Blog 294 – Growing Up in Liverpool, Part 2 – 3 July 2025

 36: Cheryl Scopazzi - Why Were Margaret and I Cancelled? 3 October 2024

This is a copy of an email I sent on 23 September 2024 to a friend who cancelled me in January 2024 after she had borrowed $2,000.00 from me.  Like the earlier cancellations of both Margaret and me in February 2021, I was given no warning that this cancellation was imminent. 

Dear Cheryl, I am fairly certain, but not quite 100% certain, that you will not answer this email, but I thought I would give it a try even though I am probably wasting my time. As you know, I was cancelled and so was Margaret, by Anne Ryan, Chris Reilly, Heather Long, Nez Fernandez and Sue Chapman shortly after I sent my letter sent to Anne immediately after Australia Day 2021.  You are also well aware of the immense harm this inflicted on both Margaret and me.  You were the only friend of Margaret’s who bothered to maintain any sort of relationship with her throughout the long period of vast suffering that  she underwent after the cancellation.  I was grateful that you did maintain contact with her.  I was also grateful that out of the whole lot of them, you continued to talk to me. The physical suffering that Margaret underwent was immense.  I was there throughout every hour of her suffering and as you well know, I would have gladly taken her suffering for my own if this would have helped her in any way.  Unfortunately, I was not given this possibility. The agony that Margaret and I suffered because of her illness was something that you cannot begin to imagine.  And yes, I have not forgotten that you had to watch John die over many years, but if anything, going through that process ought to have made you even more acutely aware than ever of the need to support Margaret and me.  Of course, having to watch my gorgeous wife suffer and die was made significantly worse by my own near deadly illness and my own near deadly illness was itself a direct result of helping Anne by restoring her wooden chest.   This is all set out in my blogs so I am sure you know exactly what I am talking about. Throughout the whole process of Margaret being ill and eventually dying, you knew precisely why Anne and Margaret’s other friends had cancelled her and me but every time I asked you why, you said you could not break obligations of confidentiality.  I accepted this at the time because I had no choice.  It is of course, a bullshit excuse. I have recounted this aspect of what you already know because I want to underline your personal knowledge of the immensely harmful affect that the cancellation had on both Margaret and me.  Unlike those in the cancellation party, you had first hand knowledge of the impact caused by the bad behaviour of the cancellers. It is against this background of your personal knowledge of the harm done by the cancellation that I find your behaviour of joining the cancellation party in January 2024, so immensely hurtful. I have never done you a bad turn – never ever – and yet despite this and despite your personal knowledge of how much I completely loved Margaret and the great lengths I went to try and help her when nearly everyone else she knew refused to help her or even come near her, you decided to cancel me also in January this year.  I have a simple question.  Why have you acted so badly when I have never done anything but help you in every way I could?  Why do you continue the pretence that you have obligations to Anne Ryan and Margaret’s other friends which prevent you from telling me the reasons for the cancellation of both of us by the people who were supposedly Margaret’s closest friends?  Why did you feel I was a good enough friend to borrow $2,000.00 from shortly after Margaret died, but not a good enough friend to maintain contact with after January this year? I know you and Margaret’s cancelling friends have been reading my blogs.  You know how much suffering the cancellations have caused.  Break the Cone of Silence and let your conscience speak.  I am entitled to know what my crimes are supposed to have been.  It is unspeakably malicious that I have been put on trial, convicted and punished without ever being told what my crimes are supposed to have been.  I am like the unnamed central character in the book The Trial by Franz Kafka.  In The Trial the protagonist was refused all information about his alleged crime on the basis that he had  committed the crime, so he already knew what his crime was.  A believer in fairness who I once knew (called Cheryl Scopazzi) would once have fiercely denounced something as obscene as this, but that version of Cheryl Scopazzi seems to no  longer exist. I once thought you, Anne Ryan, Sue and Heather were good examples of very fine human beings, but the cancellation behaviour has completely eliminated my previous good opinions.  In a sense, your cancellation of me is even worse than their cancellation, because yours happened long after Margaret had died and at a time when you had no possible doubt about the effect the bad behaviour had had on me when it was combined with the particularly tragic death of Margaret after she had completely beaten the cancer. For your information, I specifically invited Anne to say goodbye to Margaret at Croagh Patrick and I am still waiting for a reply. I dare you.  Find some courage, break the Cone of Silence and rediscover the ethics you once had.  Tell me what my crimes are supposed to have been.

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As at the date of this blog, I have received no response at all from Cheryl to my request for the reasons behind the cancellation   

My assumption is that while Margaret was ill, Cheryl was asked by the cancellers to be Margaret's "Designated Friend" - the canceller who had to stay in touch with Margaret and me to provide reports to the cancellers on how close Margaret was to death.  By January 2024, this assignment was redundant.  Having extracted $2,000 from me under the pretence of friendship, Cheryl ditched the veneer of friendship - it was no longer necessary to pretend because Margaret was now dead.

Like the character in The Trial, I have zero information about the crimes I am accused of having committed.  I presume that as with the character in The Trial, the cancellers claim to themselves that because the cancellers know I committed the unnamed crimes, they can be certain that I already know what my crimes were - after all, don’t all accused criminals have full knowledge of the crimes they have committed?