Authors Electric

  +Helen-Ann Hartley I suppose it was inevitable that media interest in the BBC’s removal of Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace should so quickly supersede the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. About 5.4 million people tune in watch a Masterchef final whereas only 2 million are likely to attend Church of England Christmas services. And then Gregg gave that extra headline-grabbing gift with his outburst against the Middle-Class Women of a Certain Age who he blamed for bringing him down.   Kelly Webb-Lamb, founder and chief executive of Mothership Productions, wrote in Broadcast magazine, ‘ Can we all just think for a minute about what it means - in this industry - to be a “woman of a certain age”. If you’re still around, it means, that you had years, if not decades, of putting up with “banter”, lewd comments, and often much worse, and didn’t ever say anything because you wanted a good reputation and that next job.’ She goes on to list the difficulties encounte...

  When John’s Campaign went to the House of Commons in March 2022 to explain why legislation is needed to ensure the right to a care supporter, we were asked who we would like to speak on our behalf. Without hesitation Nicci Gerrard and I invited Wendy Mitchell. We feel passionately that there should be ‘nothing about us without us’ but as a dementia campaign it is not always easy to find people living with the condition who feel able to describe their experience in public. Wendy was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2014 when she was 58. At first, she sank into a deep depression but then decided that there was hope.   She would live as well as she could for as long as she could – and encourage others to do the same. Since then, thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people have been inspired by Wendy though her blog ‘Which Me Am I today?’ her books, her public appearances and her extraordinary feats such as sky diving and wing-riding, undertaken when she discovered that ba...

  Plaid Cymru leader Liz Saville Roberts struggled  to hold back her tears at Prime Ministers Questions 5.1.2022 when she spoke of her fear that her mother's dementia diagnosis  would also mean separation from her family when she was moved into a care home. Now Liz is one of four MPs ready to introduce legislation  to ensure we all have the right to maintain contact with a family carer wherever we are in the health and care system Today, Monday May 8 th is National Help-Out day -- which may well mean that by tomorrow, when this blogpost is published (March 9th 2023), everyone’s impulses to benevolence will be as exhausted as the final damp squib from a village playing-field party. So maybe I’ll pitch this request as enlightened self-interest... If you have a stroke today, or a traumatic brain injury, if you develop a cognitive disability (such as a dementia) or any one of the array of incurable illnesses which will make you progressively less and less able to fe...

In the Thatcher room at Portcullis House, Westminster at a cross party meeting of MPs lobbying for a new right. This lovely young woman is 27  yet her disabilities are such that she is  at the level of a toddler. Should she be restricted to interaction  with her mother behind a perspex screen?   In fact, it’s such an old and basic human need that it’s astounding that it must be lobbied for. We are asking for the legal right for patients, residents or service users in the health and care system to maintain their closest personal relationships and be supported, in time of need, by someone who loves them.  And it's not 'them' - it could just as easily be me, or you. Imagine that you're living with some disability, impairment or trauma which means you can’t manage the system for yourself. You need your cognitive guide-dog, your back-up brain - your spouse, partner, dearest friend, child, parent, sibling. The person who you have chosen and you trust. The perso...

Lunna House, Shetland, overlooking the anchorage This week began 9 days ago. I was self-isolating, having tested positive a couple of days before, and I’d just made the terrible mistake of saying aloud to Francis how conducive I hoped this was going to be to a quiet spell of writing. I’d been playing my usual game of not exactly mentioning the current project, clocking up a few hundred words here and there and hoping they would turn into something. They’d crawled nicely past the 30,000 sticky point and my characters had anchored in the evocative West Lunna Voe in Shetland. They and I were both eager to know what would happen to them next. A spell of enforced seclusion seemed the ideal opportunity to find out. What actually happened was a message from Delyth, a dedicated, passionate, dementia nurse in Wales introducing Liz Saville Roberts MP who was offering to support the John's Campaign on-going struggle for the rights of people in hospitals and care homes to maintain their rela...

German ship losses WW1 I start this blog with two images and some disembodied faces . The first of the images are the roughcast concrete walls in the Laboe naval memorial on the Kieler Fiord.  There are two walls facing across the main chamber. They are slate-grey like an officer’s field uniform and crammed with the thick black outlines of sunken ships.  They record the Kaiserliche marine and K reigsmarine losses in two world wars. It was the diagrammatic aspect that I found chilling. It encouraged one to compare and contrast 11 U-Boote lost in the first war with 840 in the second. 46 Luftschiffe in the first, none in the second -- as if this was about technological change not human lives. The crammed outlines on the second wall were unforgettable. They represented 120,000 dead and missing men German ship losses WW2 Shipwrecks around the British Isles (all)  The second image may not exist. I imagine it is night and I can see the lights from a constant series of wreck b...

  This letter requires your urgent attention   Dear Sirs   Re: John’s Campaign v. Secretary of State for Health and Social Care   1.       We write this letter in accordance with the Pre-Action Protocol for Judicial Review.   [...] The Proposed Claimant W e act for Nicci Gerard and Julia Jones who are the co-founders of John’s Campaign https://johnscampaign.org.uk/#/ . John’s campaign was founded in 2014 as an organisation that campaigns for the right of people with dementia to be supported by their family carers. John’s Campaign is generally, and here, advocating on behalf of many individuals who have been affected by the issues raised in this letter and we attach to this letter a sample of case studies collected by John’s Campaign which illustrate the issues being faced by hundreds of thousands of care home residents and their relatives across England.    The Proposed Defendant The Secretary of State for Health an...