Juliet and His Scars (2024)

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A remarkable man, with a life in two halves. Martin Hopley was just sixteen when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He was told again and again that nothing could be done, until he took matters into his own hands. He went on an extreme diet — no salt, no fats, nothing the tumour could feed on. Since then, he’s had eighteen operations, radiotherapy, and now lives with memory loss that affects most of his day-to-day life. He often jokes that he’s forgotten what he had for breakfast. But there was a calmness about him that stayed with me. He speaks slowly, searching for the right words, and when they don’t come, he finds others. A heroic man who has been through more than most of us, with the scars to prove it.

Because of his disabilities, Martin has struggled to find love. Yet people from around the world now write to him, as Juliet, from Shakespeare, and as Juliet, he responds. It’s a tradition in Verona where anyone can reach out for love, advice, or comfort. As the only member of the team in England, it has become something grounding for him. A way to speak freely. A way to offer something back.

This portrait of his scars is not about survival in the dramatic sense. It’s about what it means to keep going, to keep making meaning, to keep finding ways to speak.

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Juliet, and his scars.