Interview: Christopher Burn

Who are you and what's your story?

I’m a writer…I’m many thing, really; I’m a grandfather, I’m an accountant (although I don’t practice anymore), I occasionally write poetry…I just try and keep myself in a state of peace of mind without getting into too much trouble (laughs).

My story is one of childhood insecurity, I think. I was born in 1941 - both my parents were killed before I was two years old, so I don’t remember them, but I was very well brought up by my mother’s sister in England. I was sent to a very good school [Ampleforth College in Yorkshire].

I rather stupidly decided that I didn’t want to go to university - [I thought] I would go into the City of London and make a lot of money. I always thought I would be a millionaire by the time I was thirty - instead of which, I was a complete disaster by the age of thirty!

I trained to be an accountant, lived in various parts of the world; I worked in Paris where I met my wife and had a very romantic courtship, a wedding, and a really lovely time for some years. Two children…I lived and worked in Malta for nearly four years. Things began to unravel a bit there…I had to leave because of the political situation, got too fond of the bottle and, as a result…well, it’s very difficult to be an accountant when your mind is heavily distorted by heavy lunchtime inebriation! 

Eventually I ended up in quite a mess and had to sort myself out, which I was able to do, but my marriage suffered as a result. I found myself in Scotland for work reasons, while my wife decided she would prefer to stay in London. So, for many years, I was living at a distance from my wife and children - it was really by mutual consent, and it went on for thirty five years. 

I did quite well in Scotland; I had a hotel there for about ten years, [and] I also ran a rehab for drunks and addicts - so I was, at one time, trying to stop people from drinking altogether, then the next I was running a hotel and trying to make everyone drink as much as possible! It cleared my mind of a lot of old baggage, and I gradually evolved myself from being a not-very-good accountant to being (I hope) better as a counselor trying to help people. 

Then I started writing about my experiences; I was quite inspired by a number of books that I used for my own counselling - sort of daily meditation books - and as a result I wrote one of my own, which was loosely a meditation book based on an event that happened on that day, a poem about that event, and a thought for the day. After I had written that, someone asked me to write a straight meditation book for people suffering from addiction. I did a lot of writing of articles for websites and my own website, one or two more books about poetry and recovery from addiction…

Can you tell us the story behind how you wrote your first poem?

Yes, well…my adventures with alcohol (as a young man and into my early forties) led me to such a state that I woke up one day and I couldn’t think where on Earth I was…I was in a white room, with a white light shining on me, with a beautiful lady (dressed all in white) with long blonde hair smiling at me…I thought: ‘My god, i must be dead - and what’s more, i seem to have hit the jackpot because this looks like Heaven!’

In a few minutes it quickly transpired [that] I was wrong; I was not in Heaven; I was actually in rehab, being detoxed - and that made me really angry (laughs); my wife had put me in a car, driven me somewhere and dumped me there! I was so angry that I refused to speak to anyone for a few days, and my therapist said to me: ‘Well, Christopher, if you won’t speak to us, try writing a poem about how you feel, because we really want to hear from you.”

I grumpily said “Oh, alright!”, and I sat down and wrote a stupid poem that I’m very ashamed of now, which began something like:

Roses are red, 
Violets are blue,
I wish I wasn’t here with you…

I think it went on:

I do not like the things you say
I wish that you would go away

…and continued:

They brought me here because I was pissed,
And now I’ve got a therapist

...which is just bad in every way - rhythmically, bad English, bad poetry, and a very bad attitude!

My therapist, when he saw it, said “This is great!!”, which rather surprised me…He pointed out to me that, actually, I had revealed a lot about myself - that I was angry, blaming others, trying to run away, not wanting to face reality, and I was basically just a mess in need of reconstruction. 

Can you talk about the link between the arts and mental health in your life?

[There came a time when] I realised that, for the first time, I was really enjoying doing what I was doing - writing and talking about poetry and art in general. I realised it was actually a very therapeutic thing for me, personally, and I was also running classes in creative writing, which I hope were therapeutic for the people on the receiving end.

It made me think a lot about how therapeutic poetry and art in general can be, and in a very basic way - [I think] the fact that I find myself reciting at least one poem every day has a very good effect on me. It’s sort of subconscious, but I really recognise the impact that it has on me, and I suppose I’m trying to develop my spiritual life as well as my daily practical life - writing and the arts very much help me to do that.

How did you get into social media?

I decided that I would try and promote my books by talking about them on social media - which I never had anything much to do with until about eighteen months ago. I started a daily channel on TikTok which, rather surprisingly, started getting quite good viewing numbers. Within about a month, I suddenly looked at the statistics and 28,000 people had looked at the last video - it was basically me standing on Richmond Bridge talking for two minutes about some poem (I can’t remember which!), so I thought I had better keep doing it! It gradually evolved into very much a daily routine…in which I would read that day’s page from my daily book of poetry called Poetry Changes Lives. It really took off! 

I was getting a million views, then three million - people were very kind! I said to my TikTok followers that “If TikTok were a country, I would want to live among you”, and it’s absolutely true. It’s really very nice when you get a lot of people sending you nice messages - and I’ve truly never had a nasty message, which is quite extraordinary considering I’ve had something like 2.5 million likes on TikTok!

A few months ago, I decided to expand my little adventure into social media further…I started doing similar posts on Instagram and Facebook, and they seem quite popular too, so I moved into YouTube - the technicalities of all that have really done my head in! It’s a completely amateur production, but I think people appreciate that. I was told “You must be authentic”, and I suppose I am fairly authentic because it’s difficult for me to be anything else. 

So my story really is a strange evolution from drunken accountant to a sort of…grandpa influencer on social media! Who knows what is going to come next, but I’m very happy right now with what I’m doing!

Would you like to tell us about your books?

 first and foremost was Poetry Changes Lives, my book of poetry, history and a thought for the day. I wrote it a little while ago, and it’s now in a hardback edition as well - which I think is much better to give as a present to someone else! It needs to be strong, as it’s a book you can refer to every day of the year.

Pulp Verses is a book of my [own] poetry that I wrote to prove that you can write poetry just to amuse yourself, and to find things out about yourself - I’m not a great poet, by any means, but I wrote it.

I also wrote Recovery Days, which is a book of daily thoughts and meditation for people in recovery from any kind of mental disorder - or, indeed, for anyone who is just feeling a bit unhappy and needs a bit of guidance.

Anyone who would like to buy one [of my books] has only to go to my website www.poetrychangeslives.com.