Navigating another new school year and a huge educational next step. #SENPARENTING #ASD #EHCP Today is bittersweet. My child who has long struggled in the classroom, amongst his peers, and with the demands of traditional schooling has moved into a specialist unit. It’s an SEMH (Social, emotional and mental health) unit which means it specialisesContinue reading “Stars in square shaped boxes: Not all our children fit.”
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Welford nursing home 1997
A little thing happened, I won a recent writing competition and got to attend a Life Writing Course with Faber: Professional Writing academy/ New Writing North. Thought I’d share my little piece here. It’s about me starting my nursing career as a 17 year old in a nursing home. Welford Nursing Home 1997 1997: PrincessContinue reading “Welford nursing home 1997”
My child is not broken, despite him falling though the cracks.
He walks on a frozen lake. With each step, cracks appear under his feet, the ice splintering. Lines not quite big enough for him to disappear below the water, but enough to make the walk precarious, dangerous, uncertain. If the ground beneath his feet is unstable, how can he stride, thrive, how can he run?Continue reading “My child is not broken, despite him falling though the cracks.”
We are a galaxy of little stars
On a crisp November night, a woman jumps to her death breaking the stillness of the reservoir for only a few seconds. Who was she? And why did she jump? A whodunit where the victim is not murdered, but instead takes her own life. The opening to my fictional novel, a bookclub literary fiction exploringContinue reading “We are a galaxy of little stars”
A royal wedding a football match and cigarette smoke.
How our hospital community spaces have changed. Who remembers the ward day rooms with bookshelves and dining tables, TVs in the corner amidst sofas and armchairs? When I started my nursing career patients used these areas, dinner was served in shared spaces where patients would sit together, eat together, and talk together. Patients shared aContinue reading “A royal wedding a football match and cigarette smoke.”
Dear Boris, I lied too.
(Written in response to the news of the alleged Downing Street Christmas Party of 2020- some readers may find this distressing. Reposting owing to the reluctance of Boris and the now government to publish whatsApp and text messages during this time.) This piece was Shortlisted for the Yeovil Writing Without Restrictions Prize 2022. …. DearContinue reading “Dear Boris, I lied too.”
I’m bruised and I’m battered
This is a poem I wrote early last year. Since writing it we have had a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD. My life as a mother has forever changed. My whole approach to how I communicate with my child has had to evolve and be adapted. We’re getting there, and things are calmer. I spentContinue reading “I’m bruised and I’m battered”
One big heart: (if you were in a nurse’s shoes what would you do?)
Those Thursday night claps are silent and long forgotten, the hand-painted rainbows colourless and faded. Our Covid ‘heroism’ seems to have been erased from history. Us nurses are about to get vilified by our government, our press, we will be called greedy, uncaring, selfish. We are about to become the victims of a campaign toContinue reading “One big heart: (if you were in a nurse’s shoes what would you do?)”
We Will Strike
We will strike for every time we left our shifts late For every patient who has endured a too long a wait For every shift we could not safely fill For every time the pressure of our working day made us feel ill For every time we missed our lunch or coffee break For everyContinue reading “We Will Strike”
Behind Closed Doors: A Nursing Memoir
May 2020 (Short listed for the Yeovil Literary Writing Without Restrictions Prize 2021) My colleagues and I hadn’t taken it seriously, we were almost a little cocky, ‘Yeah. Yeah, we’ve seen H1N1, we’ve seen SARS, we’ve nursed in pandemics before’ So we carried on, until very quickly our office became an incident command center, execsContinue reading “Behind Closed Doors: A Nursing Memoir”
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