The Stories I've Heard ...

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin ...

27/3/2017

March 20th 2017 was, apparently, World Storytelling Day. So, if you're sitting comfortably....

I've been doing a lot of travelling round recently - mostly long train trips, some driving, mostly work, some not. In the course of these trips I talk to many people. Some because that's what I've arranged to do, some through happenstance. I sometimes wonder if I have the sort of face and voice that encourages fast intimacies, or that demands confessions.

Last week I was on a train to London. Sitting opposite me was a woman I'd guess was in her 30s. Originally from South Africa (she told me at some stage), she was about to travel round Europe with her two primary-school aged children and her UK husband, in a large camper van, for 4 months. She was freelance, working on PR strategies and websites. She'd just been working on a website for a Welsh company developing hydrogen-fuelled cars.
I'm not sure why or how we started talking, but then I can never remember the openings of conversations. I just remember the stories people tell once they get going.
She talked about loneliness, and asked what I did for work and when I explained, told me that last year she'd decided to start volunteering one morning a week with the RVS in the town where she lives. She'd been matched to visit a lady of 88, living alone. She'd recently lost her dog. Her family visited quite often, but they weren't chatty together. It was really just a short time with other bodies in the same house. Not really enough of a connection.
She'd contacted some rescue places to get another dog, but everyone had turned her down because of her age. And her family weren't keen. They thought the dog would outlive her, she told my train companion. That she wouldn't manage.

But she was quite determined, and this RVS visitor mentioned a rescue shelter she hadn't tried, and they decided to go and see the place. The visitor took her in the car, and they explained the situation to the shelter manager.

And the manager hesitated, and then said:

'We have one dog that we can't place because her age. She's 13. No one wants a dog that old. I wouldn't normally agree to this, but we're getting to the point now where we won't be able to keep her much longer. Come and meet her.'

And the rest you can probably guess. The 13 year old dog (91 in human years) and the 88 year old woman (12.5 in dog years) now live together. It's a happy ending: even the family are happy. And what's helped the woman most is knowing she saved this dog's life, as this dog is now saving hers. That neither of them were 'too old' to have a purpose, and a good one.

And is it a true story? It's truly what was told to me, 15th March 2017, on the Littlehampton to London train, by a South African woman about to take her children out of school to travel round Europe. So, yes, it is.

Generational stereotyping

31/10/2016

Gosh, it's been a very long time since I posted on this page. Sorry about that ... the usual excuses: I was busy/ out/ bored/ forgetful/ looking out of the window.

Anyway, those who have worked with me, or who have the pleasure of being mutually connected on FB, will know that I can get a little irate about generational stereotypes, particularly of 'the elderly' ( which always makes me want to ask 'the who?' - but not in a way to suggest The Who).

I'm bored of 'the elderly' who are 'bed-blocking' 'grannies' who wear 'cardigans' - and by assumptions that everyone over state pension age is a) stinking rich b) ate every younger generation's pies (so to speak) c) needs 24 hour care d) doesn't have a functioning brain e) Cannot Make Own Decisions and f) Is Solely and Personally Responsible For Everything That Everyone Under Pension Age Didn't Like Ever - like Brexit, and House Prices, and Arsenal (probably).

It's old fashioned. It's boring. It's outmoded. It's lazy. Pack it in - and while you're at it, please also cut out all the nonsense about 'baby boomers': a term mostly used by people who seem to have no idea what this means. It's a bit like 'Millennial' (?), a frankly silly term which seems to mean everyone aged 18-35, but which in turn actually means everyone born between 1981 and 1998. I'd have thought a Millennial would have meant something more likely such as being born in 2000 - but then, hey, I was born in the 1960s so am apparently rapidly heading for the 'elderly' bed blocking' 'idiot' stage. Clearly.

Which isn't really a story. But hopefully the next bit is, if only in the sense of offering some amusement, as I decided recently to offer some alternative ways of stereotyping adults in each decade, and then thought you might like to see it. Enjoy :-)

Everyone in their 20s works zero hours contracts and has the attention span of that animated dog Doug from the film - *squirrel*
Those in their 30s are a slightly surprising combination of The Backstreet Boys and Mother Theresa: we're gonna save the world, man/dude!! Just hang on a minute while we brush out the artisinal breadcrumbs from our organic sandals and unpack from our latest climate-changing long-distance flight.
People in their 40s are trying to pretend they're not. Some, in their efforts to retain their youth, revert too far back and re-enter adolescence. Meh.
Those in their 50s are thinking either 'WTF?' or 'When the hell did that happen?' Many are thinking both. All the time.
People in their 60s are keeping their fingers tightly crossed that they can hang on financially until their pensions kick in, meanwhile battling the 20-somethings for those fine zero hours jobs.
Everyone in their 70s breathes a collective sigh of relief. Then tries to fit 3 decades' worth of what they really wanted to do in life into the next 10 years.
Those in their 80s wonder not only how come it was only 10 years ago that they were aged 35, but who the blue blazes is that in the mirror?
People in their 90s look on - bemused and amused, often in equal measure. Sometimes not.
Everyone in their 100s puts it down to alcohol. Except for the odd killjoy, who claims it's a result of hard work and gravy. Fortunately, no one listens to them. Ever.

The Other Side of Caring - Part 2: Exchange

13/6/2014

Quite often, in the UK at least, the role of family (or unpaid, or informal) carers is talked about in terms of how much it saves the economy. So many £billions each year, the theory goes, that would otherwise have to spent by the state or individual on purchasing replacement care.

That approach has never sat easily with me. For a start, I suspect the reality is not that it would cost all that money to replace that unpaid care, but that if it wasn't provided most people would simply be without that support. If you could buy it, maybe you would - if it exists, that is. And the state (even in the days of a more generous welfare settlement than now) has never provided all needs for everyone. Don't get me wrong: I'm quite sure carers make an impact in some fiscal terms, not least how much paid staff reply on us to support them in their work.

They wouldn't see it that way, of course, but I lost track of the number of times I was asked to do something for my mum which was really essentially about my doing something that made working life easier for NHS staff - particularly hospital staff.

But I'm still not sure we 'save' the UK a lot of money. I think it might be we provide something that otherwise simply wouldn't be there. But if we want to focus on costs, then I do think that much of that vast 'saving' is derived from carers' bank balances. It costs family carers a huge amount of money - not least in terms of lost earnings and lost savings. For all the positive workplace developments to support family carers to continue in employment, this is meaningless to the many carers who are self-employed: something that's surprising, given the increase in self employment particularly amongst those in their 50s, one of the age groups more likely to find themselves with a caring role. It's easy to assume that self employed people have maximum flexibility so there is no need for any support, but as a freelancer I can tell you categorically that the only flexibility I had was to have no income.

There's other reasons why I find this approach unhelpful. One is that actually quite a lot of what you do as a carer can't be replicated in the market place, so trying to work out a monetary value seems a little .... odd. I suppose it's symptomatic of living in a society that's so grounded in money.

Here's one example: my mum, as I've already mentioned elsewhere, had cancer. Giving her support - looking after her, and her home - being a carer - was very easy in terms of her personality. She was never a whiner (although lord knows she had just cause throughout her life): she was an upbeat person who stuck out her chin and got on with it - not in a stereotypically 'it's that generation' approach, but in a 'this is what is happening so let's do the best we can with what we've got' sort of way.

But even she had her bleaker moments. One afternoon, she was really down (which for my mum meant being very quiet). I went into the kitchen to make us both a cup of coffee, and when I came out I said: 'I've just invented a new dance - would you like to see it?' 'Yes please', she said, so I did it for her. 'It's called the Scottish can-can,' I explained, and whether it was my impression of bagpipes playing that tune, or my high kicking, or the simple truth that I was wearing a very badly fitting bra that day, that made it so incredibly funny I'm not sure - but whatever it was we both giggled uncontrollably, and the bleak moment passed.

[Admittedly, there might be people who would pay to see that dance. But I doubt there's a service in the world you could buy it from: certainly not just at the point when it was needed.]

And that exchange between me and my mum is at the heart of what a lot of carers experience. It isn't a one-sided matter: we get, as well as give, even if the equation is sometimes (often) lop-sided. I gained a great deal by spending that time with my mum, and it cost me a lot - money, yes, bucketloads of that, and sleep, and a sense of peace and calm and certainty, and some sanity, undoubtedly.

It makes me think of the times I've talked, in my work, with older people in care and nursing homes, and the question of how it came to be that they live there has come up. What's struck me, and stays with me, is the exchange that's gone on prior to that move, with family carers. Or, rather, prior to that decision. There are some - possible many - older parents living in care homes who in the end decide (or agree) to move in because they see it as part of their role as a parent. They want their adult children ('children' who are often also pensioners) and grandchildren not to worry about them. They want their family to have fun, and to make the most of their time. For some, moving into a home is simply an act of parenting - perhaps one of the last major acts they believe they will perform. They are looking out for you because they are your parent. That's not going to be true for everyone - because nothing ever is - but it is worth bearing in mind.

Being a carer isn't a one-way street. We can - and many do - get a great deal from the cared-for person. Sure, it can leave you exhausted, and distressed, and without money. Absolutely. That's not to ignore those facts. But not to explore some of these other sides of caring is to diminish why people care in the first place: is to perhaps turn it into an act of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

And the exchange with my mum? However ill she became - and she did, tremendously ill - she was still my mum. She was still looking out for me, wanting me to be okay. Even in the last few days, when she couldn't speak much, still telling me what she'd like me to do next because she knew what would make me happy ('finish writing your novel'); telling me how to handle things because she didn't want me fretting or hanging on to things unnecessarily ('don't worry about the piano'). Over the course of the time I spent caring for her, she bought me a shirt (£16.99), and some shoes (£65.00) and she was pleased to do so, to give me something in return because she wanted there to be an exchange between us. She didn't want it all to be one-way. And she showed me, without saying a word, that I wasn't to be afraid of dying: and that what mattered - not just in the end but in all the years preceeding that end - was fun, and being interested in the world, and love, and company. And that's probably the most profoundly important exchange of all.

The Other Side of Caring, Part 1: Emotions

10/6/2014

I really have become incredibly erratic about posting on here - not through a lack of ideas, but a lack of time.

One thing that's taken up a lot of time recently is a photo film I've made of three family carers and the support they receive in their area (which happens to be in Oxfordshire, UK), for National Carers Week (9-15 June 2014).

The film - A Grand Job - looks at two main things - how can you tell you are a carer, when you are already in that person's life as their sister, partner, friend? - and about how the support they've received (from Action for Carers Oxfordshire) has helped them.

One of the things talked about (by Deirdre, who is caring for her husband with vascular dementia, diabetes, and other health problems) is the emotional side of being a carer: that sense of being overwhelmed, out of the blue, as the accumulation of what you're doing and what you're facing hits you. As Deirdre says, she became a bit weepy, but got through it and got on with it because it has to be done.

How being a carer affects you emotionally will vary hugely from person to person, not least because we are all different - the relationship with the person we're supporting is different - and the nature of the care we're providing is different, varying through a whole range of aspects.

How it can feel is as if a knot is twisting its way through your body.

There's not much support with the emotional side - I guess we're all much better at doing practical things. Certainly, as a carer, one of the things that can aide your own feelings is to be busy doing practical, caring things. To feel that you are 'doing something' (rather than 'doing nothing') can often be calming, even when you are exhausted: it's counter-intuitive, perhaps, but no less true for that.

And, of course, there is the very real issue that if you did truly 'let go' of how you were feeling, you might never be able to stop.

Both of which slightly beg the question, so how do you support a carer emotionally? I can answer for me - as the carer for my mum during her terminal cancer - but wouldn't assume this is the same for others.

For me, two things made all the difference. The first were those who asked how I was doing - even if I didn't share much in those answers, it was the fact that the question was about me and not about my mum. Don't get me wrong - they asked about my mum too. But a few of them had the nouse to ask about me, and not just me as a carer, but the whole kit-and-kaboodle full me.

The other thing that would have really helped was practical help in my own life. My mum lived over 100 miles away, so I was constantly driving (it felt) long distances to be at her house while she had surgery, chemo, more surgeries, more chemo, and the rest. I simply wasn't at home much, for nearly 18 months. I could really have done with someone popping in to water my plants. Or pick up the post. Or - best of all - mow the back lawn. Just practical stuff. Anything. Just to keep things ticking over: otherwise I had that to face, too, when I raced home, in between. Nothing to do with the actual caring, but a by-product of my simply not being there.

My neighbours were great - but I only have 8 of them. Two of those lost their partners while my mum was having chemo (one in her 50s, one in his 60s - so not so expected as you might think). One house is a holiday home and the person seldom there; another lives part of the year overseas and wasn't there much either; another neighbour, in his late 80s, was showing signs of advancing dementia. And on, and on. (And they did give me help, for the record, one in particular - the point is, they had their own major stuff to contend with at the same time. So there were limits.)

So, if you know someone who is a carer - someone who, as the carers in A Grand Job make clear, is helping another person who couldn't manage their daily life without that help - ask them how they are. Them. That person. And because we seem to struggle so much to tackle the emotional side, see if there's something practical you could do for them, in their own life, that's nothing to do with the caring role.

Thank you.

The impact of 'No' (Part 1)

4/3/2014

There's been a long gap in story telling on this site - largely taken up by my telling and sharing other stories in other ways and in other settings. That's a story in its own right, but perhaps not for here.

But I couldn't very well have a story about the importance of 'yes' without also sharing a story about the impact of 'No'.

There's two stories in fact - so I'll tell them in 2 blogs.

The first is about an older lady I'll call Mrs Rossi. She was a widow, living alone in an old terraced house. Her late husband had had some connection with coal mining, and as part of the very tiny pension she received she also got a free coal allowance. So that was what she used to heat the house: she had a really neat little coal burning stove, on which she could also keep warm anything she'd cooked such as soup, or a casserole. That was always lit in the room in which she spent most of her days and evenings.

And, in fact, at the point I knew her, having coal fires as her main source of heating wasn't a problem. She could manage to bring in coal in a bucket from the coal bunker outside the back door perfectly well, and she didn't have a problem with cleaning it all out: well, she grumbled a bit but there wasn't a physical difficulty, let's put it that way.

The problem for Mrs Rossi was two-fold. Firstly, this room - her living room - had a very damp main wall and the room needed a new damp proof course. Mrs Rossi didn't have enough money to pay for this herself, but she qualified for a grant from the local council (for those in the know, that rather dates this story!). So far, so good. To remedy the problem, the builders would remove the skirting boards and the plaster on the long damp wall up to a height of 1 metre, replaster it and redecorate. All within the grant - so no cost to Mrs Rossi. Even better. Except.

Except that this meant removing the wallpaper that her late husband had put up - the last room he had decorated before becoming ill and dying. Mrs Rossi was absolutely adamant that the wallpaper wasn't to be touched. But there wasn't a way - at that time, anyway - of doing the work without removing the bottom few feet of the wallpaper. And Mrs Rossi hated the damp with a vengeance and also worried about it - and she regularly rang up all sorts of people (me included) to let everyone know how anxious she was to get it sorted out.

So, with her daughter, we tried to come up with a solution. First - with the builders - we suggested that they very carefully 'drew a line' along the wallpaper so the top part stayed intact, and then the bottom part could be redecorated with a border at the height of a dado rail and then a new wallpaper below that. No, Mrs Rossi said. None of the wallpaper was to be touched.

Next, her daughter managed to track down some more of the same wallpaper - so we suggested the room could be redecorated using the same paper, so it would look the same as before (in fact, it would have been cleaner and brighter - as anyone who lives with coal fires would understand - as the previous paper had been put up some 11 years earlier). No, Mrs Rossi said. None of the existing wallpaper was to be touched.

Then we talked to her about whether - if her husband had lived for longer - he might have redecorated the living room. Yes, she said, he would have done. But he didn't - so he hadn't. So, no, still the wallpaper wasn't to be touched.

So we asked her what her solution would be. Sort out the damp, she said, but leave the wallpaper intact. But the builders - and the grants officer - said that wouldn't work. So, in the end, the solution was that the wallpaper remained. And so did the damp. And Mrs Rossi continued to ring and write to complain about the damp, and her daughter and others continued to have the same circular discussion with her: the damp can be dealt with if some of the wallpaper is removed. No, Mrs Rossi kept on saying. No. No. No.

The power of "Yes"

17/8/2013

When I was about 7, we moved to a new house halfway up a hill in the same town, and I acquired new neighbours - on each side, a retired couple.

In the house slightly uphill from ours were a retired designer and his wife, together with her mother. I'll call them Mr and Mrs Keen. I think Mrs Keen's mother was the first person I met who likely had a form of dementia. I didn't meet her straightaway: in fact, I didn't really get to know Mr and Mrs Keen until I was around 9 years old and accidentally lobbed a tennis ball over their fence. This was the introduction to what would become one of my most important friendships, growing up.

Mr Keen's design work had been mainly concerned with exhibition stands. At some point, as a student, he'd trained alongside Henry Moore - which was massively impressive, even to a 9 year old, not least because I'd seen photographs of some of Moore's sculptures of 'people with holes', as I thought of them. He was also a very skilled furniture maker, and had made his wife a beautiful sideboard as his wedding gift to her. Now he'd retired, he spent every morning out in his garden, growing flowers, fruit, and vegetables, and, in bad weather, looking out at the garden from the comfort of his greenhouse. They had a cat, who'd turned up in the back garden one day - a huge black cat who was now so old his fur had faded to dark brown. The cat spent a lot of time in an old rabbit hutch raised on a platform that Mr Keen had adapted, taking out the door so the cat too could sit inside in bad weather and look out at the garden, also in comfort.

They hadn't had children, although Mrs Keen did once tell my mum it hadn't been through choice. Mr Keen had had mumps as a young boy and she thought it was likely this had been the cause. Of course, in her day, it had always been the woman who was 'blamed' for being infertile and I think she had found that very upsetting at times. She had very poor eyesight and on medical advice had to wear dark glasses when she was outdoors, even in the winter. In the 1970s, this must have looked very odd indeed.

Our friendship developed over cups of tea after school in her back kitchen and, later, Saturday evening TV drama programmes in her sitting room, where the beverage of choice was Birds Mellow Coffee Powder made up with hot milk.

We always found plenty to talk about, not least as I got older because Mrs Keen had been to what was now my secondary school. She thought it was very funny that the 'New Wing' - that really had been new in the 1920s when she was a pupil - was still known by that name into the 1980s.

Sometime before my dad died, Mrs Keen's mother died, and then sometime after that Mr Keen died too. So Mrs Keen - an only child - retired, in her 70s, now living alone, was without parents, spouse, children or grandchildren. A recipe for loneliness? Perhaps, but not inevitably.

Mrs Keen had two major things going for her. The first was that she was good company - she was kind, and thoughtful, and patient, and calm. She remembered what you'd told her, and she was interested in people. She was good at living on her own and, regardless of her eyesight problems, never seemed to find it a particular difficulty, perhaps because - and this was the second thing and the most important of all - whenever she was invited to do anything or go anywhere, she always said 'yes'.

Her view was that if you said 'yes', the worst thing that might happen is that you went somewhere for a few hours, got a bit bored, waited for it to finish, and then went home: so that didn't feel very bad at all, not to her. And, of course, you might instead have a very nice time, mixing with people, finding out about something new, and perhaps having a bite to eat and drink.

But if you said 'no', in the end people would stop asking you - and being on your own all the time seemed to her to be much, much worse.

It was - and is still - a powerful lesson for any of us. Saying 'yes' opens up opportunities, where saying 'no' closes them down. When life is hard - as it became for her, dealing with the loss of her remaining immediate family in a relatively short space of time in her 70s - it is tempting to turn down invitations because saying 'no' and staying at home often feels the safest thing to do. But saying 'yes' - scary though it can feel - exposes you to precisely the sort of things you need to get your life back on something approaching an even keel: things in the diary to look forward to; company; learning something new; sharing food and drink; the potential of making new friends; and the step-change needed, when life alters significantly, of doing things you wouldn't have done had your circumstances remained the same.

The Importance of Being Lellow

2/8/2013

When I was growing up, two of the houses we lived in had the most significance for me, not least because I have the strongest memories of those times. A big part of those memories concerns the older neighbours living, in each case, next door.

My mum had a theory that I gravitated towards these two very different sets of neighbours because of something to do with wanting grandparents who were nearer, or more involved. l could see her point, but I was never entirely convinced this was what it had been about.

What those older adults offered - without knowing it - was a way to work out who you were. It wasn't the only way; but it was an opportunity to test out ideas and theories about life, and also give you something against which to challenge.

I don't for a minute think that's what they thought they were doing (I suspect they just thought they were being nice to their neighbour's little girl): but it is what I took from it, and that's pretty much the point of all our interactions with other people. Our contact with each other is hugely dependent how we interpret what happens, how we interpret what we think has happened, and what we learn from both. We all differ hugely on those fronts, but from those different interpretations all manner of misunderstandings and misery may ensue, sadly.

When I was very little - about 3 years old - the husband of one of these sets of neighbours would repeatedly tease me about the colour of my favourite dress: which you can see in the photo, above.

"That's a nice pink dress, Lorna," he'd say, over the low chain and link fence between our two back gardens.

I would stamp my foot and, hands on hips, turn to face him and say,

"It's not pink, it's lellow," to much amusement on his part. He knew I couldn't quite say the letter 'y', which was the purpose of his teasing.

My parents also thought it was funny, not least because they could see me standing up for myself; something my dad especially would have wanted to encourage.

Of course, because my mum would periodically tell and re-tell this story over the years, it's hard to know if I really remember it happening or if I just remember the memory of her telling the story - if you follow! (Memory is a very interesting, complex thing.)

But I do remember that feeling of pure indignation, which small children are so good at expressing so clearly, especially when they know they are in the right. And the lesson I learned? Getting cross doesn't mean people will do what you want (in my case, to acknowledge the correct colour of my frock), but you should always encourage others to challenge what's being said or done if they know it's wrong, whatever their age or your circumstances. (Learning what to do when people reject or ignore your challenge? That's a different lesson.) That teasing gave me not just 'permission' to stand my ground and argue my case, but experience in doing so.

But I also took two other things from this: things that, as adults, we should perhaps bear in mind when talking with children.

The first was that I didn't think adults could be all that clever if they didn't know their colours. And the second was I thought adults were a little bit, well, - not to sugar coat it - barmy.

Where Was Moses When The Lights Went Out?*

22/7/2013

For a while, when I was a theatre stage manager, I worked in a county in the south of England. I'll call it Hampshire.

I was part of a very small community theatre company, touring a variety of productions around the area to village halls, schools, care homes, long stay NHS hospitals (that dates it!), and community arts venues.

It seemed to me that, at that time, most of the village halls were 'run' by retired Colonels. Certainly, when we arrived at each hall in turn at the agreed time, it was usually a retired Colonel who met us, let us in, showed us what was where and - if we were lucky - unlocked the kitchen and made us a cup of tea. So far, so kind.

I was then in my mid 20s, very small, very slim - but even though it was me driving the van that carried the set, actors, costumes, and all the necessary other bits and pieces, when we arrived the Colonels would always make a beeline for the oldest, tallest male actor, only to be told they needed to talk to me.

They were far too polite to 'harrumph' loudly, but were clearly not used to the idea of a woman being in charge. Yet, at the end of every show - without fail - these very polite older gentlemen would come up to me and say, in extremely clipped tones:

"Might be a girl - but jolly good."

It made me laugh a bit - quite kindly, and privately - and think I'd at least made some small inroads for womankind. And it taught a lesson about not making judgements based on prejudice but that - if you do - you should openly give credit when you find you are mistaken.

But that's not the main lesson here, although it's a good one.

On this one occasion, the village hall in which we were to perform was being extended and (for various reasons) the only way we could fit everything in was if we put the set up at one end, against the building works. In effect, the backstage area was a building site.

It was a Christmas show for children so (like all good community theatre) it involved a 'chase' sequence, in which one actor cannot see that a second actor is following him/her, appeals to the audience for help, and watches as numerous 5 year olds go purple in the face screaming and urgently pointing, "He's behind you."

Ah, the old traditions. :-)

We'd just reached this point of frenzy and - likely - noise levels that would be prohibited in law in any other place of work, when the lights went out. All of them. All at once. None of our lighting and sound equipment worked. Of course, this was rural Hampshire so there were no streetlamps or any external lighting. It was pitch black, indoors and out. Fortunately I had a torch (being a well organised stage manager), but even so I was stumbling around this building site trying to work out which bit of our equipment had caused the power to trip, and how I could get round to the front of the building to switch on the hall's lights.

Luckily, the two actors then 'on stage' had the presence of mind to stand still, and the one being chased to call out, "Where is he? I can't see anything", to much laughter.

Then our lights and sound suddenly came back on, and the show carried on as normal.

At the end, as the audience was leaving, I went up to the retired Colonel in charge of this particular venue to say I was so sorry about the blackout, and hoped our equipment hadn't caused a problem. I was worried we'd somehow damaged the new electricals in the unfinished extension.

"No," he said, quite matter-of-factly. "I'd not put enough money in the electricity meter. So I had to put in another 50 pence."

And the lesson from this? (It's a simple one.)

When something goes wrong, it may well be for the most mundane of reasons.

(And, to answer the traditional music hall joke used as a title for this post* - when the lights went out, Moses was in the dark.)

Mrs Howard's Life Lessons - Part Two

8/7/2013

2 Comments

As I mentioned in Part One of this post, Mrs Howard lived with one of her three sons and his girlfriend.

I'll call her son Dave. He was in his early 60s, balding, and he moved quite slowly: Mrs Howard said he'd been in the local mental hospital for a short time, many years earlier. It wasn't clear how long he'd been living with her when I knew her, but it seemed that he had been coming and going for several decades: every now and again he would move out and, she said, find work with tied accommodation, or travel, or go and live with other people elsewhere in the country.

I once met her other sons: they and their wives were at the house one day when I was visiting. She'd lit a fire in the front room - against Fire Brigade advice - and had been upset when the resultant chimney fire led to her being told again she mustn't do it. She was perfectly able to understand what she had been told, so it wasn't that; and she wasn't particularly stubborn, so it wasn't that: I think she may have felt that, as she'd not had a fire for some time, maybe it would be okay by now. It was a sort of 'fingers crossed' approach to life, to which many of us can probably relate.

Dave was in the house on that occasion - but he didn't come to say hello to me or his brothers. I think I saw him twice, all the times I visited, and only in passing. He was often there, though. If I saw him I would say hello, and he would look at the floor and say hello, and go quickly into his room. He lived in one of the two large downstairs reception rooms.

Also in the household was Dave's girlfriend - I'll call her Kathleen. She was an overweight woman in her 40s, whose long dark hair was always tied back in a very severe bun. She wore the same sort of blue nylon overall sported by Mrs Howard, which made her look a bit like a school dinner lady. Indeed, she told me she had worked in schools - it wasn't entirely clear as what, but something to do with being a school matron or a nurse, and she'd said this was how she'd met Dave as he'd once worked in the grounds of the same school: but of course I was visiting Mrs Howard about her house, so finding out more about Kathleen wasn't the top priority.

Kathleen didn't, however, live in the house with Dave. Instead, she lived in a small caravan parked in the large back garden. She'd been there for some time, she said. She was a very cheerful woman, and she and Mrs Howard appeared to get on well. She didn't come into the house very often and seemed to live quite separately from Dave, although she said he was her boyfriend. I never went inside the caravan: again, I was there to visit Mrs Howard so I didn't ask to see, and I wasn't invited. Kathleen wasn't working when I met her: neither was Dave. He was claiming the then state benefit for people with long term illness. She was waiting to hear about another job.

One of the things about Mrs Howard was that she was what I'd describe (as a sort of shorthand) as 'selectively deaf'. I'd noticed this before: if I visited when she said Dave was in, she talked very loudly; but when he was out, her voice dropped to a whisper. I would follow suit, mirroring her volume.

She did something similar that day when her other sons were there - appearing not to hear what they were saying so they spoke very loudly, then perfectly able to hold a conversation with me after they'd gone at a much lower volume. So I said I'd noticed just then that she found it easier to talk to me on my own rather than when everyone was there, and wondered if she'd asked her GP about checking her hearing?

We were sitting in the back kitchen, rheumy old dog on the floor in front of the coal fire, Mrs Howard sitting at the large wooden table, and me in one of the easy chairs opposite her. She leaned forward, and beckoned to me to do the same. Her voice as low and as quiet as she could manage, she whispered:

"Dave listens to everything I say, so I pretend I can't hear."

Then she sat back up and smiled at me and, patted her nose with one finger, as if it was our secret. I wasn't sure what to say, but as she didn't seem to be worried about it I smiled back and carried on with the matter in hand. I mentioned it to my colleagues, but her claim was seen as very unlikely and one of Mrs Howard's many eccentricities, along with showing her mastectomy, the loose dentures, playing the piano at the care home over the road, and other aspects of her life: not anything of any note.

Then I changed jobs and moved away. Mrs Howard's need for house renovations got nearer the top of the list and, eventually, a couple of years later, the work was done. She was helped to move out temporarily; by then, Kathleen had gone, and Dave had taken the offer of moving into his own social housing flat.

When Dave's room was being emptied prior to the work starting, the contractors found and removed a number of cassette recorders, and a large reel to reel tape machine, which he'd left behind. It was so damp in the house that all the plaster in the downstairs rooms had to be hacked off, and the bare bricks and stones exposed. And, in Dave's room, this also exposed a extraordinary array of tiny holes through the wall that divided his room from the back kitchen, each containing wires connected to the sort of cheap microphones that were used at home by many people in the days of cassette recorders. There were, apparently, masses of them.

Mrs Howard had been right. Dave had been listening to everything she said - or certainly trying to. Perhaps, when he was in his room, she spoke loudly so he didn't feel anxious about what was being said because he could clearly hear her and - to make sense of her speaking so loudly - she made out she couldn't hear very well. Perhaps, when he was out, she would whisper in order to talk more freely but also because if she was so quiet that it couldn't be recorded, Dave wouldn't be suspicious about what happened in his absence, and would feel able to go out more. Perhaps there were other explanations. But with that came two very important lessons. Even when things seem very unlikely, it doesn't mean they're not true. And just because they're being described by older people - and in this case an older woman whose life was a little unusual - doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention.

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Life lessons from Mrs Howard - Part One

29/6/2013

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A long time ago I knew a lady I'll call Mrs Howard (not her real name - and as she was in her mid 80s then I very much doubt she's still with us).

Mrs Howard lived in quite a large, three bedroomed semi-detached Victorian villa, on a narrow, semi-rural road about 2 miles from the nearest town. Apart from the other half to her semi, there were only a few houses near to hers as well as - slightly bizarrely - a care home on the other side of the road, opposite Mrs Howard's house.

On Sundays, Mrs Howard used to go over the road and play the piano "for the old dears" as she put it, although she was older than most of the residents. Lesson number one: other people might be old, but you never are.

One of her sons and his girlfriend lived with her - or rather, the son lived in the house and his girlfriend lived in a caravan in the back garden. Their story comes under Part Two of this blog.

Mrs Howard's house was the dampest place I've ever been in - before or since. Upstairs, in the bedrooms, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls in great clumps. You could smell the damp in every room, and there was a lot of mould. Most of the sash windows had been either nailed shut, or were so badly warped that they no longer opened. The house had last been rewired in 1935, Mrs Howard thought, and many of the sockets either didn't work or could only be used for appliances with 'round pin' plugs. It had been her husband's family's home, and she'd lived there since she got married in 1929.

The only form of heating was the open fireplaces - and the fire brigade had banned Mrs Howard from using two of these fireplaces because she'd had so many chimney fires, and they'd been called out so many times, that these weren't safe. This left her with one working fireplace for the whole house, in what she called "the back kitchen."

She pretty much lived in the back kitchen, which spanned the width of the house. It had a small scullery to one side, with an electric cooker, a sink and a cupboard. In the back kitchen was a fireplace with a small range, a large dark wood round table with a thick blanket covering it, some dark wooden dining chairs, several very old easy chairs covered with bright, multi-coloured crocheted blankets, and other furniture - and the oldest dog, with the rheumiest eyes you've ever seen. She had a very low income.

Mrs Howard wore a blue nylon overall which buttoned all the way up, skirt, thick tights, and lace-up shoes. She'd had breast cancer - and a mastectomy, and she frequently showed the scar to visitors. One of the local council housing officials who was involved in the application to get her house renovated - a small man, with what appeared to be a bit of a power complex - would ring me every time he had to visit so I would be there to be shown the scar instead of him, and so save his blushes. I would to say to her, please don't feel you have to show everyone your scar, but she said she was proud of her 'war wound' and didn't think anyone should be afraid of it.

She also had the most ill-fitting dentures I've ever seen, and it was hard when talking to her not to stare as they rolled around her mouth. How they didn't fall out was a total mystery. I asked her once about her dentist and she beamed at me, dentures loose and gleaming, and said the old dears at the care home often complained that their dentures hurt them whereas hers were fine. I left it at that.

Mrs Howard took a liking to me, and I to her. So, because it was me, and because she wanted to give me a treat, every time I visited she would offer me a cup of tea. In those days - more than now - I drank tea that looked as if you'd crept up behind a cup of hot water with some milk in and frightened it by shouting 'boo' (very, very weak, in other words). In contrast, Mrs Howard made the strongest tea ever - almost orange in its concentration. And because it was me, and because it was a treat, she wouldn't add milk, she would instead put in a huge dollop of condensed milk and then - sticking in her finger and flicking out any stray dog hairs that were floating on top - she would proudly present to me the strongest, sweetest cup of tea on the planet.

It was so bad I couldn't always face it, so I would occasionally arrange to call in just after lunch so I could legitimately thank her and turn down the offer because I'd just had a drink. But she took such pleasure in making this tea for me that I didn't do that very often.

She was a very kind, very interesting woman, and one of the lessons she taught me was the importance of being able to receive that kindness. Many of us are good at being kind to others - but receiving it is an art form in its own right, and it's an important contribution that many very ill people make to life that goes unremarked. She made me the sort of tea she thought was the best treat she could possibly give me. And so she also taught me a little about what it's like to be on the receiving end of something another person thinks is best for you, when you haven't been asked. Both these lessons have served me well, in my professional life and personally.

But that wasn't the end of Mrs Howard's life lessons - there was an even more important lesson to be learned, and that's the subject of Part Two of this blog.