Conductor hopes surgeon victim mum 'will look down'

A conductor who lost his mother to cancer and then discovered her death was to be reinvestigated at an inquest has said she hopes she will be looking down, during a concert dedicated to her memory.

Eunice Jones was a patient of jailed breast surgeon Ian Paterson, and is among 62 women whose deaths are being investigated in judge-led inquests.

Her son Matthew Jones said the family grieved and healed after she died in 2004 at the age of 47 and were now "living that death all over again".

He said he wanted the Christmas Spectacular at Birmingham Town Hall on 22 December to be "celebratory", to bring something positive back.

Paterson was jailed in 2017 and is serving 20 years.

Mr Jones said: "It's just something positive to do at such a dark time.

"Mum died 20 years ago and in that time you heal really from the bad memories, and mum didn't die a good death if there's such a thing, so we are living that death all over again.

"I wanted to do something celebratory and positive, hence this big concert with Dana and Grimethorpe Colliery Band."

Mr Jones said: "The great thing about music is, especially how I push my singers, is that for those six hours, we don't think about our problems, so it is fully immersive and very healing.

He described how he discovered his mother's death was being looked at in the inquests, when the family was contacted by the court.

"I know mum will be looking down on us having as good a time as we will be having at the town hall in Birmingham, so [it's] just something celebratory, positive, which is really how we felt until we had that call from the coroner.

"We'd healed from those ugly dark memories, so I'm just trying to bring something positive back to all of this."

Mrs Jones, known as Pam, from Solihull, died from breast cancer at Solihull Hospital, and her son has previously spoken to the BBC about his grief and anger over his mother's case.

The concert will see Eurovision legend Dana make a comeback.

She became Ireland's first winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1970, with "All Kinds of Everything", and went on to have a series of chart hits.

Dame Dana will be performing alongside the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, the brass band known for providing the soundtrack to the film, Brassed Off.

The film told the story of Grimethorpe Colliery Band's fight for survival in the 1990s, when the coal mine closed.

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