Shining A Light On Loneliness

When an injury left her feeling isolated, Lucy decided to create a festival of light to encourage community spirit and connection

- BUTH ADDIS

Scrolling through the pictures of amazing window displays, Lucy Reeves Khan couldn't believe how much her simple idea had caught on.

Living in London, training to be a set designer in her twenties, Lucy had no sense of isolation. Then, one day, she reached up into a cupboard to get a bowl and her neck went into a spasm.

She saw an osteopath, but it made her pain worse and she came out limping with a torn disc in her back.

"I was told to lie down and do nothing for a few months, but that was impossible, I'd just started film school," she says. Refusing to give up, she built a table and completed her work lying on the floor on her back.

"I had the rest of my life ahead of me," she says. "It didn't occur to me it would have a much longer impact."

After 18 months, Lucy had made a full recovery. She married Khalid, a TV producer, in 2000, and moved to Bristol. But after giving birth to her first child, Harri, her back pain returned, leaving her unable to walk for over a year.

Stuck at home with a newborn in a city where she didn't know anyone, Lucy felt increasingly isolated.

"My husband had to do everything," she says. "I couldn't go to the shops or the park. I couldn't cook or clean. It was really difficult."

However, to Lucy's relief, her symptoms eventually improved.

She had a daughter, Minna and by 2004, for the first time in years, she felt optimistic about the future. Her son was starting primary school and she was looking forward to making new friends and meeting the other mums.

Then suddenly, her life was put on hold again, when two separate car accidents neither of which was her fault, left her in agony, unable to walk once more.

Lucy battled chronic pain for more than 10 years and was virtually housebound.