Raise the rafters!

Raise the rafters!

There was a real poignancy about the choir singing at St Werbergh’s Church in Chorlton at a fund raiser for Freedom from Torture North West last Thursday 3rd December. This was a merely 24 hours after the vote in parliament on bombing Syria. And it being the festive season so man of our songs sang of peace - Come the time we lay down all our arms/There will be freedom, oh glory! There’ll be peace across the land. Nevertheless we were in good voice and ‘raised the roof’ or at least the rafters as one of our songs suggested! I liked how we sang with controlled passion inspired by our conductor Liz. When each song ended there was a palpable silence with just the hint of an echo from the high ceiling of the church. So maybe we did raise the rafters after all!

Resurrection in Wythenshawe

Resurrection in Wythenshawe

Like fresh air in a sick room
A visiting angel
With a wheelchair
To take me to the chapel

We fall into gentle conversation
Of this and that
As we move along
Endless corridors
All empty and cold

The chapel is lit up
With bright stained glass colours
And I weep
With morphine
With relief
And touched by the known
And the unknown

The kindness of strangers
To a troubled soul
Broken in body
And needing a spiritual resurrection

Latest Mystic bit

Paul was sat on a train – London bound – with nothing to do but to stare out of the window and listen to the Pet Shop Boys on his mobile. But he couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop thinking of last night and Marilyn.

He had felt restless and for once had no stake out to do. Indeed, everything had gone cold on his list of active cases. And a night in alone had no appeal for him. Jenny was out of town visiting her mum. So it was time to call up his old friend Frankie.
- Hi Frankie.
- Oh hi mystic…. How goes?
- Not so bad…. Not so bad…. Whatsha up to?
- Tonight?
- Yeah.
- Hmm… I thought about a quiet visit to the Bar. (One of Chorlton’s finest.)
- Sounds good to me… If you want some company?
- How could I refuse such an offer?
Paul smiled at Frankie’s arch tone.
- See you about nine?
- Sounds good.

It was a midweek evening but the Bar was already pretty full with the regulars who would stay there all night and enjoy the range of good beers, along with younger ones who would call in for a beer or two before moving on. Frankie was neatly turned out as per usual with a lime green severe cut suit, purple shirt and pink bow tie. (‘Well someone has to lend a bit of elegance to this place’.) Paul as ever was dressed down in casual clothes that could suit a stake out.
- Mystic!
- Frankie!
They man hugged with real affection.
- This is good (said Frankie) nice to be out but not on the prowl.
- The night is young…
- To true….and who knows?

But there was plenty to catch up on – the antics of Frankie’s grown up, in age, if not behaviour, daughter; Paul’s love life or lack of it; the price of beer; housing; the state of mutual friends; gay marriage (‘Welcome but so dreary’ was Frankie’s wry comment). Just then the conversation was interrupted-
- Frankie?
- Yes?
- It’s Marilyn…. Marilyn Jackson.
- Oh yes, so it is! ... How do?
- Do very well actually.
- I am glad…What are you up to these days?
- Oh this and that…. A bit of teaching… lots of writing…. Lots of job applications, very few interviews but still standing.
- Good…. good. This is my old friend Paul.
- Oh hi Paul.

Paul put out his right hand for a hand shake feeling a bit foolish but it was well received by Marilyn who offered him a firm handshake in return and held onto his hand a fraction longer than was strictly necessary.
- Well any old mate of Frankie’s is well worth meeting.
Paul smiled and took in this young woman who looked back at him with a serious face, with alive eyes beneath a black fringe and cropped hair. She wore a pale green blouse that revealed more skin than strictly necessary and blue jeans with fashionable tears. (Such tears always puzzled Paul.).

Paul’s memory of the rest of the evening was something of a blur which was an increasing experience for him after a drink or three. But there was something that Marilyn had said that stuck in his mind. What was it? Oh yes she had had piano lessons from Rachel.
- Notice anything strange about her recently?
- You mean before the police arrested her?
- Yeah.
- Well there was one time, a month or two before then. I was a bit early for my lesson…It was cold and wet… and when I got to her front door I heard angry voices… She and a guy… Well she made nothing of it but-
- What did he look like?
- The guy?
- Yeah.
- Well not the usual piano playing type – whatever that is… a bit of a bruiser really.
- Hmm… tell me more.
- Muscular, clearly he works out, had a lived-in face, dark clothes, dark hair – brown or black… Hmm, that’s about it.
- Would you recognise him again if you saw him?
- Oh yeah… but?
- Just checking, it may mean something or nothing.

So maybe Rachel was being blackmailed after all. But how to take this forward? Meanwhile Dusty Springfield was dueting with Neil Tennant singing ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ Indeed thought Paul, what have I done to deserve this?

John Lewis Ad poem

Some people don't get their heads around metaphors so the latest John Lewis Christmas ad passed them by. Anyway here's me take giving the guy a voice:

I feel I am on the moon
And all of you are so far away
My grand daughter is so small
I can hardly see her

I dream of you
Looking for me
With a telescope

But I am so far away
And Christmas is coming
When will I se her again?

The sun is shining today
And the snow is melting
And I am OK thank you
But I still feel I am on the moon

Wait, there' a knock at the door
She's there with a tiny parcel
And a big smile
It's a telescope
Oh my
I can bring her into focus now.

Alan Turing and meaning making

Alan Turing wrote a famous paper in the 1930s that basically said we just needed one machine that could be programmed to do many things. Thinking about the different meanings we bring to encounters with one another. My 'good morning' to my neighbours and their words and smiles back has many differing for me and presumably for them too. I am not responsible for the meaning my words and smile have for them - although it is not as simple as that. I have to take responsibility for what their words and smile means to me but it is not as simple as that. It takes/took a lot of work to 'reprogramme' how the world affects me! Can I really be present to you in your uniqueness or am I (almost) always fitting you into my existing meaning-makings? I hope that makes sense!

Glastonbury

I entered this for a history writing contest in BC History in magazine. The somewhat hippy voice is deliberate or at least that is how it flowed out of me before editing!

Glastonbury

“And did those feet in ancient times/Walk upon England’s mountains green?”

Maybe it is a bit fanciful to think that the young Jesus was brought by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea to Cornwall and then onto to Glastonbury where Joseph was said to have thrust his staff into the ground where it took root and came to life as the Holy Thorn. But sit near that tree in the abbey grounds in the cool of the early evening and who knows you might just get a glimpse of that other world where a better life awaits.

Or wander further into the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey where you will come across a head stone for a tomb where King Arthur was reburied in 1191 in the reign of Kind Edward 1 to keep the Welsh in their place. Take another moment to pause and allow your mind to wander through the Arthurian legends and the old Welsh Mabinogion stories of a prince born to be king and born to die in battle with his son but with the promise of future resurrection when his people need him.

Further afield is the Chalice Well Gardens with its health giving waters that have attracted the attentions of a modern day Prince Charles in need of healing. Take a quiet moment at the well head and maybe you can connect the life of Arthur and his knights’ quest for the holy Grail which was said to be have been used at Jesus’ last supper.

Finally a walk up to the ruined church on top of the Tor, a vast panoramic view awaits which is today thankfully unflooded, no Avalon in sight, no mist either but take a quiet reflective moment and pay a silent tribute to the 12 early Christian monks granted 12 hydes of land to live simply and establish the first Christian Church at Glastonbury.

In all of these places around Glastonbury that are rich in history and myth I get a glimpse of a different world that might have been and who knows might still be.

Pet Shop Boys by John Farmer

This is an ace composition by John Farmer for my retirement do which has a huge number of et Shop Boys song titles embedded in it!

“Go West”

or “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”


In preparing to mark William’s retirement I thought I could do no better than turn to the words immortalised in the titles penned by his beloved Pet Shop Boys.

When I was asked to do something for William’s retirement I thought, Do I Have To? I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing but as I’m already retired, it’s true I have got Time On My Hands. Still, I’m starting Nervously. I’m Not Scared exactly, but It Always Comes As A Surprise to be to be writing for a new audience and My Head Is Spinning. I’m worried you won’t like what I’m saying and as Neil and Chris warn us, To Speak Is A Sin, It’s A Sin; A Man Could Get Arrested. It seems to me It Must Be Obvious I’m at risk of Being Boring but, when I think about it, It’s Alright because I’m largely In Denial.

Liz said How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? without you write something personal, so here goes. William is not One Of The Crowd. He takes pride in having A Different Point Of View. He is Flamboyant. He can be Shameless. He can have Delusions Of Grandeur. But he knows that What Keeps Mankind Alive is the certainty that Happiness Is An Option. So who is he? Boy Strange? Jack The Lad? Don Juan? In the current climate there’s even been Some Speculation he might be Your Funny Uncle. But hey, Nothing Has Been Proved.

So retired, eh? How did that happen? I guess One Thing Leads To Another or, at least, That’s My Impression. Retired! Hard to believe, I know, but I can tell you what that’s like. It’s So Hard. You feel Up Against It. You ask yourself could it be The End Of The World? But listen to my advice, because I’m one of The Survivors. It’s important To Face The Truth and just Try It. It’s the start of A New Life and, be reassured, you’re always getting Closer To Heaven.

So it’s A Red Letter Day and I wish to propose a toast:

To The Only One, that One In A Million, The Man Who Has Everything the Absolutely Fabulous William! And now, it really is time for you to Go West.

William, if you’ve enjoyed this little tribute, thank you. I would be flattered, but I know You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk.


Here’s a Postscript for all of you at William’s party:
Later Tonight, when you’re all Domino Dancing at the Discoteca, Always remember Girls & Boys, We All Feel Better In The Dark.

All the very best in your retirement, William.

From Li “Lowe” Ballinger and John “Tennant” Farmer (did you see what I did there?)

My (psychic) party piece

As some of you know my party piece, especially after having a slug of brandy, is to tell people’s fortunes by examining the food leftovers on their plate including where the cutlery is placed. It is an absurd piece of theatre. However, some of it makes terrific sense. I’ll give you 3 examples:

1) Looking at a youngish women’s plate I think of her ova, but not thinking pregnancy as such and so I tell her this and she tells me that she has recently donated some of her eggs altruistically;

2) I am at a conference where a young Chinese woman asks me to read her plate which I do. This is witnessed by a young Chinese man, who is a psychiatrist, to whom this woman has poured out her heart. So much of what I tell her she has just told him and he, especially is gob smacked.

3) With a youngish Afro American man I can’t get the image of a boat out of my head. I tell him and he says that he has just brought a boat as he lives in Florida and that this is how he relaxes.

Now I am not actually telling people their futures. What I seem to be doing is tapping into important information about them that I am unaware of. I surmise that this information comes to me through the interconnection of our energy fields straight into my unconscious where images are produced.

Comments please! I do know that statistically this is suspect since I am telling you only 3 examples from several hundred such readings. Also you have to trust me when I say I did not already know this information about these relative strangers to me. Actually this all occurred at international conferences!

On becoming (a) patient

This is the text of my new paper published in the June edition of the Journal of Critical Psychology Counselling and Psychotherapy. Send me an email if you want a PDF of the published paper.

On becoming (a) patient

On November 26th 2014 I had a potentially life changing experience of falling off my bicycle and breaking my right leg and hairline fracturing my right elbow. Whilst the physical care I received from the NHS was excellent the more holistic elements were more variable. I am driven to reflect on my experience - not hopefully (or merely) as a form of self-indulgence but to raise questions about how we deliver care to one another whether professional medic, patient, family or friend. I am drawing on some notes and poems written during my 13 days stay in hospital. My earliest notes had to be written with my left hand not my usual writing hand.

Beginning at the beginning

I was on my usual route cycling home from work at dusk. I was really enjoying the cycle home and looking forward to a working visit to Kenya 4 days later. I turned off the main road into an alleyway that is a cycle route used by both cyclists and pedestrians. Gathering speed on the slight downhill I noticed a young man heading my way on foot. As the distance between us narrowed I realised that he was not aware of me. It was too late to sound my bell or break my speed, so I swerved to his left to avoid him. This took me onto wet leaves. My bike skidded and I lost my balance and I crashed down onto flagstones and broke my right leg near to my hip and my right elbow sustained a hairline fracture.

I tried to stand up but my right leg was having none of it and refused to work. Even with the help of the very apologetic pedestrian I was unable to stand. I couldn’t believe it! This was not meant to be happening to me. This was the start of a process of denial that continues – This can’t be happening to me, this was not in my script and if it was why could it not have happened after my trip to Kenya? Such bargaining is of course futile. Reflecting later on my experience I was relieved to notice that I had not had a head injury, and that I was not in hospital for Christmas or even for the pre-Christmas busy period.

During the seemingly endless wait for the ambulance some neighbours and my wife (I was close to home) turned out with blankets and diverting conversation and finally a paramedic arrived 10 minutes before the ambulance. She gave me gas and air and calmed me down. So after a cold wet wait of about 50 minutes an ambulance finally arrived. Once in the ambulance we had to wait some time whilst the painkillers took effect so that I cope with the drive to hospital. My best work trousers are cut off so that my leg can be examined. I felt cold and start shivering. The two ambulance men kept me distracted with some amusing banter. It really did the trick and was my first experience of good care by men during this incident. After a slightly queasy journey, I was subsequently admitted to hospital where I remained for 13 days following surgery, under general anaesthetics, to pin my broken leg.

Being vulnerable and labile

I got bored a lot. Had to let people care for me even when I didn’t want them to. I was vulnerable, weak and needy which I hated.

I hate being vulnerable and needing others to care for me. But following surgery I had to accept such help – bottles and bedpans; being moved up and down the bed; having things passed to me or put in reach of my left hand; for a while I needed some help feeding myself; help standing up for the first time. I was on morphine for the first few days and this gave me vivid dreams-like hallucinations. I felt more emotional than usual, more easily moved to tears by acts of human kindness or watching or reading about other people suffering. I was also more bad tempered and angry than usual; all in all more labile. I am still not sure how much of this was down to trauma, how much a reaction to morphine, but I am very clear it was not just a physical process I was going through. Looking back on my 2 months off work, hospital then housebound, it felt like being on a bad retreat from the world that went on too long. Five months on I still feel trapped in my body which is still not functioning as well as I would wish.

I don’t belong here

I don’t belong here
Well it’s true
I crashed off my bike
But these other guys
Have much longer back stories.

I feel a fraud
Just in for a quick bit of bone setting
And seeing how stressed
And over worked the nurses are
And how other people’s needs
Are legion
Compared with mine
But

On needing a bed pan

‘I’ll need a commode soon’
She nods
The feeling becomes urgent
‘I am going to shit myself’
The words are forced out of me
She moves quickly
And arrives back
Just in time
It was a close one.

It was a challenge to insist on my needs being met however small given how much worse my immediate fellow patients were. I got in a habit of saving my needs up and then asking for two or three of them in one go when I eventually had to buzz for a nurse. At times the nurses were rushed off their feet especially when under staffed. They would quickly deal with the immediate issue and rush off not hearing subsequent requests.

Busy staff walk away briskly and consequently do not hear their patients’ final words. So much is lost and so mistakes get made. I thought ‘Can they not ask is there anything else you need?’ I did suggest this to one nurse during a quiet time but it was not well received. I understand this but.

The ward as heaven and hell

It was blind Colin
Blundering out of bed
Setting his alarm off
That woke Samuel
Who immediately began to
Climb out of his bed
Eric was asking for a nurse
In his quiet well-bred voice
It’s 4am and where am I?
Oh Yes, trauma ward in the hospital.

In my bit of the trauma ward there were 3 other men, 2 older than me and all with pre-existing conditions as well as recent broken bones. One of them (Colin in above poem) was often awake and noisy in the night and this woke me and woke the others who often then called for nurses. Two of the men had alarms attached to their bodies to alert the nurses that they were attempting to climb out of bed so if the nurses did not arrive quickly off would go these alarms. I was asked to look over these 2 fellow patients and press my buzzer if they were attempting to climb out of bed. Often the alarms would go off in any case as the response to my buzzer was too slow. My colleague Alistair Ross writing about his time in hospital following a fall off a Welsh mountain speaks of his “distress at no one answering my buzzer at night” (2014: 24).

We settle down and then
Out of the frame
Rachel kicks off
‘Get out of here’
‘Get out of here’
She screams
And nurses get hit.

Rachel was in another bay of the trauma ward and most nights at about 2am she would get angry and yell and on more than one occasion a nurse would be hit by her. If my fellow patients were asleep when Rachel yelled this would wake them and noisy chaos would ensue.

The good nurses and volunteers

Once or twice a nurse would stay seated in the bay for the first few hours of the night sometimes engaged in doing paperwork. On these occasions all was calm as patients’ needs were quickly and quietly attended to and we all had a good night’s sleep. It was as if the very presence in the room of a nurse was calming for all of us.

I was pathetically grateful when people did unexpected kind things for me. There was a male nurse who made me coffee and toast at 11pm when I was first admitted to hospital. This was the best food and drink that I have ever tasted and even more special because I knew that I was allowed only water after midnight as surgery was arranged for the following morning. I was also surprisingly touched by receiving care from 3 male nurses. There was a peculiar poignancy for me to receive nursing from men.

She wheels me to the chapel
For a moment of rest
And reflection
Bathed in the colours of the stained glass
And I’m weeping
Glad to be alive
And out of my head on morphine.

There was a chatty volunteer who wheeled me in a wheel chair along the seemingly endless corridors to the hospital chapel that first Sunday dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown and feeling vulnerable. It is hard to overstate the impact of simple humanity to patients stuck in hospital. Being spoken to, being listened to, being offered a helping hand impacted on me out of all proportion to what was involved. Ross says “In the midst of this medical care there were two acts of kindness that deeply touched me. (2014:24)

What was it like?

Being in hospital made me vulnerable, scared, lonely and in need of human contact and care. As with bereavement it seemed like that some close friends avoided contact and some not so close made a big effort to write to me and visit. I remember acutely which of my friends and acquaintances contacted or visited me. As Ross says, “And, sadly, some people who I thought would have been in touch have remained stubbornly silent” (2014: 24).

It’s 9pm
And I’m wide awake
And the nurses don’t need me
I need them
But they are far away
It takes an eternity for them to
Respond to my buzzer
Or so it seems
And it’s soon over
And they vanish into the dark again
Or so it seems
It’s easier if you have
Simple physical doable needs
Or so it seems
Feeling lonely and
Needing a bit of company
Is different
Or so it seems.

Hospitals get lonely especially when staff are overly busy and the visiting hours are over. It’s a long night too. After a few days I learnt to manoeuvre myself unaided from bed to beside chair. This was a real breakthrough. From this chair I could look out of the window over the hospital car park but also see the sky. I was able to see sunrises and sunsets and the phases of the moon and thus a connection with nature that is important to me and drew me out of the limitations of the hospital ward I was in.

The patient with no name

Please don’t see me as disabled,
Look beyond these signs of my frailty.
Even if my mind is broken
Look for my soul and spirit.
Be in the moment with me
if you can.

So I am out of hospital and using a crutch to get about and feeling very vulnerable especially among crowds. Some people notice me and are helpful others seem to ignore me. A few days back at work and I am at a meeting a Chester University. My colleague has dropped me off near the café and has driven off to park his car. I queue up and buy my cappuccino and sandwich. A woman behind the counter notices my plight and picks up my tray and carries it over to a suitable and comfortable table. I feel pathetically grateful. I get on the tram on the way home and it is busy and no-one offers me a seat. I cling to rail with my broken arm and wish I was not so English and polite. I feel that becoming (hopefully) temporarily physically disabled has given me insight into the world of the disabled. I desperately wanted people to notice that I had a crutch but to also see beyond it. I am now more aware of people with physical disabilities and especially aware of others with crutches and walking sticks and wonder what their stories are. I notice that some people have temporary NHS crutches like mine.

What does it mean?

According to Kleinman et al., modern physicians ‘diagnose and treat diseases (abnormalities in the structure and function of body organs and systems), whereas patients suffer illnesses (experiences of this value changes in states of being and social function: the human experience of sickness).’(1978: 251). So from a patient point of view it is not merely how our bodies and their diseases are dealt with it is also how we are treated as people who are suffering.

There are ongoing problems around nurse staffing levels in hospitals and not just in Britain but also the USA and Canada and this understaffing impacts not just on nurses stress levels but also on patient outcomes (Aiken et al 2002). Various top down reorganisations seems to have little impact on this this issue - “Each country tends to think its problems with uneven quality of care and shortages of nurses and other healthcare workers are a consequence of unique demographic and social phenomena or specific policies… The widespread diffusion of new models for organizing care that have no evidence base may be part of the problem rather than the solution” Aiken et al, 2002: 192).

There is evidence that well organised supervision sessions for nurses in the NHS does impact positively on nurse stress levels and patient outcomes but some nurses do not want it and some managers wont resource even though it pays for itself. “It is quite proper to suggest that structured opportunities to discuss case related practice, personal and educational development are vital to nurses, their practice and patient safety.” (Butterworth et al 2008: 270).

There is currently a campaign supported by the Observer newspaper for family and friends of people with dementia to be allowed much more access to their loved ones in hospital. Comparisons are drawn with the positive impact of allowing family access to children in hospital. I know in hospitals in India that family support or patient is welcome and common. I can see no real reason why this should not happen in Britain across the board.

The physiotherapists treating me recommended that the nurses help me walk several times a day and would not discharge me until I was more securely on my feet. It was hard to get this help from the overly busy nurses until I repeatedly badgered them. I had to learn to assert my needs against those of my less well fellow patients. My wife, even though she has a background as a health professional, was not allowed to assist me in this way at first. As a result I was in hospital for at least 3 days more than strictly necessary.

In Conclusion

I did get very good emergency care in response to my accident including some excellent home physiotherapy. I would love to see hospital nursing being better resourced and better supported and it is not all about money. I would also welcome more use of family and friends in hospitals and the recognition that better outcomes would probably be the result and if not the experience of being in a hospital would be improved.

References

Aiken, L. H., Clarke, S. P., and Sloane, D. M., (2002) Hospital staffing, organisation, and quality of care: cross-national findings, Nursing Outlook, 50 (5) 187-193.

Butterworth, T., Bell, L., Jackson, C., and Pajnkihar, M., (2008) Wicked spell or magic bullet? A review of the clinical supervision literature 2001-2007. Nurse Education Today, 28 264-272.

Online Oxford Dictionary, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/patient accessed 16/3/2015


Kleinman, A., Eisenberg, L., and Good, B., (1978) Culture, illness and care, Annals of Internal medicine, 78: 251-258.

Ross, A. (2014). A story of falling, Therapy Today, 25 (8), 22-25.

On not belonging

On Not belonging: David Copper wrote (in ‘Death of the family’?) in favour of a ‘doubt that alternatively freezes and boils the marrow’. I have a long history of being on the edge and doubting. It is a natural place for a counsellor and maybe researcher and maybe academic. I have not quite belonged to the person-centred tradition, transpersonal, Church of England, counselling psychology, School of Education, Labour Party, Marxist and Communist groups, etc. Oh and my birth family, that’s probably where it started. I am now on the edge of Quakers and wondering what next. Also now on the edge of (academic) work and wondering what next. This is where I stand and G*D forgive me to probably misquote Martin Luther. But this liminal place (there’s a word eh?) has its moments. I can look around and sniff, join in the dance as and when it suits knowing the Truth is bigger which is why we can only discuss and fight over our limited ‘truths’ like blind people feeling an elephant. ‘One eye open wide/one eye closed/and between the two/the picture gets composed’ (TW3 theme tune).

Q again

The Boss visits Q once more.
- Hi Boss
- Hi Q…. I am glad to see you again…. There’s so much change kin the air for me that I get scared
- Hmm
- Yeah really scared. I lose sense of my life having meaning and purpose and… and I get afraid that I will be stuck at home staring at the walls or even worse staring at the TV or computer screen!
The Boss chuckles.
- Hey that’s not funny!
- Oh… sorry
- Not matter. Actually it is a bit funny you know. I am not one to be bored for very long. Life does not work that way or not so far….. But I am scared of being old and useless and unwanted.
- Yeah?
- Yeah! It does happen!
- And you have no choice?
- Not if I get ill and lose my marbles.
- You would still be a delightful soul and people would still respond to that.
- Oh!
- Yes what do you think people are responding to in you in any case?
The Boss thinks.
- My enthusiasm firstly.
Q nods.
- Interesting word enthusiasm – ‘full of God’
- Ah…. When my God mother lost it and no longer recognised me she was still a wonderful person. So maybe I can be like her if I lose it. Meanwhile I just need a focus or two or three for my enthusiasm.
Q smiled.

The big city

When I was a young teenager I was desperate to leave home and escape the small town I had grown up in in which everyone knew everyone’s business or so it seemed. I was restless and politically radical – ahead of my school mates, already reading The Guardian every day at 13 (My dad read the Daily Telegraph) and wanting to join CND. Getting good results in the school exams to spite my father (No I don’t think he was using reverse psychology on me) I realised that university was possible. So instead of running away to join the merchant navy – my Plan B, I bided my time and worked hard for 4 years, especially on my A levels to get the grades to go to Manchester.

Why Manchester? Well firstly, I also wanted a city based university about 100 miles or more from my home town! Secondly I had peaked in Maths at 17 (and so had to work at it!) and I saw computers as a good career move – that would certainly get me out of home. So it was Cambridge or Manchester as the only universities running Computer courses at that time. I couldn’t be doing doing with the class system at Cambridge - even if I could have got in - but the clincher was waiting an extra year for an entrance exam to go there so Manchester it was.

It was not totally easy for me in Manchester especially that first year (My memory is of never seeing the sun for 6 months until the Spring!) but I threw myself into various things like the Uni hiking club, socialist society, anarchist groups – uni and city – gypsy liaison group (we blocked evictions and signed them into the student union as guests for showers etc) and the Community Research and Action Group based in Chorlton etc.

Several of my new friends in my second year came out as lesbians and so I soon find myself regularly mixing with gays and lesbians. It soon became clear to me after the odd experiment that I was straight but it opened my eyes to what being a man could mean. So that more sensitive tender part of me got some encouragement. In a sense I have never looked back except I do still wrestle with that part of me (not the only part that I wrestle with it is true – my grumpy side, my nasty side all have their moments). So I am saying the gay men (and the gay women) I met in 1969 left a lasting impact on me. It gave me a different idea of what a man could be.

The Boss consults Q once more

The Boss consults Q his spiritual director once again

- Hi Boss, how goes?
- Ah Q it’s been a difficult time.
Q nods and waits patiently.
- You know that I have a close family friend with dementia?
- Yes.
- Well it’s really difficult and I am not handling it that well!
- Oh!
- I have been trying to make sense of it in my early morning contemplation but I am getting nowhere fast…. It helps me to think of old age and death as like flowers that gradually wither away, I find that a pleasing image, but dementia is different.
- Hmm.
- It just strips so much away, frightens people, deprives them of their humanity and causes others to mostly treat them badly… And I have to ask myself… have to say…. I believe we are created but how can God let this happen? I know that there are some things we bring on ourselves but this seems mostly not true with dementia and it feels so unfair.
- I understand.
- You do?
- Yes.
- Well explain it to me!
- I’ll try but I am not at all sure that it will satisfy you!
The Boss groaned and bowed his head into his hands, too weary to even get angry with Q.
- You know that you have those moments when it all makes sense?
- Yes! (The Boss leaned forward all eager.)
- In those moments you are not thinking?
- True, I am beyond thought… out of my mind.
- At that moment everything is reconciled? (The Boss nodded)… Even dementia?
- Oh….Even dementia! .... But how can I hold that thought?
- You can’t! What you can do it to remember the experience and trust in it.
- I like that but what if I forget it?
- You might.
- Will you remind me of it?
- Of course if I am here?
- You are not about to go away? (The Boss was a bit panicked.)
- No…. not just yet.
- Oh! (The Boss sighed.)
- Sufficient for the moment?
- Sufficient for now.

Crutch story(1)

Crutch stories: Yesterday travelled for the first time on a train to Chester for a meeting. Peter G dropped me off at the Uni café there whilst he parked his car. I picked up a sandwich, yoghurt and capacino and the woman behind the counter carried my tray for me! Lovely. On the way home got n a busy metro tram and everyone ignored my crutch and so I clung on to a pole using my recovering broken elbow for one step then grabbed an empty seat. I could have made my needs met but being English...

The Boss once more consults Q his spiritual director

The Boss hobbles into Q’s study on a crutch and settles down in the comfy armchair. He sighs and then says:
- But Q why did this happen to me…How did God let this happen… And why now… And what have I done to deserve this?
- It could have been worse!
- Whaat! The Boss was outraged.
- Well, God – if he did cause it – could have handed you an even worse accident!
- Even worse?
- Yes, brain injury for example.
- Oh.
The Boss was silent.
- Ok but the timing was awful… I was about to travel to Kenya to work there for a week.
- Hmm… but suppose it had happened closer to Christmas?
- That would have been unbearable… But are you saying that I should be thankful for small mercies… to count my blessings as my Grandmother to say?
- Cold do worse Boss.
- But really Q… why did this happen to me?
- You know! You served on your bike to avoid a pedestrian and-
- Don’t be supercilious with me Q. You know what I am asking!
- How this accident fits into the overall shape of things in God’s plan if you like?
- Yes.
- Well what happened to you in hospital and afterwards?
- I got bored a lot. Had to let people care for me even when I didn’t want them to. I was vulnerable, weak and needy which I hated. I was pathetically grateful when people did unexpected kind things for me. The male nurse who made me coffee and toast at 11pm when I was first admitted to hospital. The chatty volunteer who wheeled me in a wheel chair for communion that first Sunday.
- Hmm… a different experience of life for a while?
- Yes, and it continues. The crutch brings out the best and sometimes the worst in people, usually the best.
- Sounds like you are having a life changing experience.
- True.
- That strikes me overall as a good thing, whatever part God played or didn’t play in it.
- True and it was for me another opportunity to find out what really and truly matters to me.
- Well!

Hospital cycle poem

Hospital cycle poem

‘I’ll need a commode soon’
She nods
The feeling becomes urgent
‘I am going to shit myself’
The words are forced out of me
She moves quickly
And arrives back
Just in time
It was a close one.

It was blind Colin
Blundering out of bed
Setting his alarm off
That woke Samuel
Who immediately began to
Climb out of his bed
Eric was asking for a nurse
In his quiet well-bred voice
It’s 4am and where am I?
Oh Yes, trauma ward in the hospital.

We settle down and then
Out of the frame
Rachel kicks off
‘Get out of here’
‘Get out of here’
She screams
And nurses get hit.

I don’t belong here
Well it’s true
I crashed off my bike
But these other guys
Have much longer back stories.

She wheels me to the chapel
For a moment of rest
And reflection
Bathed in the colours of the stained glass
And I’m weeping
Glad to be alive
And out of my head on morphine.

I feel a fraud
Just in for a quick bit of bone setting
And seeing how stressed
And over worked the nurses are
And how other people’s needs
Are legion
Compared with mine
But

It’s 9pm
And I’m wide awake
And the nurses don’t need me
I need them
But they are far away
It takes an eternity for them to
Respond to my buzzer
Or so it seems
And it’s soon over
And they vanish into the dark again
Or so it seems
It’s easier if you have
Simple physical doable needs
Or so it seems
Feeling lonely and
Needing a bit of company
Is different
Or so it seems.