Very pleased to provide the lyrics of Amanda’s beautiful song If you haven’t heard it yet do give it a listen and share. The song is a wonderful accompaniment to the film. Many of us have, to varying degrees, hearing difficulties (and probably all of us have from time to time misheard a word or phrase from a song!) Very soon the film itself will be available as a subtitled version.

The image above is from an insert card which will go inside the hard copies of a cd version. We aren’t making many of these but will give some away – for instance to those who took part in the film – and sending some copies to reviewers. From this week we are beginning to send the song digitally to the hundreds of radio stations in Scotland. Perhaps it will serve to spark discussion, for instance through phone-ins, and help raise awareness.

The film is doing well in festivals and already picking up awards (one of them for the music).

It’s little over a week since Amanda’s beautiful song was released. Listen to it here. She worked so hard on this to write and produce it but she’s far from left it there. Like many of us here she’s continuing to volunteer her own contribution to raising awareness of gambling harms. Four radio interviews already about the song and gambling harms. This one, with the Ugly American Werewolf in London, is about her personal shock upon realising the scale and nature of gambling harms. It includes a fascinating look at the ‘shape’ of the song – how it begins quietly as if looking forward to ‘a spin’, before the music descends into the pain of gambling. The interview about the song is a few minutes in.

If you haven’t seen it, the story of how Amanda came to write the song is fascinating. It shows how just a few people connecting, with a little bit of chance, can have marvellous outcomes.

While so many work so hard to raise awareness, it is so good to witness a great way to reach people through their ordinary life, here through music. Whatever changes to regulation may bring, and whatever specific gambling related campaigning achieves, we know that cultural change is slow. Sometimes a storyline in a TV soap may have great impact in raising awareness. Sometimes so can a song. Please pass this one on! As much as anything, it is simply a beautiful song before it is a ‘message’.

Again with Amanda’s help, we have pressed copies of the song onto cd. We’ll be sending these with a media release to radio stations in Scotland. One hope is that perhaps the song will lead to listener interaction, for instance with phone-ins.

On its own the song is of great value but the way Amanda links it to the film is wonderful Thanks so much.

And our thanks to all of you who share the song.