After Concord Crashed

In the year two thousand Concord crashed,
With it, belief in modernity was dashed.

With the advent of digital radio, there is now no signal in my kitchen.
I listen via the internet.  The BBC makes me log in every time.
Five minutes later I have missed the headlines.

My smart meter stopped working. I have only just realised this after 4 years of estimated bills.
Meter readers only visit people who can not read a meter for themselves so our new energy company asked me to take a film of my attempt to read the meter and send it to them.

Our washing machine makes a terrible noise when the cycle ends.  It demands that we come and empty it.  There is no way of deactivating this noise, so the machine, a self indulgent child, wins every time.

When Norman Met Frank

Frank Street meets Norman Avenue in Nuneaton, near the Mosque

When did Norman meet Frank?  A question that exercises my mind from time to time.

The Franks had a cautious relationship with the Normans, formally beginning in 911 when the Franks agreed that the Normans could establish a colony to the north of Paris, on the coast.  The Franks were cognisant of the diplomatic necessity to act carefully with these powerful Norsemen and their fearsome reputation.  After 155 years the Normans had expanded into Britain, but by then, they had imbibed a lot of French practices including their language.

So Frank came first, but was cautious when Norman arrived.  We know that Norman moved on south into London, but remained profoundly influenced by his experiences with Frank.

The FSU

I'm sitting in a room that takes me back to when I once tried to claim income support.  Long metal seats, all secured to the floor.  Very secure counters where voices are played through speakers as in films featuring American jails.  A large handmade sign on the wall says "Welcome to the FSU".  I warm to that sign. I did a social work placement with a wonderful Quaker charity called the Family Services Unit.  This FSU is the 'Further Submissions Unit', and I am in Liverpool.  The sign speaks to me of humanity of the staff here, and I am pleased to say, I believe we did meet it.

I'm here with my friend Hassan. He is not in a good way.  For some reason, four days previously, he was set upon by a thug  leaving him badly bruised and hobbling.  It is likely that this is because Hassan is a member of our church, and can be seen helping park cars on Sunday mornings.  Despite extensive bruising he appears not to be traumatised.  This may be why the hospital and the police took quite a bit of convincing to see that Hassan was in trouble.  He explained to me in the car on the way up to Liverpool why this incident was just a small blip in his journey towards some sort of safety.

Hassan lived with his parents and older brother; a Dari family, in Kabul, Afghanistan.  His father had a Soviet Degree in accounting.  During the battle to expel the Soviets, the Taliban (with Western arms), killed all collaborators.  Hassan was left an orphan at a young age.  He and his brother were separated.  Their neighbours, also Dari, fostered Hassan, and together they fled to Iran where they found a place to live in Tehran.  There were many Afghani' in Tehran, but they were all labelled aliens.  None were allowed to become Iranian, despite speaking a close dialect of Fasi and were refused access to all services including education.  Hassan was very happy with his foster parents, but their lives were tough.  He learnt to read and write in the local Madrassah.  He tells he his foster parents continue to live a precarious existence in Tehran.

When Hassan was 14 years old, he fell in love with the girl next door.  She was also Afghani.  They used to sneak off together up onto the roof, and spent many idle hours together.  After a little while the girl realised that there was something wrong.  She was 8 months pregnant.  For them both this meant almost certain death.  Hassan's brother had been in touch from the UK, where he had claimed asylum, and was now working.  He paid people traffickers to get Hassan out of Tehran and on the 'silk road' to European.  Hassan described this three month journey as the most harrowing part of his life.  He was taken to the Turkish border and walked into Turkey, evading border guards.  The group were then taken by lorry all the way to  the Bulgarian Border.  This meant hours of travelling in the dark, often without water, not knowing whether the lorry would be stopped at any time.  At the river border, a boat took them across into Bulgaria.  Then they went to Greece, and then by boat to Italy.  Lorries, and a train up to Calais were all provided.  Here the route across the channel to the UK was not strictly controlled at the time, and he got safely into Kent, where his brother lives.  Hassan dreads to think what happened to his friend and their unborn child.

Hassan has been in the UK now for 9 years.  His request for asylum has been rejected a number of times, and for the last 7 months he has been what they call 'an illegal'.  This means constantly worrying that the police might pick him up and take him to a detention centre.

Indeed, on Thursday, Hassan was very keen that I did not drop him off at the door of the FSU before finding a parking space.  Just a 5% risk of being detained is enough to make anyone jittery.

But the airport style security guards were jovial, and friendly.  They were concerned to see Hassan limping, and let me come through to support him, guiding us to the lift.  The interview was also a credit to the Uk government.  As we waited it was interesting to be able to eves drop on the staff behind their bullet proof screens as the speaker system they used was left switched on, and we could hear everything relayed into the waiting room.  "You see Hassan now", I heard on say to the other, "it looks like he is in pain."  They were concerned as he struggled to sit in the interview booth.   Within minutes Hassan was 'legal' again.  He had his 'further submission' accepted, and now has the right to claim support from the State with the rights given to asylum seekers.

This time his calm is based, not on a heart rending story where no official box can be ticked, but on the Human Right Act, and Hassan's right to profess a faith he has freely chosen without fear of persecution. He has a new family in the UK.  The irony we know know is that he is also not safe yet here.  The cruelty of the world knows no bounds.

Yes, I admire number 22

I always enjoy walking down Avenue Road and admiring the house at number 22.  There are very few 'modernist' houses in the UK, and this is one.  It was built in 1956 for the Godard family. The family made their wealth in the silver cleaning industry developing a safe cleaning fluid that was used across the world to clear silver objects.  It was designed by Jame Cubitt and Partners built between 1953-54.

It is a 'marmite' house-  some people can not see the appeal.  I point out the features I particularly notice

The flowering hedge- egg shell blue wooden garage doors

Lawn, and pond.  'L' shaped building.

Simple style.  Use of  glass. Link with the garden.

Clean, unclutered.  Window is the 'art'.

Use of wood and white.

Light, statement flooring

Cork tiles, 

Wood panels,  

Blue and white

"Madame Bovary, c'est moi!"

So says Gustave Flaubert.

“Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; you’ve no religion.”

The chemist answered: “I have a religion, my religion, and I even have more than all these others with their mummeries and their juggling. I adore God, on the contrary. I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don’t need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one can know Him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! Mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of the ‘Savoyard Vicar,’ and the immortal principles of ‘89! And I can’t admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which prove to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.”

He ceased, looking round for an audience, for in his bubbling over the chemist had for a moment fancied himself in the midst of the town council. But the landlady no longer heeded him; 

And of a depressed wife...

Charles fled to his study and wept there, both his elbows on the table, sitting in an arm-chair at his bureau under the phrenological head.

Then he wrote to his mother begging her to come, and they had many long consultations together on the subject of Emma.

What should they decide? What was to be done since she rejected all medical treatment? “Do you know what your wife wants?” replied Madame Bovary senior.

“She wants to be forced to occupy herself with some manual work. If she were obliged, like so many others, to earn her living, she wouldn’t have these vapours, that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her head, and from the idleness in which she lives.”

“Yet she is always busy,” said Charles.

“Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad books, works against religion, and in which they mock at priests in speeches taken from Voltaire. But all that leads you far astray, my poor child. Anyone who has no religion always ends by turning out badly.”

So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels. The enterprise did not seem easy. The good lady undertook it. She was, when she passed through Rouen, to go herself to the lending-library and represent that Emma had discontinued her subscription. Would they not have a right to apply to the police if the librarian persisted all the same in his poisonous trade?

The bailiffs decided the Phrenological Head was a tool of
medical practice and therefore it was not removed to
pay the family debts.

10) From My Side - Journey through the system II

It did not take long before Elizabeth was having time off the ventilator.  The machine was highly intelligent.  It was able to detect when Elizabeth was breathing, and just added a bit of breath to start with, and then finished the breath.  In this way Elizabeth's body was not let off.  Most muscles are quite happy for others to do the work and are quite willing to just wither away.  Elizabeth moved onto longer and longer periods of breathing through the traccy hole in her windpipe. On a number of occasions she sneezed violently, sending the breathing valve on the traccy flying across the room. When she could breath by herself, she was ready to move on to the Brian Injury Unit (BIU).  This happened about one month after the haemorrhage occurred.  Liz was still being PEG fed through a tube into her stomach.  It was amazing to read the leaflet we were given about PEG feeds.  We learned that the hole through the stomach wall is not affected by caustic erosion from stomach acids.  When the tube is removed the hole takes just a few hours to heal.  I asked the doctor why stomach ulcers were such a problem when these tubes seemed so unaffected by the acid.  I was told that ulcers cover a wide area of the stomach wall, like a graze, and the small hole is quite different.  In Brain Injury Liz had her own room.  We were able to have large parties of visitors, and sang a lot of songs together.  It was here that Liz was able to have her traccy removed by S the physio.  Again the hole in her neck healed very quickly over.  She had wonderful nurse including E, and S  both of whom gave Elizabeth beautiful 'french plaits'.

BIU had some interesting challenges.  M, the father of the ex-husband of one of Margaret's colleagues, had been hit by a car.  He had terrible traumatic reactions to this and called out incessantly.  He was also at risk of falling out of bed.  Later we saw him in BRU, and he was a calm, gentle man.  In his terrors he would call out 'Louisa, Louisa".

Elizabeth was able to use a highly supported chair in which she sat in at a recumbent angle.  As her core body strength improved, she was able to sit more and more upright.  Eventually the head rest was removed.  Strength was increasing gradually across her body, though the left side remained weak.

After just two weeks in BIU, and during a visit by James, Liz moved to the Neuro Rehab Unit, right at the front of the building.  This was from a 8 beded unit to a 16 beded unit.  Patients in NRU have a lot of therapy, and Elizabeth developed a close bond with her therapist, who all worked hard to help her succeed.  In BRU we had two multi-disciplinary meetings.  These felt quite formal.  Elizabeth maintained a positive attitude and a consistent friendly humorous rapport with all the staff.  She met D, who had experienced a stroke while participating in a park run.  They worked out that they had both been struck down on the same day.  D was a lovely person.  is daughter had just gone to university.   D left the ward before Elizabeth and was able to walk out, though this took extreme concentration.

Bit  by bit we watched Elizabeth being able to do more.  Every evening Liz did exercises on the cycling machine, and did sit ups.  The weakness in her left side has been a challenge, and Elizabeth felt that when she was discharged, she preferred to continue her rehabilitation in a rehab centre rather than at home.

When the news of a place at Barclay House came through, the speed of discharge from hospital was rather sudden.  The transition also enabled Elizabeth, and consequently the rest of us, to release a lot of pent up emotion.

Barclay house is well run and staffed by wonderful people who are offering a great service.  The level of need of the residents is very high, with most people suffering significant cognitive impairment.

I also notice the change from the NHS culture I am so familiar with.  No uniforms, no bare below the elbows, no alcohol gel.  Far more freedom to talk optimistically about the future.

Of Wine and Fog

Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town’s life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind. But the room was gay with firelight. In the bottle the acids were long ago resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, As the colour grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards was ready to be set free and to disperse the fogs of London. 

From "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson

9) From My Side - Journey through the system I

Our experience of the health service has been that it has been all that we would want, and more.  The level of care Elizabeth has received has been consistently excellent.

From the beginning of our journey, a role the staff offer other than patient care, is care of the family.  First contacts are very important. I was struck by the honest, gentle caring contact we were given.  We were quickly orientated into our new lives, and the details of the haemorrhage were clearly explained.  I noted that at all time the information we were given was simply the facts, and prognosis were kept to a minimum.  At times this was hard, especially in the care planning meetings when staff who were usually very up beat would not say much at all about future chances.  I was interested that this relaxed when Elizabeth moved out of NHS provision, into a rehab home.  Here staff do not wear uniforms, they are not bare below the elbow (BBE) and they talk more optimistically about the future.  It's a different culture.

It was explained to us that Elizabeth would be moved to the Royal Hallamshire from the Northern General.  The nurse informed us that the journey was assessed as safe for Liz.  In the Royal Hallamshire we were aware that we were in a place that had very high standards, and all the staff knew that they were standard bearers.  Elizabeth was next to a bed space that underwent a deep clean.  The was clearly an industrial process.  It was impressive to witness.  At one point we stood away from Elizabeth's bed while an x-ray was taking place.  We had inadvertently strayed into a neighbouring ward.  It was like an invisible political divide.  Staff on that side of the line clear viewed us as different.  They had a 'no phones' rules, and disapproved of us flaunting our phones openly.  We soon learnt to keep our side of the demarcation.

We had earnest conversations with .A', the discharge nurse.  He explained why Elizabeth would be moved very soon back to Leicester. First we had to re-register her with our GP in Leicester.  This is normally very difficult, but fortunately our GP knows us well and agreed to have Liz back with her.  Then A started pushing on the wrong door.  He tried to get her a bed at the LRI.  The Leicester General has intensive care, although it has been scheduled to be cut for the last 7 years.

A eventually push on the right door.  We had just prepared ourselves for a long stint in Loxley, and then on that day we heard that Elizabeth was to be moved to Leicester.  An Ambulance was arranged.  Liz's Granny had just arrived by train only to see her trussed up on an ambulance stretcher, looking exceedingly uncomfortable, with an ancient ventilator.  Elizabeth's journey to Leicester was very quick as the ambulance had flashing blue lights and didn't stop once.  We followed on behind.

The ICU in Leicester was a curious affair.  No investment was going into the building as it was destined to be close.  Margaret did not like going into the family waiting area because all the chairs looked revolting. However, the staff made up for the environment.

8) From My Side - funny that (d)

An experienced night nurse gave Elizabeth a hand with washing.  She remarked what a nice bum Elizabeth has.  Elizabeth said "It's because I haven't had children."  After a pause, the night nurse replied, "I don't think having children affects your bum...just every other part of your body."

V, one of Elizabeth's compatriot on the ward had to go for a brief spell to the LRI because she was unwell.  When she came back, rather confused, she got out her mobile at 1:30 am, and on speakerphone, called her husband.  " I'm not quite sure where they have taken me.  I seem to be in a basement."  Not often you get waken in the night with such thoughts.

Elizabeth was beginning to stand, with her army of physios around her, keeping her safe.  As she was standing her left leg began to wobble.  She fell a warm hairy thing between her knee.  "R", she said, "Is that your head?"  R coolly said "no Elizabeth, if that was my head I think I might loose my job." (It was his knee.)

Elizabeth told us that the nurses at the Leicester General have an intense dislike for the Royal Infirmary.  They see it as tense and chaotic.  Elizabeth once told us that she had a nightmare where she was sent to the Royal for being naughty.

At Elizabeth's family meeting in Barclay House it was noted that Elizabeth contacted a taxi company to ask they the price of a trip to the university.  She was complemented for taking on this vocal challenge, but would not accept the praise says that taxi companies are very good at deciphering 'drunken' voices.  It was no big deal.