Old

Out of touch for a while, but here I am. Exhausted from my latest nursing placement with older adults and from quick visit to Nan. She recently gave up climbing the stairs and seemed much more frail with failing hips and failed sight. She has been falling out with the religious ladies who visit her. 'It's all rubbish about dead people coming back', she told me 'I want to live'. And then she said, 'mind you I must have someone looking after me'. We fixed her up a headboard and bought sweets. Life goes on and Coventry was calling.

I've been asked to contribute a funny story for the Mental Health Nursing Newsletter. I wrote this old story up, and thought I'd post it here too.

Alfred (born 8.8. 1915) was my Great Uncle.  He did watercolour painting, made me a brilliant swing, mended clocks, tamed wild animals, rode a Triumph Acclaim motorbike, kept receipts and saved coppers, polished furniture, and knew the virtue of iodine. He studied signwriting until the outbreak of the Second World War when he was called up fighting with Monty’s Desert Rats in North Africa. He held all kinds of job, including coffin maker, but mostly worked with his brother mending shoes and horse harnesses, retiring in his eighties. Oh, and he had Asburgers Syndrome.

It was cold, dark and raining the night he came down the lane, walking right in to his sister’s kitchen, already shouting. His voice had a particular tone that carried, his words repeated, often with varied pronunciation. Nan was used to him but couldn’t at first work out what had happened. ‘Alfred, Alfred sit down here’. He wouldn’t though, and demanded to call the police (he had no phone of his own, too expensive). Was he sure he needed to? Yes. He took the phone and the call was made. We lived in a rural area and they would be some time. He phoned again to make sure they were coming. Tea was offered and having taken over the precise measurement of the leaf tea (too much was wasteful) he became more coherent.

Some boys had come to his house. Not boys, youth. In a gang. They had demanded money and threatened to do damage if they weren’t satisfied. He had sent them packing but they might come back.

‘What did they say exactly?’ My Nan questioned him cautiously. Alfred was still angry. ‘They demanded money with menaces’. He told her how they had knocked the door and said something he couldn’t catch. They were dressed up in coats and scarves over their faces. He asked them again and they said something about treacle. When he had asked what they meant by it they had threatened to do something to his house if he didn’t give them money. ‘Treacle, are you sure?’ He was sure.

The police officer arrived and Alfred retold the story. ‘It was definitely about treacle’, Alfred said, ‘treacle..treacle.. treat’. The officer folded his notebook. ‘Sir it is the thirty first of October’.  There was a long pause. ‘Could it have been Trick or Treat?’