Authors Electric

Ever since I first heard it, the Flanders and Swann song entitled 'The Gas Man Cometh' has struck a chord with me and I've found myself applying it to all kinds of situations.  For anyone who doesn't yet know it, the lyrics are here:  https://genius.com/Flanders-and-swann-the-gas-man-cometh-lyrics (for some reason the live link doesn't always work but if you are really keen to see the lyrics then you can always copy it into the search bar) The first time I found it relevant was when we had someone from British Telecom round to install a second telephone line. Yes, this was some time ago when we still had landlines. In this case we needed it because my husband had complained to his then employers, who were in fact British Telecom, that I had had to go downstairs to answer the phone in the middle of the night when alone in the house with a small baby only to find that nobody in the family had died after all, but that my husband, who was in fact away from home on a re...

  For as long as I can recall, I've been someone who likes to rush at things, trying to fit too much into the time and only getting it all done by a ruthless system of prioritisation, so that eating biscuits (for instance) always gets done and sweeping up the crumbs never does!   My mother was the same, only worse, and often quoted her own mother's motto, 'Better to wear out than rust out.' I suspect I am wearing out physically at a somewhat faster rate than she did, but that's beside the point. Inside view of a props cupboard where some things do rust out over the years, while others seem to be destined to appear in almost every show. The point is that I've recently had to modify my approach to writing in order to get anything finished, and I'm currently reflecting on whether this might actually be a good thing. Ever since I first took part in NaNoWriMo in 2006, I seem to have been operating according to its rules every time I sit down to write. This is a g...

Piece of Paper 1: a Book of Pledges Bertie applauds as Nicci presents the pledge book to CNO Jane Cummings It was 0800 on a Monday morning. Not any Monday morning, it was The Monday Morning that I was going to London to NHS England with the Book of Pledges for Nicci Gerrard and myself to present to Chief Nursing Officer. Putting it together had felt epic– but now there were half dozen neat copies, printed out and comb-bound and right-hand-man Bertie was ironing his clean white shirt. I was still in my dressing gown. I’d been to bed silly late and up silly early but all I had to do now was find something suitable to wear and get into the car for the station. The phone rang. It was Jo, the nurse on duty at the Moat House where my mother lives. Mum had had a fall. She was on the floor, screaming, and the paramedics who were already there thought she should go to hospital for an X-ray. Jo wanted guidance. I burst into tears. This was one of God’s bad jokes. At that mo...

The Great and Little Domesday Books in c19th bindings (wikipedia)  A 186 page survey, split into two sections -- Acute and Mental Health Trusts --  the Great and Little Domesday. A potentially fascinating source, I believe, chronicling one particular aspect of the English NHS in a moment of sociological transition. That’s what I’ve been compiling over this last fortnight. When Nicci Gerrard and I set out in late November 2014 to establish the rights of carers (family members and particular friends) to stay with people with dementia if they were admitted to hospital – and the rights of those people to have their carer with them – we assumed this was something quite simple.   We would make our case, people in authority would agree, a regulation or two would be rearranged and the job would be done. John's Campaign a passing phase.  We had not grasped the extraordinary structural muddle left as the aftermath of the Lansley ‘reforms’ of 2012. Wherever we we...

My partner Francis has just emerged from a brief stay in hospital to have a hip replacement. It’s one of those blessed operations, like cataract surgery, that have become almost a rite of passage for us over-sixties. “Oh I’ve had three of those,” people say and one looks for the extra bulge that has turned them into a tripod. A successful hip replacement wipes out months of debilitating pain, sleeplessness, inability to walk up or down stairs without howling agony. Living in a country where such a major operation is relatively freely available is an absolute blessing. So thank you, fellow citizens, for continuing to fund our NHS, 70 this year ... and with aging problems of its own. As we baby-boomers move through the system that is almost our coeval, we block beds, stretch resources and look likely to show our appreciation of our lifelong free-at-the-time-of-need health care by continuing to live longer and longer. ( Sorry, everyone.)  Francis was among the increasing numbe...

Splashes of vivid yellow against a dull fence. Clumps and lines of bright trumpets assertive in an empty garden. Whether or not daffodils have been invited or encouraged, for the last two months they have been all around us. By road sides, pushing their way up through dead leaves and scattered twigs, disregarding litter or neglect, gathered in handfuls for jam jars on window sills. Daffodils are such generous flowers. Even when they’re sold in mean little bundles, elastic-banded together, their flowers tight-shut as if traumatised bring them home, give them just the minimum of light and warmth and water and within hours they will be opening out, sharing their glorious, life-affirming colour. For I, the lent lily, the Daffadowndilly, Have heard through the country the call to arouse. The orchards are ringing with voices a-singing The praise of my petticoat, praise of my gown. The children are playing and hark! they are saying That Daffy-down-dilly is come up to town!...