Names

I spent yesterday being literary at Tatton Hall - the highlight of the day was a poetry reading by Wendy Cope, but there was also an interesting discussion about 'Get into Reading', a way of using reading groups with different groups such as people with dementia, mental health problems, learning disabilities, by reading books aloud on a weekly basis and then discussing them - I wondered whether this would work on my estate as a way of bringing different people together, but think I'll probably never find time to implement it...  Char March also read a story she had written about her relationship with her mother - as I was at the even with my mother, it was interesting to think about how our relationship has changed and how it might change in the future.

So here's my favourite poem Wendy read:

Names

She was Eliza for a few weeks

When she was a baby - 

Eliza Lily.  Soon it changed to Lil.

Later she was Miss Stewart in the baker's shop

And then 'my love', 'my darling', Mother.

Widowed at thirty, she went back yo work

As Mrs Hand.  Her daughter grew up,

Married and gave birth.

Now she was Nanna.  'Everybody

Calls me Nanna,' she would say to visitors.

And so they did - friends, tradesmen, the doctor.

In the geriatric ward

They used the patients' Christian names.

'Lil,' we said, 'or Nanna,'

But it wasn't in her file

And for those last bewildered weeks

She was Eliza once again.