Category: Longform
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Stop the Planes
My wife was born in Uganda. She’s Black, like our kids. She came to the UK when she was five.
She’s just told me she feels like she should put herself on a plane to Rwanda.
Then she said she realised she came here legally, she has indefinite leave to remain, and she’s a British citizen.
I asked her what was it that made her feel like she should deport herself.
Unsurprisingly, she said it’s because of all the anti-immigration rhetoric in the news. As she said,
It’s obvious no one wants my Black face here.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Andy’s post on Kingstonian Football Club losing their home reminded me of the loss of Southall’s football ground, and a chance meeting I had with an old supporter a few years ago.
Jim had lost his coat.
He remembered leaving it in the Halfway House pub next to the entrance to the Southall football ground on Western Road.
He told me he lived in neighbouring Hayes with his wife, who would be very angry with him if he went home without his coat.
He also had a house in Ireland.
We walked and walked, but we couldn’t find the Halfway House. It was neither here nor there. We couldn’t find the football ground, either. Nothing was where Jim remembered it.
Like his coat, they were very much alive in Jim’s memory, but in the world we walked in the goalposts had literally moved, the final whistle had blown, and everyone had gone home, except Jim (and me).
I felt very confused. Finally it dawned on me that Jim was probably feeling very confused, too. And probably very frightened. He asked if I could show him the way to get the bus back to Hayes, which I did.
We never did find his coat.
Where's Daddy?
We have AI that can decide who is a terrorist and then track their every movement so we can wait until they're home to drop a bomb on their whole family.
But the 3 successive precision air strikes on #WCK aid workers coordinating with and following route instructions from the IDF was just a 'tragic mistake' because it was night time.
Journaling
My nine year old started keeping a journal at school so we can read what he’s been doing at school every day. (Replaces the “What did you do at school today?” “Can’t remember” alternative). It’s terrific.
He wanted to know what I’ve been doing, too, so I am reciprocating. I’ve never kept a diary a journal before, but I’ve enjoyed doing it these past couple of days.
It’s fair to say, though, that my lad’s days are far more interesting and fun than mine.
Bath Night
My little kid (now two months from being a not so small four) has gone right off the idea of having a bath at all in recent weeks. It takes two of us to get him in and give him a quick shower every couple of days.
To get him into the bath tonight, I tried something new.
I got on all fours so he could ride me like a horse into the bathroom while I hummed the theme tune to The Lone Ranger. He dismounted, undressed and climbed in without any bother.
Instead of drinking the bathwater, he had three cups of Ribena.
Last Words
These are my last words writing from the café at the local leisure centre where I go every Wednesday during term time as a parent volunteer for my son’s swimming class. It’s their final session today.
My lad has gone from being so anxious about swimming that he didn’t want to go at all, to wanting to go for swimming lessons now the class sessions are over.
The café that was closed has reopened, although I still haven’t bought anything. They have new tables and chairs, too, which is nice.
It’s been something a personal journey for me, too. Having an hour or so in relatively undisturbed peace and quiet just to write whatever comes into my head (and publish to my micro.blog) has felt very therapeutic. I feel like something significant has changed within me, for the better.
I can’t say what, exactly, for a number of reasons, not in public. Maybe another time.
I’m also wondering if it’s a permanent change, or if it will all unravel. And I’m also feeling some sense of loss. Something that has been a part of me for a long time has gone. Even though it had an overall bad effect on my life, it was a regular companion. It won’t be missed, exactly, but it takes some getting used to, it not being here.
I’ll need to find somewhere else to write.
Curriculum Vitae (Memento Vivere)
Having been so bitterly rejected both in love and at work, I started to look around for new opportunities. I don’t remember how I found it, but a nursing home nearer to where I lived at the time (Cleethorpes) was advertising for a Therapeutic Activities Co-ordinator to develop a range of meaningful activities with frail elderly people who also had - iirc - impaired memory, or dementia. Right up my street (well, just around the corner).
This was the first time in my life (I was thirty years old) that I’d ever actually wanted a job, and I was determined to make sure I did everything I possibly could to get it (the money was better, too, although not a great deal). I think I really impressed them at the interview with the presentation I did (probably bullet points, but that was all the rage back then), but more my genuine enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of doing what, at the time, seemed like it would be my “dream job”.
The role was to cover three separate nursing and residential homes in the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Humberston area, all quite different as it turned out. I would also liaise with a colleague in Hull (where the company that ran the care homes had its headquarters), who had already been in post in his area for a year or so. Steve was a social worker by trade, and he was very upset to discover that I was not. He was also agitating for a substantial pay rise, and later on we would jointly present our case to the board of directors.
I shadowed Steve for a day or two and wrote substantial notes and reflections, before setting up my desk on the landing of the first floor next to the lift and the payphone (yes, really) at The Anchorage just up the road from Blundell Park. When I first entered The Anchorage it was a shock to the system. I was used to a welcoming, friendly, clean, freshly smelling (as much as possible), professional, and lively residential home where I used to work. The Anchorage was anything but. There was no welcome, staff looked harried, the place was so obviously run down and uncared for, it stank of piss, and all the residents appeared to be fully comatose.
That was on the ground floor. Upstairs was slightly better - at least the residents were awake. But it was like a madhouse, and brought back traumatic memories of a childhood school visit to the local mental hospital to sing Christmas carols to the moaning, leering, grabbing, drooling inmatespatients. The only redeeming factor now was that none of the inmates seemed able to move. I was going to have my work cut out here.
I think my boss expected me to have a timetable of bingo sessions, sing-a-longs, tea dances, quiz nights, etc. up and running straight away. But I would have to raise the dead first, and persuade the staff and manager to be supportive and helpful, In fact, a complete change of culture was needed. I spent several weeks getting to know everyone, not only there, but at the other two homes as well. One of the others was much larger with what seemed like a highly mobile group of very demented residents, while the other was more of a mixture of demented and simply frail elderly people. Once I got to know everyone, The Anchorage seemed to be mostly people with physical health problems, often compounded by the effects of a stroke.
The other two homes also had good, strong supportive managers, while The Anchorage had a temporary manager (one of the senior nurses), before appointing an absolute horror of a woman who mercilessly bullied me and made my job much more difficult than it needed to be. Luckily, most of the nurses and carers were good people.
To cut a long story short, we raised the dead. It turns out (who knew?) that even very poorly, very old people are up for conversation, doing things that interest them, socialising, going out, singing, dancing, moving, learning to walk again, reminiscing, and just living what life there is left. But they need help to do so. And when they get the help they need to do some or all of these things, it also turns out that they are often more continent, can walk again, need less of the carers’ and nurses’ time for personal care, feel better, have better health, and - crucially from the business point of view - live longer.
And when the residents are happier, have something to get up for, and are easier to look after, the staff are happier, too. We had a lot of fun. It was amazing. A highlight was organising three coaches and a disability-friendly minibus to take every resident from all three homes literally around the corner form The Anchorage to The Excel Club, which was (in the good old days), the premier night spot and bar for many of “my people” when they were young, for an afternoon of drinking, dancing, eating, socialising and reminiscing that I won’t forget (even if many of them them had forgotten by the time they got home).
The beauty of the whole endeavour was that people needing care were no longer seen as tasks to be performed and checked off on a list, but as people who had lives, stories, senses of humour, wants and needs like everyone else.
Such a great thing could obviously have no future, and when me and Steve presented the business case for expansion and pay rises to the board it was rejected outright. The most helpful training I ever did was with a trainer who advised me “don’t waste time trying to persuade people who aren’t interested - focus on those who are.” I’d tried my best, I really had. While I did really enjoy the job, I didn’t want to be doing the same thing week after week, year after year, with no prospect of advancement and for a company that clearly wasn’t interested or appreciative.
I started looking around again, and this time further afield. I felt I was in a rut, personally as well (it was all work and no play for me), and I needed a fresh start.
Thriving?
My son’s school’s Thrive teacher is leaving. She helped transform my lad’s experience of school from being one where he had weekly if not daily challenges with regulating his emotions and his behaviour, to one where he enjoys school every day. She’s going to be very greatly missed.
I managed to tell her this today and thank her for her work. It was so sad to hear her story.
She has committed ten years of her life to helping our youngsters get the best start in life, and done lots of extra work getting accredited to do so. But, at the end of the day, she can no longer afford to continue, and has taken a job elsewhere in sales and marketing.
What a stupid, shit country we live in.
Curriculum Vitae (Hocus Pocus)
Inevitably, my time as a Manchester University player came to end, and I left the club by mutual consent when my contract ended.
Somewhat bizarrely, looking back on it, I joined what appeared to be an obscure and tiny religious cult in the middle of nowhere (deepest, darkest Lincolnshire), dabbling in some rather questionable therapy / witchcraft.
My role was primarily as Administrator with responsibility for making sense of the almost entirely lacking paperwork, contracts, and financial arrangements of the company (?) / sole practitioner / lead sorceress. Bed and board were included in my pay, which meant I didn’t get paid much at all, and had to do a lot of household chores on a strict rota, along with the other, er, residents.
I got kicked out about six months later for dropping acid at the weekend. Somehow, with a couple of band mates, we cleaned ourselves up and managed to persuade a friendly estate agent to rent us out a four-bedroomed semi-detached house that had one careful previous owner (the local vicar), that was ideally located opposite a big pub and just up the road from the local drug dealers.
We spent eighteen months there, mostly on the dole, getting our musical act into gear. Completely by chance (we put up a card in the local Spa shop window asking for a “chilled out lamppost”), we met a nomadic (on the run) alcoholic junkie who could actually sing, write songs, and also played a mean guitar. We rehearsed every day in that house (pity our poor neighbours), recorded a couple of decent demo tapes (got to number one in the local newspaper charts), and played some wild gigs that were generally pretty well received.
The end was nigh, though, as it always is. I’d got a job to help pay for gear, and fell madly in love with one of my new co-workers. Euro 96 appeared, and we all took a break from music to enjoy Ing-er-land’s latest heartbreak efforts. Our junkie friend wasn’t into football, or staying around, and one day he was gone. My love interest left, too.
This was the catalyst for me to focus on work for the first time in my life, as a coping mechanism for loss, as much as anything else. The more I worked, the less loss I felt. I couldn’t get enough of it.
I started at the bottom. Literally. The job I applied for was Personal Carer in a Residential Home. I assumed that it meant psychological care, and didn’t pay much attention on my first morning shift when I shadowed another carer who was wiping bottom after bottom (and more) of all these frail, elderly folks.
Anyway, I got into it (and my new co-worker), and found that, yes, there was a quite a degree of psychological care involved, too, if you had the time, skills and inclination. Unbelievably (or so it seemed to many in the industry at the time, when frail, elderly people find they have something worth living for (a friend to talk to, something fun to do, something like a day out to look forward to), they’re much more capable of getting themselves dressed, feeding themselves, staying continent.
Of course, many carers had none of those things, and in fact, got very little psychological care themselves in their own lives. Often it was just a continuation of the sadistic brutality from their school days.
But I found myself actually enjoying the job despite the low pay, and often quite unpleasant working conditions. I enjoyed the people - the camaraderie and comradeship of the staff and residents. We really were all in it together
That said, there was only so much arse wiping I could do before I got fed up with it. I’d done everything and more I’d been asked to do and applied to be a Senior Carer and even a Care Services Manager (responsible for running the shifts, and the home in the absence of the Home Manager). But I wasn’t successful - too little experience, I was told. Which might have been true. I’d only been there a year.
But I suspect it might also have been because I was too much of a threat to the darker side of what was going on. The manager was taking money from at least one of the more severely demented residents, and some of the staff were in on it, too. At least, that’s what I’d been told.
Teachers
Yesterday morning, I was sat in the foyer of my little kid’s children’s centre waiting for the staff to arrive so he could start his day. He was eager to get in, banging on the locked doors to the main part of the nursery. In my day, the kids would be trying to get out, not in.
Some other parents, younger than me, commented the same. Everyone recounted some particularly, sadistic child-hating teacher who regularly brutalised them or some other poor unfortunate during their formative years.
We’re lucky that teachers today seem to be so much friendlier, and supportive, and tolerant of differences and behavioural challenges. And generally just miles better teachers and humans.
There were exceptions, of course. I had one teacher in particular, who would have fitted right in with contemporary teachers (although probably not, actually, as he was a bit of a contrarian). But he was a great teacher, loved kids, and dedicated his life to teaching.
It always amazes me, though, when I see old school friends on Facebook reminiscing about some teacher we had, about how wonderful they were. Most of them were drunken bullies, whose hobbies revolved around making kids miserable and causing physical and mental harm.
They’d be locked up now.