.

“But we've also supported people who have kind of come full circle, and who are now working in the field. So it's everything, it's all of that into and I think for me, the legacy around it is that it is a ripple effect. If we can support one person, it is impacting on them positively, but also then impacting on a community, in that they're impacting their family as well,” she adds.

She hopes the legacy of the Navigator programme will have an effect in the areas in Glasgow, and the rest of Scotland, that needs it most. Most of all she wants to see people experience generational change by being given hope.

“The entire length of time that I've worked predominantly around the East End of Glasgow. You see generation upon generation upon generation of people coming through that just don't think that there's anything else for them,” Geraldine said. “They're frightened to dream more. They don't think that they would ever be able to go to university or have a professional career in inverted commas, because they’ve never seen it, or nobody's ever told them that you can actually do this. So I would hope that there's some that were able to kind of impact some sort of generational change.”

At the end of our conversation, Geraldine is keen to hammer home her optimistic outlook for people, that people can change. “I always think, for me anyway, if somebody's still breathing, then they can change. You can't just write off human beings,” she said.