Amy, My Daughter

by Mitch Winehouse

  On 26 October we attended the Coroner’s Court, where the St Pancras coroner, Suzanne Greenway, said, ‘The unintended consequence of Winehouse drinking so much alcohol was her sudden and unexpected death.’ Dr Romete told the inquest that Amy had said she did not know if she was going to stop drinking but ‘she did not want to die’. The coroner’s verdict was misadventure.

  I did feel a sense of closure after hearing the verdict. But now that feeling of closure has gone because at the end of January 2012 the legitimacy of the inquest’s verdict was questioned. We were told by the Coroner’s Court that Suzanne Greenway resigned in November 2011, amid allegations that she was unqualified to do the job. Rules stipulate that she could be appointed only if she had worked as a registered English solicitor for five years; she had been registered for only two and a half. She was also required to have five years’ experience as a ‘qualified medical practitioner’, but there were allegations that she was only qualified as a nurse in her home country, Australia. She had been appointed to the role of assistant deputy coroner by her husband, Inner North London coroner Dr Andrew Scott Reid, who was quoted as saying, ‘In November it became apparent I’d made an error in the appointment process. While I am confident that all of the inquests handled were done so correctly, I apologize if this matter causes distress.’

  Suzanne Greenway was responsible for approximately thirty inquests, all of which, including Amy’s, could now be declared illegal. We were told that this will only happen if verdicts are challenged in the High Court. At the time of writing we are still awaiting the result of an investigation.

  * * *

  ‘Body And Soul’, the duet recorded by Amy and Tony Bennett, was released on 14 September 2011, Amy’s twenty-eighth birthday; all the proceeds went to Amy’s Foundation. Amy’s performance on that record was honoured on 12 February 2012 when she was posthumously awarded the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Tony Bennett. Janis and I accepted the award on her behalf.

  Meanwhile Amy’s third album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures, was released. It wasn’t the planned follow-up to Back to Black as only two songs, ‘Between the Cheats’ and ‘Like Smoke’, had been completed prior to Amy passing away. The album is a compilation of recordings from before the release of Frank to the songs that Amy was working on in 2011. If my darling daughter had lived, she would have released many great albums, I know, but as she’d had no idea her life was going to end so early and so abruptly, she hadn’t left behind enough finished recordings to make a complete album in the way that Back to Black and Frank are complete.

  We had given producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson our consent to compile the album and they worked together on it. Salaam said, ‘It makes no sense for these songs to be sitting on a hard drive, withering away.’ We were very pleased with the final result, which was why we, Amy’s family, endorsed its release.

  After Amy passed away, Jane and I spent a lot of time with Reg. I guess being with him made me feel close to Amy. Reg talked about the times he had spent with her and we laughed a lot because we focused on Amy’s brilliant sense of humour and wit; he, too, had found her very sharp. There was no crying. I knew Reg, like all of us, was missing Amy so much and suffering terribly. On Valentine’s Day 2012, Reg took flowers for Amy to her house in Camden Square; her cat, Katie, now lives with him.

  I was reminded recently of a regular conversation I used to have with Amy. She loved joking with me about a movie about my life, in which Amy was the casting director. She decided that Ray Winstone would be perfect to play me. I would counter that by saying George Clooney would be a better choice. Amy said Reg could play the part of my dad as a young man because he looked like him; Jane would be played by Helen Hunt, and my mum by Elizabeth Taylor, who was still alive at the time. We both knew it was never going to happen but we loved the game.

  Amy never said whom she would cast as herself.

  * * *

  Hearing Amy’s music – even if we just walk past an open window and hear it playing inside somewhere – is still difficult for me. One evening Jane and I were passing a bar where they were playing ‘Rehab’, and I heard the line, ‘My daddy thinks I’m fine’. I wrote in my diary, ‘This is so hard. I don’t know how much more of it I can take. Amy’s everywhere I go, but she’s not here. I need some comfort, but there is none.’

  But Amy and my mother Cynthia are together now. Amy believed, and I believe, that love conquers all. Even death.

  * * *

  Thank you for allowing me to share with you the story of Amy’s all too short life. Writing this book has brought it all back to me: reading my diaries, remembering the good times, the bad times and the very worst time of all, when Amy passed away. It’s easy to forget that Amy was only a young woman when she died, as so much had happened in those years, and so many people had been touched by her life and her music. I sometimes think that perhaps I should have handled some situations differently, but that’s me. For my own sake, and that of Amy’s family, I decided not to look back and regret, because nothing good would come of that. I always did my best for Amy but sometimes I couldn’t cope and hindsight can be very cruel.

  Amy will be in my heart and mind for ever. I miss her so much that sometimes it physically hurts. Her legacy is already having a positive effect on many young people’s lives and, as I have said, I will be spending the rest of my life working for Amy’s Foundation. Together with my family, my dear friends and the many, many other people helping us, we will ensure that Amy is never forgotten.

  Amy was a great girl with a huge heart. Please keep her in yours.

  A NOTE ON THE AMY WINEHOUSE FOUNDATION

  One major factor helping me through the months after Amy’s death was creating the Foundation that carries her name.

  Many people have helped in all sorts of ways to ensure that the Amy Winehouse Foundation was established, is funded, properly run and able to give financial support to those organizations most in keeping with our aims. They are too many to name here, but among those I worked closely with in establishing the Foundation were my lawyers and accountants, Universal Records, the Outside Organization and Comic Relief, who, through their US arm America Gives Back, are assisting with the collection of donations in the US.

  So many individuals found ways to offer their support for the Foundation. Matt Goss asked me if I would open for him at the Royal Albert Hall, my fee to go to Amy’s Foundation: Amy’s passing had resonated with him as his little sister Carolyn died in 1988 when a drunk-driver crashed into her car. John Taylor, of Duran Duran, wanted to offer more than just financial support, and proposed setting up our own juvenile rehabilitation facility; it may take time for this to come about, but his strong interest in the Foundation’s planned work was a real boost to me. Robbie Williams’s mother, Jan, who helps to run Robbie’s charity, Give It Sum (also administered by Comic Relief), met us to discuss working in partnership together.

  Individually, some amazing donations came in. Michael Bublé made a generous donation. When Tony Bennett and his record label, Sony, told us they were donating $100,000, my breath was taken away – what an incredible thing for them to do. Amy’s fans from all over the world made donations, which, however modest, have brought us the greatest pleasure of all, affirming to those who work for the Foundation and who have supported it that Amy’s life and work will always be treasured.

  As well as the income that Amy’s music generated for the Foundation, other organizations collected money for us. Fred Perry decided, with our support, that they would go ahead with Amy’s autumn 2011 and spring 2012 collections, with all Amy’s commission paid to the Foundation. Most of the work on the collections had been done when Amy was living at Bryanston Square and it always amazed me how brilliantly she could transfer what was in her mind to paper. I guess it was just another of her many creative talents.

  By October 2011 Fred Perry reported that sales of Amy’s collection were 40 per cent up on the same time the previous year.

 
In November the dress that Amy wore on the cover of Back to Black was sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions at La Galleria in Pall Mall, London. Created by the Thai-based designer Disaya, it had been loaned to Amy for the photo-shoot in 2006, after which it was carefully stored in Disaya’s archive. Following Amy’s passing, Disaya decided that the dress should be sold and the money raised would be donated to Amy’s Foundation. Sotheby’s had valued the dress at £10–20,000; it was sold for £43,200 to the Museo de la Moda fashion museum in Chile. I couldn’t believe it. What a huge amount of money for the Foundation. The sound of a hammer going down can be very cathartic, and we are all truly grateful to Disaya, who was with me at the sale.

  The Foundation has provided hundreds of thousands of pounds to a variety of projects, both in the UK and elsewhere, including hospices and other organizations devoted to terminally and chronically ill children and young adults, such as Chestnut Tree House near Arundel, the Little Havens Children’s Hospice, Rayleigh, Essex, Hopes and Dreams charity in Essex, and the LauraLynn House in Dublin, Ireland’s first children’s hospice. I was so proud and pleased to be helping these kids in Amy’s name.

  Amy had told me she wanted to do something for some of the children on St Lucia – Janis is spearheading this project on behalf of the Foundation and is currently discussing a long-term project with the St Lucian government.

  The Foundation is also supporting New Horizons Youth Centre, in Euston, London, by helping to fund its music work, designed to provide skills to young people, and their free food service for those unfortunately homeless.

  With the Angelus Foundation, set up by author and broadcaster Maryon Stewart after losing her daughter, Hester, in 2009, after she had taken the ‘legal’ drug GBL, the Foundation is supporting efforts aimed at encouraging the government to introduce drug-awareness education into schools in the UK.

  I had been speaking to MPs and to the government already on the issue of rehab centres for young addicts who wanted to quit. I had meetings with Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the Home Office select committee, and James Brokenshire MP, Home Office minister for crime and security. I learned that half of the government’s budget to help people with addiction problems – some £200 million – was used to enable addicted offenders within the criminal justice system to receive treatment in a residential rehabilitation unit. This meant a convicted criminal was five times more likely to be offered residential rehab than a non-offender.

  At a further meeting with some senior civil servants I was told they viewed residential rehabilitation as ‘an expensive luxury’. Their solution was to treat people in the community where, for example, heroin addicts were given methadone; that, however, just produces methadone addicts, and methadone deaths are increasing as a result. Don’t get me wrong, there is some very good work being done in the community, but there is a desperate need for some people to go into residential rehabilitation, which is lacking at the moment. After our meetings with government and other parliamentary officials, I felt that, certainly in the short term, I wouldn’t be able to rely on the government to provide any of the help needed by people who were desperate for residential rehabilitation. I became even more determined to ensure that Amy’s Foundation would help those people who needed our assistance.

  One such organization working in this field is Focus 12, whom I’d first had contact with in September 2008 when I met their chief executive, Chip Somers. The Foundation was proud to provide a donation to Focus 12 of £30,000 towards a permanent full-time place for young people battling their addiction.

  Focus 12 was important to me because just a week after Amy passed away I had a call from a friend of a friend who had little money and was desperately seeking help for her daughter. The young woman was an alcoholic, addicted to cocaine and cannabis, and suffered from an eating disorder. I called Chip and arranged for her to meet him at Bury St Edmunds the next day. She stayed at Focus 12 for six weeks and her family were very grateful. I was more than happy to pay for this myself, but Chip said that there would be no charge.

  There are some truly wonderful caring people out there.

  Photographic Insert

  My mum and dad, Cynthia and Alec, in their flat in Rectory Road, Stoke Newington, 1953. Amy never met Pop Alec as he died long before she was born. She felt she knew him from my stories, though, and his style certainly played a part in her love of retro.

  Me aged six with my mum. Amy loved my mum as much as I did. We spent many hours listening to jazz together – a habit she later repeated with Amy.

  Janis and I were engaged in 1975. Who does she remind you of?

  A proud dad and his darling daughter. I’d probably just woken her up on coming home from work, much to Janis’s irritation.

  Amy was a delightful baby, always smiling and happy, but when she wasn’t we all knew about it. We took her abroad from an early age where she immediately loved the beach.

  Amy with her most adoring fan, my mum.

  Amy in Spain, aged three. Everything she wore had to be pink.

  Bath time for the kids was a tangle of limbs and always a soaking wet floor.

  Some of Amy’s drawings from school: Amy with her friends Juliette and Gemma. Why she didn’t use the correct colour for her own hair, I don’t know. I’ve always liked her schoolgirl habit of using hearts to dot her i’s.

  My lovely two: Alex and Amy, in their Osidge Primary school uniforms. Alex always looked after his baby sister.

  The precocious talent that was my daughter. Never happier than when she was performing. 1988 at our home in Osidge Lane, Southgate.

  Amy proud of her brother Alex at his Bar Mitzvah, 1992.

  Amy at Camber Sands 1988 – a rare moment when she was still long enough for me to take a picture.

  A thoughtful Amy, still in pink and with her heart symbol of course, at her school Summer Fête.

  Amy’s class photo, 1994. I know as her dad you’d expect me to say this, but she stands out so much in this picture. Perhaps because she is in the middle and gazing intently into the camera.

  At my mother’s house with Alex and Amy, 1995. A quiet moment just before a Friday night dinner.

  Amy dressed up for an early performance. Her makeup skills certainly got better.

  Amy on the set of the ‘Back to Black’ video, 2007. It was freezing that day and I had to rush over in between takes with a thick coat for her. This is the look that most of Amy’s fans around the world fell in love with.

  Amy shortly after the release of Frank, still playing a guitar as she performed on stage, 2003.

  Amy performing ‘Valerie’ with Mark Ronson, Brit Awards 2008.

  Amy in the spotlight. Performing ‘Rehab’ at the Brit Awards 2007.

  Amy on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, 2008.

  Amy collecting her second Ivor Novello Award for ‘Rehab’, 2007.

  Amy with Janis and me at the Ivor Novello Awards 2008, picking up her third — well, technically I picked up this one as she arrived late.

  Amy with all of us — Alex, Janis, Jane, me and my sister Melody — at the live TV link for the Grammy Awards, 2008.

  Amy at one of my shows, October 2010. This was the night she joined me on stage and stood beside me while I sang.

  Hand in hand with my lovely daughter, snapped by the paps leaving a hotel in Central London. I was always very proud to be seen with her, especially when she looked as lovely as this.

  Amy and I singing together at a family party in 2010…

  …and then dueting on ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ at Pizza on the Park, June 2010.

  In the studio recording the video for ‘Body and Soul’ with Tony Bennett, March 2011.

  Amy with my friend Paul’s daughter Katie at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, June 2011. This is among the last private pictures known to have been taken of Amy.

  The worst week of our lives. With Alex, Reg and Janis, visiting Camden Square and reading the beautiful and moving tributes left to Amy, 25 July 2011.

  Not even my daught
er’s glorious voice and fabulous songs made me as happy as the times when she said, ‘Give me a cuddle, Dad’.

  About the Author

  MITCH WINEHOUSE is the father of Amy Winehouse and a lifelong resident of London who worked for many years as a taxi driver. The founder of the Amy Winehouse Foundation, Mitch is also a jazz vocalist whose most recent album is titled Rush of Love.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  CREDITS

  While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein and secure permissions, the publishers would like to apologize for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future edition of this book.

  Song lyrics