After this last Monday, I feel renewed in my conviction of the value and interest of storytelling for elderly people.  And come to think of it, aren’t I classifiable as an elderly person myself?

The elderly people on Monday were all residents of the St Mary’s Care Home, Chiswick. About 15 women and one man joined the session  which I was doing at the invitation of a good friend, Julia Langdon, whose mother had been a resident here in the last part of her life. Julia had asked me if I would come to tell them stories.

I hugely enjoyed it. They sat in their chairs round the sides of the room and listened intently and laughed quite a bit. The woman sitting next to me leaned against her left arm throughout, head down and eyes closed. When we had a short break she apologised saying that, though her eyes were closed, she was listening to every word. With her as with the others, it felt like she was missing nothing. The woman sitting opposite me frequently tapped her arms on her knees with a kind of excited pleasure.

I told a variety of stories, including the Chinese story of The First Storyteller which I’d first come across in a book laid out on a table in a shop in Covent Garden many years ago and also a really soppy one about the Prince of the Earth falling in love with the Princess of the Moon. The latter is one I specially enjoy because I’m good at making frog noises and here it’s Frog who makes it possible for the two lovers to meet.

But I started the session by telling a story I haven’t told for a long time. I imagine it’s a well-known story among storytellers. In this version, it’s about a dressmaker but it can also be about a tailor making a coat or a jacket. (more…)

At least it’s not raining on this extra Leap Day – at least not yet. Tomorrow is St David’s Day and, in memory, that was always a day of celebration when, at school, we girls all wore a daffodil pinned to our jackets and the boys wore leeks (which they’d diligently chew almost to nothing over the course of the day).

To celebrate St David’s Day every year in St David’s, an Eisteddfod is held in the City Hall. Eistedd in Welsh means sitting and fod (mutated here from bod) means being. So yesterday, two days in advance of the day itself, there we were, Paul and me, sitting in St David’s City Hall as two of the hall-full of people ready to participate in a whole day of competitions of many kinds, among them reciting and dancing and singing alone or in groups. Paul and I won a number of prizes – alas, no firsts – and so came home with a handful of little prize-bags made from the beautiful woollen cloth donated by Tregwynt Woollen Mill.

The tradition:

Evidently, the first known Eisteddfod took place in Cardigan in 1176 under the aegis of the Lord Rhys. It’s a tradition that has persisted all over Wales, though not necessarily on St David’s Day. For many, many youngsters it becomes the route to a future in musical performance or, since prose and poetry competitions are usually included – literary success. Bryn Terfel is just one of the many performers who rose to success in this way. (more…)

When you write a regular blog – and this one’s been going for over 5 years now – you get used to the idea of tags. Tags refer to the particular themes mentioned in the blog that you’ve written. However, I frequently find that a process very like tagging starts to happen in my mind before the writing even begins. It does so in response to the inevitable question: what shall I write about this time?

This week I was thinking I might write about WiPs (that’s the Works in Progress group to which I belong – eleven of us who, when we meet, each give a short presentation of something we do, namely write stuff or sing or sculpt or play the piano, clarinet or violin). Our next WiPs is due this Sunday and I’m planning to sing a Welsh folk song about the Carmarthenshire village of Llansteffan.

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Not many words, just an enormous big wish: that you face the New Year and the coming decade with as much hope as you can summon and as much love as you can give.

My message comes via Whitesands, the beautiful Pembrokeshire beach from which St Patrick set out for his mission to Ireland and which I have  loved ever since the very first time, many years ago when I was little, when I spent a holiday there with my family in a gypsy caravan parked immediately above the sand. Today although it often now gets quite busy there, the car park full and surfboarders in the sea, it’s where I most find peace and quiet whether I visit it in mind as I often do in London or, as this week, in person.

Happy New Year! Happy New Decade!

An American friend once told me about a literary seminar at which she’d been present.  The subject of discussion was a very long poem that had been written by one of the students in the group. The eminent writer leading the group – John Berryman as I recall – asked the student to read out the whole of this poem. Then, at the end, having listened intently, he quoted one small phrase from the poem and said, ‘Now that was good!’

Well, you could take that several ways. Quoting an actual phrase from the poem, however small, showed that the eminent writer had really listened. At the same time, the fact that he praised just one tiny part could be taken to mean that he’d really not rated much of the rest of it.  Yet hearing his praise of that one phrase  would surely have concentrated the minds of all who were present. What was especially good about that particular bit.

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In prospect, a hospital appointment for physiotherapy felt like more than I needed. What a surprise was in store! The session proved an energising mix of exercises, some with simple equipment, some without, and all of it supervised by a very nice young chap who made it all feel straightforward and do-able.

Another treatment session the previous week had felt equally unwanted in prospect. Another journey on the bus, another half-day used up on a hospital visit … but that, too, had proved an absolute pleasure because it turned out to be a foot reflexology session with a really lovely woman who even sent me away with something you might call a smell-stick to help induce a peaceful sleep each night.

How lucky I feel that we have an NHS that has dreamt up such a range of services which it offers for free. How different it would be if I had to walk miles through the heat along dusty roads to a health centre or hospital where there might not even be a doctor, let alone exercise equipment or a smell-stick. (more…)

You visit your friends next door or go to your local shops. You go to the cinema or to collect the children from school. And then what do you do? You go home. It’s easy, it’s familiar, it’s something you do all the time.

Going home:

Then again, some activities you do on a regular basis can also feel like going home – activities such as visiting your local library, sitting down at your piano or sewing machine or updating the diary you keep. Regular activities give such a feeling of comfort and purpose. They too feel like going home.

But going home may not always be easy. It can entail something demanding such as driving to the other side of the country. Or getting on a boat or plane and travelling to another part of the world. For going home can also mean returning to the place where you grew up and that place may no longer be near or comfortable.

And lots of us need to do it, namely go back on a regular or irregular basis to the place of our origin. In busy, multicultural London, I often wonder what diverse and far-flung countries were the starting-points, the homes, of people I see round me in the streets. I wonder about their feelings and experience when they do return home, what scents they smell, what landscapes they see, what foods they eat.

Alas, it’s not necessarily an available option. A recent issue of Golwg, the Welsh weekly magazine I take, contained a moving portrayal of a young refugee who now lives in Wales (and is learning both Welsh and English). In it, he talked about how he cannot go home. He is Syrian. His home is no longer a safe place to be. (more…)

Yesterday morning after a restorative week away, Paul and I drove back to London from Pembrokeshire. The clouds in the sky were so incredibly beautiful, they could not have held my attention more had they been painted by the greatest of artists.  We could see staircases and streams, maps of whole continents and the pathways of gentle breezes. Goodness knows why the two stories that follow came back to my mind while watching these clouds. I hadn’t specifically thought about either for a very long time. One is specifically about a boy who loved clouds. The other is about the kind of power I associate with consummate artistry.

Story No. 1:

There was once a boy who loved the clouds. He loved looking up and seeing the extraordinary patterns the clouds sometimes make. He loved to observe the way the clouds move, sometimes drifting very slowly, sometimes scudding across the sky. (more…)

This week, my hair began falling out in bundles. An early consequence of the chemo. Not nice! Seeing the devastation, turbans was the thought that promptly came to my mind. First, I got out what I thought was a suitable scarf, twisted it around my balding bonk, saw that it looked a terrible mess that might fall apart any minute. What to do?

How to do it?

Google provided the answer. Up came numerous videos of lovely young women taking barely a minute to create stylish turbans out of beautiful scarves. I tried again and now it became quick and easy for me too.

No more hairdresser visits:

So if and when we meet from now on, you’ll surely see me in a turban. Perhaps it will have to be my style for whatever is left of my life. Granted it’s a little bit time-consuming and cuts out the role of the hairdresser in my life. And since I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for almost half a century, that’s not nothing. But at least it deals with the hair-loss problem. Besides, turbans are different from hats. In my still small experience, they come out interestingly different each time. (more…)

The daffodils are over, the lovely bunch of tulips we were brought has withered, the roses in our garden are only just coming out. So here, instead, is a lovely camellia to wish you a happy Easter.

Easter brings so many things to mind. Holidays, chocolate, Easter bunnies, resurrection: may I wish you good experience of whatever takes your love, your interest or your fancy.

All I can add is that the sun is shining most liberally over us in Brixton. I hope it’s still shining over Pembrokeshire tomorrow. For if we can get ourselves going (and following my first chemo treatment for my current cancer this last Tuesday, getting going feels a bit hard), that’s where we’ll be headed.

How I look forward to the hedgerows, the beaches and the salt air! But wherever you will be tomorrow, my very best wishes for good things that you love and, as always, my thanks and appreciation that you’re reading this blog.