love lay down beside me and we wept Event with Helen Murray Taylor - Thursday 8th May 2025

Hear Helen Murray Taylor in conversation with Anne Hamilton about Helen's memoir, love lay down beside me and we wept.

6.30pm on Thursday 8th May at Golden Hare Books, 68 St Stephen Street, EH3 5AQ.

Buy a copy of love lay down beside me and we wept and receive free entry to our event, or choose our Ticket-Only option for £5 (which can be used towards a purchase of the book at the event).

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About love lay down beside me and we wept Helen Murray Taylor was finding her feet as a young doctor and trying to maintain some semblance of a life in the shadow of a punishing schedule when she witnessed a horrific road traffic accident. The impact of this fatal collision caught Helen off guard and had terrible repercussions. Both her career and her
mental health took a battering. After a succession of other distressing events left Helen emotionally shattered and seriously depressed, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. At her lowest, she almost succeeded in taking her own life. love lay down beside me and we wept sprang from these difficult times, from Helen’s months on the ward and the psychological upheaval of being restrained against her will, and from the challenge of being a doctor turned patient, but also from the moments of pure comedy and unexpected comradeship that she encountered there. This is a profoundly moving and masterful account of one woman's physical and psychological breakdown, it's a tribute to the love that supported her through it, and it's an offering to the reader who might find comfort or understanding in this story.

About Helen Murray Taylor Helen is the author of the memoir love lay down beside me and we wept (Unbound 2025) and a novel, The Backstreets of Purgatory (Unbound 2018). She was brought up in the Lake District and the north-east of Scotland, and currently lives in France. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a junior doctor in Glasgow and then as a research scientist in Oxford and London. The profound effects of a severe psychiatric illness, during which she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, led her away from her intended career. Writing played a crucial role in her recovery. Her memoir tells part of this story. 

About Anne Hamilton Anne Hamilton is an author, editor and creative writing tutor who lives in Edinburgh, and has a PhD from the University of Glasgow. Her first book, a travel memoir entitled A Blonde Bengali Wife (2010), was based on her experiences in Bangladesh, and inspired the charity Bhola’s Children. Her debut novel The Almost Truth (Legend Press 2024)) was the winner of the Irish Novel Fair, after arising from a short story in the Edinburgh Charity anthology, The People’s City (Birlinn 2022) Anne’s second novel Letters from Elena will be published in July.