Barefoot Barney – A walk in the garden

Shadows and Light: a tale of two cities

Jacaranda tree in full bloom, Barcelona

“Barcelona is something else, isn’t it? There you have the Mediterranean, the spirit, the adventure, the high dream of perfect love. There are palm trees, people from every country, surprising advertisements, Gothic towers and a rich urban tide… What a pleasure it has been for me to meet that air and that passion!“

(Federico García Lorca, quoted by Colm Tóibín in ‘Homage to Barcelona.’)

Dazzled by the sunshine

BARCELONA 2024. A chance comment I made to friends took me – and them – to Barcelona in September last year. One year on, and I still have not recovered. I had never been to the city before, but from the moment I stepped off the plane, I was dazzled. There was the glorious blue of the Mediterranean sea and sky, framed majestically by the Montjuïc and Tibidabo hills. Then there were the crazy colours, the daring curves and angles, of its modernist architecture – Barcelona’s most famous visionary, Antoni Gaudí, everywhere present in the eccentric and bombastic buildings which he dedicated to the power of nature, the sea, and to God himself.

Casa Milà, designed by Gaudí, flowing like the waves along the Passeig de Gràcia, Barcelona

Explosion of delights

Turn every corner, and even the humblest chemist shop would boast a doorway of gleaming metalwork and audacious design. The whole city seemed like an explosion of an artist’s palette: an artist not entirely in their right mind, moreover, but not giving a damn for the consequences.

Doorway to the garage (!) inside Casa Milà

But it was something else about the city that captured my heart and imagination so immediately: its sheer vibrancy, its devil-may-care insouciance and a profound delight in life itself. This was down to the people themselves, as much as the environment. The Catalans! A bunch of rebel warriors, not averse to lingering at a street pavement café for hours, arguing, drinking, even dancing – on skateboard or on foot – down the street and into the night. I felt as if I had stumbled into a kind of psychedelic paradise for the few days that I was there. And even though there is plenty of trouble in this same paradise (the modern day blight of excessive tourism, plus a history struck by fascist repression, violence and loss), Barcelona still seemed gloriously alive and untouchable. It galloped towards me like a wild horse: beautiful to look at – energetic, magnetic – but impossible to tame.

Boats in Barceloneta harbour, palm trees, and a moment of calm

Into the night

BUDAPEST 1988. Here was a city – and a country – blanketed in deep, deep snow and ice. The last vestiges of a Soviet-controlled communist regime. Everywhere grey and chilly. Red stars atop the government buildings, bullet holes in the grand walls, from a failed uprising 30-odd years before. Hard to imagine a place more different to the dazzle of Barcelona: caught in the Cold War grip of a cold, cold winter. Yet I loved this place in an instant, too. A coup de foudre. Led there by chance, through a friend who had gone back to live in her native country, I was lulled by the warmth of the theatre family I joined because of her, enjoyed late nights of camaraderie and drinking, suffered a bit from the mercurial Magyar temperament, yet returned again and again, to work and to live. Fell in love, had my heart broken, discovered my passion for the stage, and wandered the (then) gloomy streets with fascination and awe.

The green metal might of the Szabadság Bridge, on the River Danube, Budapest

The springs and summers in Budapest are as beautiful as those in Barcelona – though somewhat dustier, with its landlocked terrain – and the buildings and pavements now boast a tourist-friendly, scrubbed-clean façade, in this post-communist, capitalist-greedy new era. But the shadows remain. Down the poorer back streets, and after sunset, when the twinkling lights fail to fully conceal the darkness of a terrible history, imprinted in its hidden corners, behind its closed doors. This only makes me love the place more. It is a bony, bloody minded survivor, and sings its own – admittedly somewhat mournful, but determined – song.

Courtyard inside a block of flats in Újbuda, Budapest

When I went to Barcelona, I travelled as a carefree visitor, ignorant of its history, and blindsided by its raw vitality and joy. There could be nowhere, I thought, more different to the Budapest I had visited for so many years, in its attitude, its tempo, its style. The ugly struggles that Hungary had been through were familiar to me – German fascism, Soviet communism and a current authoritarian government wielding the cosh. But it turns out, of course, that Barcelona itself has been through the mill, with its own turbulent history of anarchism, socialism, and a glorious, defiant resistance to Spain’s homegrown dictator, General Franco. Two rebel cities with very different faces, but the same passionate heart.

Steps down from the Castle District, towards the river in old Buda.

The language of resistance

I have spent years trying to master Hungarian – a strange and difficult language, related to no other, and fiendishly difficult to learn. Now I find that Catalan, the native language of Barcelona, is likewise unusual, proudly defended, historically marginalised, and repressed. The Catalans are bright and voluble – and militant, too. The Hungarians are darker in mood, more saturnine, but Big Talkers also – and always ready for a good discussion, and to spring to their own defence! Lovers and fighters, both – which challenges and stirs my rather more hidden English sensibilities.

I find myself in a linguistic labyrinth now. As well as Hungarian, I find myself shaping my mouth around the very different vowels and consonants of Catalan. Hungarian has a rhythm and a music; the Catalan sounds are more percussive, vital and strong. Budapest and Barcelona. Both cities draw me like a moth to the flame – their shadows and their light inextricably mixed up in one textured and vibrant tapestry. Troubled and triumphant – the story of these places and their peoples will never fully be told. And that is their infinite, intoxicating allure.

“Szabadság, szerelem! E kettö nekem.”

Freedom and love. How much I need them both.

(Sándor Petöfi, Hungary’s poet of the revolution, in 1848)

Every New Leaf

The buddha oversees some greenery in the yard garden – and awaits a new burst of flowers. Rothwell, Leeds, May 2025

May Night

The spring is fresh and fearless

And every leaf is new.

The world is brimmed with moonlight,

The lilac brimmed with dew.

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Here in the moving shadows

I catch my breath and sing.

My heart is fresh and fearless

And over-brimmed with spring

(Sara Teasdale 1884 – 1933)

LAST YEAR I collected, and wrote on this website about, Seasonal Boxes – one for each month of the year, to celebrate the movement of time and of nature. (I am in the process of collating them all, to post on my archive page, which you can read here.) Well, what a different year 2025 has been so far! Dry, sunny, with blue, blue skies, all the way through April and May. After a long, cold, wet autumn and winter, this has been so welcome – even if I have developed an unexpected late-in-life onset of hay fever, after immersing myself in the pollen-laden atmosphere, day after day! No regrets…

Yard Garden Delights

The little yard garden here in Rothwell continues to yield both beauty and solace, as it becomes ever greener and more established, in its third year. There are the sweet peas and broad beans and lettuce, jostling together in the kitchen border; the ineffable herbs – rosemary, lavender, thyme, chamomile, parsley, st john’s wort, tea tree, myrtle and chive – in the herb bed; climbers – honeysuckle, clematis and rambling rose – scrambling up the arch I built to span the perennial and flower beds; and a cheerful, inchoate mess of various annuals and returners – wild poppy, hollyhock, geranium, rudbeckia, doronicum, ferns and veronicastrum – in the central bed, which is designed as a general colourful free-for-all, as the summer begins to rise.

Clematis and rowan in bloom, May 2025

Meditation in May

After a busy, busy year of travel in 2024, 2025 is settling into a much more quiet and contemplative time: reflecting on identities I have shed – life as a writer, theatre practitioner, teacher (although I still do some of that) – and moving into a much deeper meditation practise and way of life. Although I sit every day to do a formal meditation, the time I spend in the garden is itself a form of meditation: listening to the birds squabble and sing, watching the movement of the plants as they grow and flourish, relishing the busyness of the bees, humming from bloom to bloom, and basking in the quiet presence of the apple and rowan trees around me. It is a modest space. And as my life gets simpler and more modest, this seems to be the true meaning of my daily life now. Simplicity and quiet. Steady. Occasionally rueful. But calm. Nonetheless, this particular May has been NOISY in its natural abundance, and that, too, has been a joyful experience. This world of nature is an astonishing source of strength and solace. And I end by quoting something I wrote years ago, about my first experience of having a plot of my own: “Let your garden hold you – and it will.”

My seasonal box last year, May 2024. This year’s would have been twice the size and colour!

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*A Handful of Earth by Barney Bardsley, published by John Murray in 2007 – all about gardening and grief – is still available from various online providers. Check it out.

Afterword

Verbena Bonariensis in my yard garden. Tall and lofty and strong.

Dancing with bruised knees/ The End

HERE IS an extract from the afterword to my new manuscript, ‘Dancing with bruised knees’. You can read pieces and commentary from all the previous chapters by clicking the link to my archive page, here.

‘I started writing this book in 2019, when the world was a different place. Since then we have had the devastation of a global pandemic, and new wars in Ukraine and Gaza. So much death. So many losses, at a personal and international level. Everyone seems disproportionately older, more tired, less adventurous and outgoing. Or is that just me? Certainly this new era has knocked the stuffing out of me, and pushed me out of my hitherto well-established nest of home and work. Here I am, in a new house now, and have an entirely different way of life. The world of theatre, my life blood for so long, is completely gone. I live a quieter, smaller existence. But here’s the thing. I am more contented than I have ever been – and whilst not “retired’, because the self employed don’t ever contemplate such a thing, I am definitely in some kind of self-imposed retreat. And it suits me…

‘After the many grievous stresses and strains I have put my body through, from the start of my crazy dancing years to the present day – with the anaemias, broken limbs and flaring inflammations – I have finally learned to listen to my body: to live in it with some ease and enjoyment. This doesn’t mean that the aches and pains and occasional unaccountable flare ups have gone away. More that I have slowly begun to accept and accommodate the inconvenience of having a body at all! Exercising a bit. Resting alot. Good food. A glass or two of wine. And the elixir of friendship. One advantage of being single is my ability to explore both old connections and new ones, without the tie of marriage or partnership, with its inevitable responsibilities. It can be lonely being single, as I have been for 20 years, since the death of my husband in 2004. But it is also very freeing…

Bridge over the River Dolphin, Rothwell, on my favourite walk.

‘Maybe what I am describing here is the simple act of ageing. The longer we live, the more we see the patterns that recur, and realise that nothing lasts forever: this too shall pass. It brings to mind a beautiful quote from Bertrand Russell on the wisdoms of age: “Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river – small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.” Maybe this is why – city creature that I am – I crave the presence of the ocean, and have to go there, on my own, at least once or twice a year. Gazing at the waves and the rhythmical ebb and flow of the tide, I learn each time the lessons of surrender. Like looking at the moon and stars, when I watch that huge body of water rocking back and forth – oblivious to my presence, as if mocking my self importance – I remember that my own life is of very little value in the greater scheme of things. And that’s a comforting thought, actually. A reminder – always – to drop the burden from my shoulders, and, in whatever time I have left, and with as much ease as possible, just to live.

In Barcelona, autumn 2024. Because life is for the living.

Leaving Home

Midsummer Solstice in my new yard garden in Rothwell. Lights shining brightly.

Dancing with bruised knees/Chapter 11

FOR THE whole of 2024, I uploaded short fragments from my new manuscript, ‘Dancing with bruised knees’, month by month, chapter by chapter. Here is the final chapter: a kind of reckoning with the whole of my life up to this point. Everything changed for me post Covid – my work, my friendship groups, my home. It was both ending and beginning, and I am still trying to figure out the way forward. One step at a time, I suppose, one step at a time. To read the previous post on Chapter 10, click here. You can also find all the other chapters, by following this link.

Things fall apart

In late summer 2021, when the world was still reeling from the effects of the Covid pandemic, theatres started to open – albeit under stringent guidelines and restrictions. The company I was part of, the Performance Ensemble, undertook a huge new production at Leeds Playhouse, “The Promise of a Garden”, which was going to be one of the first pieces to be shown in the newly lit theatre. There was alot at stake. I really anticipated getting back together with people in person, and relished the chance to feel properly part of a company again, after our imposed isolation of the previous months. But it was in fact an ordeal from beginning to end. Everyone felt strained, inhibited. There was a sense of chaos bubbling just under the surface.

As rehearsals proceeded, I felt more and more isolated, and increasingly unwell. There was something very wrong here. What transpired led to me leaving the company, and leaving my theatre life altogether. A complicated mix of personality clash, and a profound difference in approach to the creative life – and to the way people should be treated, on a personal level. No need to go further here. But the following extracts give a little sense of the real despondency I felt at this time. It was a real crisis for me, a dark night of the soul.

‘There are times in your life, where everything falls apart. Nothing makes sense any more, and the road you were happily travelling along, becomes impassable and foreign. This is not about the grief of losing someone, a sorrow I am long familiar with – and something which gets no easier, nor ever will. No, it is a deeply personal thing: the grief of losing your own way, when the way, though difficult, seemed all the more bright for being so hard won.

‘For me, this was the late-realised wonder of theatre – of writing and performing and collaborating in a close knit band of fellow players: a desire instilled in me when I stayed in communist Hungary all those years ago, and saw the magic such close collaboration amongst a team of actors can produce on stage. And maybe it goes even further back, to childhood, when I saw that sun god dancer from the Royal Ballet, thudding across the stage of the local college in my small home town, on a rare touring visit with his fellow dancers, and I felt the energy of his feet pounding the ground and rising up into my own eight year old bones, filling me with a rare adrenaline and drive. I wanted what he had, and the other dancers too: pure self expression and the joyful power of performance. But be careful what you wish for. It might not be what it seems at all.’

Curtain call, ‘The Promise of a Garden’.

‘In a room full of people, I felt deeply lonely, never sure what was happening next, and alienated, even from those I knew and trusted of old. Why? Some of it was the simple fear of getting sick; or of failing at my task; of losing the connection, and status, so tenuously maintained during lockdown, and now so abruptly put to the test by this total re-immersion into rehearsal, under the cosh of a deadline, and the race towards the big first night.

‘Some of this was also down to personality – and ego. I hate to be shouted at – and there was a great deal of shouting, on such a large set, with such a difficult production. My own voice got smaller and smaller: my contribution seemed vanishingly small. In the end, I managed to speak my part, to move through the short sequences of T’ai Chi I had been asked to direct, and to sing and move alongside the rest of the ensemble as required. But rather than the power of group connection that I remembered so viscerally from pieces I had seen on stage – and participated in – through the years, all I remember from this time was a sense of profound and intensifying isolation.

‘Whether sitting on the edge of my chair in the rehearsal room, or backstage behind the lofty black drapes, waiting for my cue to step out alone, and speak a poem by Hungary’s greatest poet, Attila József – part in Hungarian, part in English – under the harsh, bright, unforgiving lights of the deep thrust stage in the Quarry ampitheatre, the only thing that mattered any more was holding it together: just (about) surviving.

‘There is a short and beautiful poem by William Carlos Williams, called Thursday. In it he says, “I have had my dream – like others – /and it has come to nothing…” By the end of the poem, he decides to stand in his hat, feel his clothes about him, look at the sky – and, in order to live in a simpler and more fulfilling way – come right into the present moment: to “dream no more”. For me, this first production after lockdown (and the final one for me), was like the day that the music died. I have not been back onstage since then. If theatre was a lifelong ambition and personal dream, which in some ways it really was, then here was the sudden and definitive wakeup call.’

House, health and happiness

In this intense period, during and just after lockdown, my own health deteriorated, with multiple tooth infections, a strange twist in the gut, and a recall after a mammogram, to treat a (benign) cyst on my right breast. All was not well in the home of my body. Added to that, the house where we lived was being put up for sale. We had to leave home and find somewhere else to live, after 18 years in the same house, and 25 years on the same estate. In the end, we moved to south Leeds, to a splendid little terrace in Rothwell. But that ‘end’ was far from obvious for some time, and my whole life felt turned upside down and inside out. There was, for a while, no safe place.

Baby on a blanket

In the end, what saves me, always is words and silence. I love to read, I love to sit quietly in meditation. Even when I am pulled far, far away from this core – as I was during my years in the theatre – I am always drawn back in the end. This is my anchor. My harbour and home coming. It has always been this way, since I was a small child, and the following extract shows just how deep the roots of this introspective passion are.

‘My mother told me that when I was a small child – not even old enough to stand and walk – she would sit me on a blanket in the back garden when it was fine, place a little book in my hand, and leave me there, whilst she busied herself with the endless chores in our bustling, noisy household. She was confident that I would be perfectly happy, left to my own devices, with just this precious object to gaze at, and she was right.

‘The name of the book? Progress and Poverty, by Henry George, published in 1879: a treatise on the questions of poverty, economics and industry! It belonged to my father’s old book collection, and originally came from my paternal grandfather’s library. Dad brought the book down with him, when he moved the family from Lancashire to Essex, in the 1950s. His father, Ernest Bardsley, had been a self taught scholar and thinker, before the stroke that cut him down midlife, and this book would have been one of many that fed his mind.

‘It was not, of course, feeding my own mind, as I sat there, barely out of infancy, under the garden trees. But I was a solemn child and enjoyed the rare moments of peace and quiet away from siblings and parents, and it happened that the book was a perfect size to fit into my small hands. It was a pleasing focus for my attention, and I derived a satisfying, even sensual, pleasure, from turning each page, one by one, maybe smoothing the paper down with my careful, enquiring fingers.

‘It is a pleasure that lasts to this day, which is why I still buy and read books, rather than resorting to the much more convenient and cost-effective on-screen alternatives. When my grandmother came to stay, she stared, astonished, at the silent girl in the garden, and pronounced, with familial pride, “The child is reading that book!” “No she isn’t, she’s just pretending,” retorted my mother, never one to shirk a maternal putdown.

‘Yet it was my mother Kathleen who later taught me to read – long before I started going to school – and it was Kathleen who took me to the library every week, fostering a lifelong love and respect for literature, even when she herself was more likely to be racing about doing things, rather than sitting and absorbing the quiet energy, the alchemy, that comes from black ink on a white page. I confess that I have never actually read Progress and Poverty, nor am I likely to. But I have my grandfather to thank for unwittingly placing that little book within my reach, and starting a life long fascination with the world of words and of calm introspection and reflection.’

Crossing the river

A pathway through my favourite walk in the pastures, in my new home in Rothwell.

My life has changed substantially since those turbulent Covid-ridden days – and for the better. It is a quieter, softer, more sustainable life now, as fits my current age and mood. No such change comes easily, however, and I still feel a little puzzled about the sudden cataclysm that ricocheted through my life in those days…

‘And for a long time, that autumn and winter 2022, I looked at the bare soil of the raised beds on the cold stone slabs in my little yard garden, and wondered, half excited, half in panic: what on earth will I grow here – and what will I myself grow into? How will I flourish, now I have turned my back on so much that I held dear: not just a familiar worklife, but a neighbourhood; and not just a neighbourhood but a whole network of friends, now marooned at the other end of the city? In more ways than one, I had crossed the river to the other side. In October, one month after moving house, I turned 66 years old: eligible at last for a State Pension and the wonder of a free Bus Pass. Officially old(er). Feeling pretty shaken, but also somehow unminted and fresh. Full of unexplored promise. Here, then, was the first page of a quite different book of words. Time to read, rest and reflect: then to write myself into a bright and brand new story.’

Seasonal 12: December

HERE IS the last entry in my collection of seasonal posts, one per month, to denote the passing of the seasons – and the musings of a life – all within the confines of a single box of treasures! So, December. This is a surprisingly muted jumble, given that I genuinely enjoy the sparkle of December, after the unending drudge of dark November. Twinkly light everywhere! A sense of optimism, a party spirit abroad. And yet, here we are… A collection of pine cones, and a few small precious objects and flowers. If anything, in this December box, there is the absence of twinkle, the muting of the lights. I find myself thinking often in these dying days of 2025, of Gaza, and the unconscionable war being waged there against the Palestinian people. Where is their light – and hope? It is a deep shame inside me, that we are doing nothing to help, nothing to stop such carnage. So there’s that. And also – I am tired. It has been a busy and rather beautiful year, despite some health challenges along the way, both personal and among family and friends. There has been death, and mourning. But also TRAVEL, after Covid clipped my wings for several years. The sparkle of Barcelona. The gentle streets of Bruges. The ever wonderful London, where I spent my entire youth, and to which I have returned, over and over, this year, to re-connect with old friends and old haunts – and, once, to mark the passing of a dear and lovely man. So much has happened. Maybe it is no wonder I feel a little hollow now. A bit emptied out. Ready for a slumber until spring… But nonetheless, there are a few treasures here, to document. And if you want to read the previous months, going right back to January, just click here .

1. HOUSE My mother did not have an easy childhood. Her own mother died when she was just a young girl, and she was brought up by her father – and an assortment of weird aunts – in a Lancashire town still darkened by the coal pits and the detritus of the second world war. She had few toys or treasures of her own. But one which she cleaved to, and brought out every year, to place on the branches of the Christmas tree, was a small cardboard house. When she died, I inherited this tiny object, and now it graces my tree every December, too. There was glitter on it once, and a hint of pink. Little of this now remains. The house must be over a hundred years old. It is ‘just’ a piece of card. But I love it beyond all the other decorations that shine so brightly in our living room. It makes me think of my mother – and it carries with it the beautiful burden of loss – and of love.

2. HELLEBORE My dear Aunt Ella loved the Christmas Rose, because it blooms at a time when everything else in the garden is fast asleep. I love it for the same reason, and my little yard garden has several white hellebores, which are presently merrily making a party all of their own. As always, the ancient Greeks have a bonkers explanation for the innocent flower. Apparently Melampus of Pylos used the gentle hellebore to save King Argos’ daughters from a madness induced by Dionysus, that caused them to run naked through the city streets, screaming and crying. Rather like Leeds on a Saturday night… But let’s return to the reality of the flower, stripped of all philosophising, and enjoy its creamy beauty, and waxen leaves, amidst the dried up sticks and leaves apparent everywhere else.

3. FAIRY She has to be included here. The fairy on top of the Christmas tree. So, all hail the Peg Fairy, made – not very expertly, it has to be said – from an old fashioned clothes peg, which cunningly provides a little ballast, as she hovers aloft, usually at a vertiginous angle, and increasingly so, as the season progresses. Our particular fairy has a somewhat smug expression, eyes closed, mouth upturned in a permanent smile, but she only has one job to do, once a year, and she does it well. As with most of our tree ornaments, the fairy has an association with a place, a person and a memory for me. I bought it at the Christmas Fair at St Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds, whilst my husband was an in-patient there. He made it through his last Christmas, before dying on 8 January, 2004. It was graceful of him to wait until the festive period was over. And although he rather despised this humble little fairy, being a man of expensive tastes and ‘born for better’, I retain an affection for her. She symbolises a certain sturdy good humour: has seen good and bad days, like the people she lives among, and yet still emerges, year on year, to float somewhat gracelessly above the proceedings, and always bringing a smile to my face, when I unwrap her once again for the festive season, and plonk her in place – to the manner born – right at the top of the greenwood tree.

Phoenix Rising

© Mike Pinches 2020. All Rights Reserved.

On stage in Leeds, February 2020, telling my own story…

Dancing with bruised knees/Chapter 10

Here is the penultimate chapter of my manuscript, ‘Dancing with bruised knees’, a memoir of loss and reinvention, written ‘on the body’. For the previous chapter synopsis, press here, and for all previous chapters, back to the beginning.

This is a chapter of re-discovery: of joining a theatre company in my early sixties, and finding the joy of self expression on stage, in the company of many other brave and remarkable souls. It’s about loss – the loss of a dear friend, and my subsequent journey through grief and illness as a result. But from that loss, a phoenix rising from the ashes. Dancing and performing, in her memory, for she was a dancer too. The option to renew ourselves, is always there – right to the end of life. If a creative chance comes: take it. Never mind any outer recognition – our inner enrichment is all. In 2019, I was asked to join a theatre company of older performers: Alan Lyddiard’s Performance Ensemble. The extracts below describe the beginning of that process, and a piece called ‘Crossing’, performed just before Covid, and before the whole world fell apart…

Hokusai Says

‘There is a remarkable nineteenth century artist called Hokusai. He is famous worldwide for his print, the Great Wave off Kanagawa, a magnificent rendering of the sea in movement. But he was much more prodigious and diverse in his talent than this one – startlingly beautiful – image might suggest. He worked at his art from youth to old age (he died several months after he turned ninety), and his art continued to deepen and evolve, year on year, decade after decade.

‘At the beginning, his interest was in people, and he drew them with a fierce and tender honesty: focussing his attention on working people’s lives, for he came from humble origins, and he never forgot his roots. The tumbling array of portraits flowed from his pen as freely as ink – and are thought to be the origin of the modern day Japanese Manga comic books.

‘But, as time went by, Hokusai turned more and more towards the natural world. The immutable power of sky and sea, and the prevailing grandeur of Mount Fuji, consumed him in his later years. His art became ever more sophisticated, ever more lively, the older he became. It was as if the spirit of life itself – the animus that drives the universe – were channelling itself through his tireless hand and brush. I love Hokusai’s paintings very much. But more than that, I am inspired by his philosophy.

‘Roger Keyes, an art historian and curator of Japanese art, has devoted much time and effort into archiving Hokusai’s great body of work. He has written about it, too, in a striking piece called Hokusai Says. This poem is like a call to attention to all those who are growing older, and who – like me – sometimes falter and lose heart. Here are the opening lines:

“Hokusai says look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old.

He says keep changing,

you just get more who you really are.

…

He says don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid.

…

Love, feel, let life take you by the hand

Let life live through you.”

‘Sometimes the seed lies dormant for a long time, in barren ground. That is how I had been feeling for the past few years. My writing had dried up. The teaching had grown a little stale. I seemed to bang my head against glass ceilings, and knock on doors that remained closed and locked, whichever way I turned. As a result, I had put myself out to grass early. My injured feet refused to dance. My friends were dying. But then came the call. The soil was suddenly disturbed: the seed cracked open, and erupted into unexpected growth. Before I knew quite what was happening, I was strapping up my ankles and walking into a rehearsal room, for the first time in decades. Hokusai, I am certain, would fling his head back at this – and laugh.

A smaller version of Hokusai’s Wave! At Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire… The tide of change.

Crossing

‘After months of working together: dancing, writing, singing, sharing words and experience, the ensemble stepped onstage properly in February 2020. The piece was a one-off work in progress called Crossing. The memory I have of this work is particularly visceral and powerful in light of what happened immediately after it. Covid. I have never felt so at home on a stage as in that pre-pandemic moment, and probably never will again. It was a kind of heightened reality, the consummation of a dream, only to be followed in the next few years by a series of personal and collective shocks. But this – this moment in time – was sweet indeed.

‘The rehearsals had been tough – and everyone caught colds and flu. We were all winter worn and very tired. But on the day of performance, not a single person was missing and everyone stepped up to do their best. Layered like a collage, the performance shifted between movement and song and words, all held together by composer Chris Benstead’s dreamy and evocative score.

‘People moved calmly around the stage, telling fragments of memory and confession: ordinary human stories, raw in their honesty, convincing in their truth. So I spoke of Budapest – of a heart lost in the Cold War winter of 1988, to a country that has never quite given it back. A former priest attested to his fall from God – but his prevailing faith in people. A social worker from a deeply unhappy marriage remembered his unconsummated love for a fellow worker, expressed briefly and poignantly, on an away train from Liverpool to Batley. A teacher was delighted to meet two old schoolfriends after many years’ absence, only to find one had Parkinson’s Disease and the other was stricken with cancer. A former rocket scientist spoke of her passion for travel into space, one she still has hopes of fulfilling. And three silent male dancers expressed their own stories through a mellifluous choreography, backed by the words of poet Khadijah Ibrahiim, to evoke their individual spirits: ” a soul molasses softly man/a tuff drum reggae man/ a bronze like man/ birthed from old Caribbean prayers/in the drip of British coldness.”

‘Hong Kong, China, Africa and England. The world collided onstage through this little (somewhat random) group of people. The fragments of our different lives briefly united, and we and the audience were held together for an hour, by the simple power of our shared human presence, “crossing” the various bridges of our lives, from one reality to the next, in a dark and intimate space. As we walked off stage at the end, huge animated portraits of each performer – unsmiling, naked faces, looking straight out at the spectators – moved briefly across a huge screen, in a video that was stark and unadorned. Then: fade to black.’

Seasonal 11: November

THIS IS Number Eleven in my boxes of treasures: one for each month of the year, to mark the passing of the seasons – with some reflections on a personal (idiosyncratic) life. You can read the previous entry, for October, here, and work your way back to January, should you wish!

I grumbled a fair bit about August, my least favourite month. Now I shall add November to my list of not-very-much-loved months, especially because I have a nasty infection at the root of my tooth, and this has happened before in November, so grrr. Of course, the immune system plummets as the light levels fall and the cold sets in, and we have had some mighty cold snaps this year, even snow – two inches of it – covering my yard garden as early as mid November. So there is undoubtedly a deathly aspect to November. December will bring a mid winter sparkle. November? Not so much.

But still… when I look at the picture of the treasures gathered for my box, there is a certain vibrancy to it, which surprised me. I gathered many of the woody bits for the box on a single short walk in my local pastures towards the end of November. It was a rare, bright day, and as I wandered round a corner with my bag of twigs, a beautiful young labrador called Lucky came barrelling into me, offering greetings and bounds of energy. She instantly cheered me up – and I did, indeed, feel lucky. There is, she reminded me, always something to celebrate.

1. ROBIN We don’t get many small birds in our yard garden, sadly, although I have high hopes of a new super-expensive bird feeder, which keeps out the large thuggish pigeons and magpies, in favour of the tinier feathered creatures. As yet, not a single little bird has alighted on it and figured out how to get the seed – except for a robin. He flitted in early one day, grabbed a couple of sunflower hearts, and then zoomed off to other local haunts. I long for him to come back. I am sure he will. Such a glorious little bird, the robin. I know robins are aggressive to other birds, and yet they are so unremittingly cheerful in aspect, and they have such a beautiful, uplifting song.

2. BERRIES The deep red of the rosehips and wild berries which linger on the branches of local hedgerow bushes and trees in November are beautiful to see. There is that colour again, as with the robin. Red: the signal of passion and verve, of our very life blood. And it is so stirring to spot these scarlet flashes amidst the dying browns and greys.

3. EVERGREEN IVY An evergreen plant becomes, in winter, a welcome reminder of all those verdant leaves that the deciduous trees have now disowned and shed. Glossy, strong and beautiful. Along with the holly, the ivy has its moment now, as November turns to December and all those xmas songs sing the praises of the stalwart green.

4. LICHEN I really love the furry yellow softness of this substance- and it comes into view more clearly, as branches become bare and unadorned in the winter months. It’s like a little fur coat, wrapped around twigs and trees, and has a mysterious, ancient appearance. So helpful to us humans, too, because lichens absorb pollutants in the atmosphere, and have adapted to survive in some of the most extreme environments on earth – deserts, rocks, and toxic slag heaps! Neither plant nor animal apparently, lichens are small curious organisms, somewhere between an algae and a fungus, and utterly magical.

5. GINGER and VETIVER These two are strong, smooth and silky winter oils (looking from the picture below, as if they are waiting for the last bus home together!) I use ginger to liven up stiff muscles, and even to soothe an aching stomach, diluted and rubbed gently into the upset areas. Vetiver has an earthy base note to add to other oil blends, but even just sniffed on its own, it envigorates, enlivens and strengthens the resolve. Vetiver is obtained from the root of an Indian grass, and ginger oil comes from the root of the plant, too. That’s where we are in November: going down to the very roots of life. Resting. Keeping warm. Keeping optimistic. Waiting quietly for the light to return.

6. HERMIT That’s me in November! It’s hard enough in the summer time, to get me to go out after dark. Come November, when most of the day is swathed in darkness, then forget it. I am staying at home. Meditating, reading, sleeping, resting. Eating (alot). Staying warm, and guarding the inner light. It’s peaceful, actually. We must just surrender to the season. It’s nature’s way and its great wisdom.

Broken

Low tide at Robin Hoods Bay, North Yorkshire. When ‘broken’ in body and spirit, the sea is always there to heal.

Dancing with bruised knees/Chapter 9

Here is a short extract from Chapter 9 of ‘Dancing with bruised knees’: my new manuscript and memoir of the body – its injuries, losses, new discoveries and delights. For Chapter 8 press here – and for all previous chapters back to the very beginning. In this extract I am taken down to the ground, literally, by a catastrophic fall on concrete, breaking both shoulder and spirit in the process. It was the power of the sea, where I retreated to convalesce, and a new therapeutic intervention – reiki – which helped me heal.

The break

‘In the summer of 2017, I was due to travel to the East of Hungary, to Debrecen on the Great Plain, where the old and distinguished university in the city offers summer schools in Hungarian language and culture. I had secured a small grant to help pay for the trip. The tickets were booked, accommodation sorted. But I felt nervous. Although I was grateful for the opportunity – and had always wanted to see the wide open spaces of the plains, with those big skies, wild horses and pastoral villages – something made me reluctant. Who knows why?

‘It is a mystery, the sabotage (or salvation!) that the psyche can inflict on the body, at key moments in our lives. And it certainly seemed to be at work here, with events coming to a head less than a week before my departure. I was staying with a friend in London for the weekend. It was a fiercely hot summer, and I was scanning the weather forecast for Hungary daily, with growing unease. I found it difficult to cope with the high temperatures at home, which were in the 30s, but Debrecen was showing 40 degrees and above. I wasn’t sure how I would cope.

‘The day before I was due to return to Leeds, we went for a walk on Hampstead Heath. The air was thick and humid, and there was rain threatening: hot, tropical showers followed, with no sense of release in the steamy downpours. I had no suitable shoes for the heathland, and so borrowed a pair of boots, which were several sizes too big for me, but were waterproof and sturdy at least. The walk was enjoyable, but the ill fitting boots made it cumbersome to move, and it was a relief to get in the car and drive home.

‘We stopped at the shops for a bottle of wine. I climbed out of the back seat and went across the road to the shop as quickly as I could, to beat Sunday closing times. The pavement was soaked and slippery. A woman suddenly stepped into my path and begged aggressively for money. I veered sharply to one side to avoid her, caught one foot in the looped lace of the too-big boot on the opposite foot, and in an instant that flashed like lightning across my brain, I lost balance and fell to the ground.

‘With no time to save my fall in any way, I made the descent in one clean, sharp line, and landed directly onto my right shoulder. As my body hit the concrete, I felt a boiling bolt of pain, more intense than anything I had felt in my entire life. And as I lay on the hot, wet, crowded pavement, my body spreadeagled in a broken mess beneath me, I felt myself descend into a dark, oppressive faint.

‘When I came to, I was aware of someone kneeling by my side. She looked shocked and ashen. “You took quite a tumble,” she said. I couldn’t speak. She tried to help me to my feet, but the pain was immobilising and I resisted any movement. I later learned that I had fractured my shoulder, but right then it felt as if the bones in my entire body had been broken too. I simply had no idea how I could stand up, preferring instead to stay collapsed on the ground, in the hope that the world would just disappear and leave me in peace.’

Rock pools at Robin Hoods Bay, where I went, in a fog of depression and pain, to start healing.

The healing

First of all, hats off to the National Health Service – and all the doctors, nurses and physios, who did their best to diagnose my fracture, and then to help it mend. Every time I go to complementary therapies, I do so in the knowledge that I have solid backup in the more ‘conventional’ medical arena, and am grateful for that. But nonetheless – I was struggling after this traumatic break, both physically and mentally – and this is where a new approach helped me greatly…

A little Reiki magic

‘I had come across Reiki before. It was hard to avoid, if you were involved with body therapies of any kind. It has a mixed reputation, to say the least. Some people swear by its powerful healing properties. Just as many dismiss it as New Age hocus pocus. In fact Reiki had its beginnings as far away from California’s sunny hippy communes as could be imagined. It emerged in Japan between the two world wars, when Mikao Usui apparently had a revelation, during a twenty one day practise of fasting and meditation on Mount Kurama, of how to transmit a powerful therapeutic warmth through his hands.

‘First of all, this was to mend an injury he had sustained on the mountain, but then he began to offer the same to other people – bringing about a re-balance of energy, and a deep healing calm, in the recipient. Hands-on therapies were very common in Japan at the time, and were often rooted in spiritual practises, so Usui’s findings did not come from nowhere. He was a man of his culture and his time…

‘I had had a couple of Reiki treatments in the past, but had been distinctly underwhelmed by them. Nothing much had happened at all, and I remained sceptical of the technique for some time. But serendipity was at work when Reiki entered my life with full impact and meaning, and, as is so often the case for me, it came when I was at my lowest ebb. A Reiki master got in touch with me through a mutual acquaintance, to ask if I would read something she had written about her work. It took me a while to respond. Then I broke my shoulder. She offered to “send” me some Reiki, as I lay in bed recovering.

‘One of the harder things to comprehend about Reiki is that it can be transmitted across time and space, in true cosmic fashion. The person giving the Reiki need not even be in the same room, town or country as the person receiving it. Albert Einstein said that quantum mechanics would allow two objects to affect each other’s behaviour instantly across vast distances – something he called “spooky action at a distance”. Well, Reiki certainly has its “spooky” aspects! Naturally I was unconvinced. How on earth was this going to work? But I was in enough pain to be willing to give it a try.

‘So, at a designated time, I lay on my bed and kept perfectly still. I was in my room in Leeds. Jen, the Reiki master, was in her room in Sheffield. At first – there was nothing at all. Then a slight other-worldly feeling, a deep and silky relaxation. That, in itself, was welcome enough. But slowly, surreptitiously, a sense of light but focused movement and change occurred in my body: it felt as if my right shoulder were being lifted and gently re-attached to my body. After that, profound stillness.

‘For the first time in many days, I sensed a return of my mind, as well as my shoulder, into my body. A landing as if onto the softest pillow. A feeling, above all else, of utter peace and quiet. Over the following days, Jen continued to send me Reiki, and – though the effect was less dramatic than that first epiphany – I continued to feel a sense of strength and stability steal into my bones…’

After this experience, I decided to train in Reiki myself. The shoulder slowly healed, and occasional visits to the sea helped my soul to follow suit.

Seasonal 10: October

HERE IS Number Ten of my seasonal boxes, one per month, with objects and memories, to celebrate the passing of the seasons. You can read the entry for September here, and all ones previous to that, going back to January 2024. October is a special month for me, because it is birthday month. My father, my daughter and I were all born in October, so it has a resonance beyond all the other months of the year. I love birthdays – but they also make me feel a little strange. Not the passing of the years – the getting older – the march of time, but rather a certain tenderness and chaos internally. As if some strange subconscious memory were rising – of the almighty struggle to be born in the first place! So I do celebrate and I certainly enjoy. But there is a vulnerability too. A sense besides, of the fading of the light, made dramatically clear by the winding back of the clocks. This tinkering with time feels unnatural to me, too brutal, too sudden. But there is, nonetheless, much in October to gladden both heart and mind.

SQUASH and PUMPKINS Yes – it’s Hallowe’en season. Lots of orange everywhere – and piles of enormous pumpkins in big battered boxes at our local supermarket. It has been a long time since I carved a wonky face into one of these, and left it, lit, on the doorstep, to welcome Trick or Treaters. These days I mark the 31st October with just a little collection of squashes to decorate the window ledge, and maybe a few candles lit for the evening. It is the eve of the Samhain festival – 1st November – in ancient Gaelic cultures: the end of the harvest season, and the beginning of the ‘darker half’ of the year. No wonder we need our pumpkins – and soon the bonfires of 5th November – to brighten up our longer nights.

2. SHERRY and GLASS Gone is the ice cold gin and tonic, and well chilled white wine of summer! In autumn and winter, my taste turns to darker, more morale boosting spirits. And a recent discovery is the bone dry sherry of Jerez in southern Spain. Oloroso Dry, drunk in a tiny, ladylike sherry glass, with my little finger possibly extended for good measure. It’s a shot of energy to the brain and an uplift to the spirits, when it’s cold and rainy outside. Salut!

3. DIWALI LAMP I love the bright colours associated with Diwali – the Hindu Festival of Lights – that takes place some time between mid September and mid November. There is such vibrancy in the costumes and decorations, such joy in the celebrations, and this little lamp, with its greens and yellows and oranges, perfectly reflects the colours of nature outside my window too, as October brings the autumn leaves into their full and final fire.

4. LEAF DROP The leaves began turning colour back in September, but the trees kept hold of them for longer than usual, because of the long weeks of rain, earlier in the year. So we have had spectacular reds and yellows and golds right through from the start of September to nearly the end of October. But recent storms have sent these beauties falling to the ground in their multitudes, so the pavements are now littered with leaves and with their crisping, fading colours. Soon, even these remnants will have disappeared. But for now, they glow a little in their dying embers.

5. HUNGARIAN FLAG: REVOLUTION! On 23rd October 1956, there was an uprising in Hungary – with many young people sacrificed in the name of freedom. They were protesting against their Soviet oppressors – and Hungary was one of the first countries in the Eastern Bloc to be brave enough to attempt such an overthrow. It failed. The Russian tanks rolled in, and they were crushed. But it was an iconic moment in the history of the twentieth century, and as I was born in October 1956, this uprising has always had a special meaning for me. The badge shows the Hungarian flag with the Soviet hammer and sickle cut from its centre: these flags-with-holes became the emblem of the uprising, and a symbol of national pride and defiance.

6. FATHER I was born on 9th October: my father’s birthday. “The best birthday present I ever had”, he used to say, to my mother’s intense irritation! We had plenty of clashes through the years, but I am more like him than I like to admit, and most particularly in our love of good food, wine – and a jolly good laugh. Our serenading of each other with Happy Birthday, paid little attention to pitch or key – and we spent one memorable birthday feasting on oysters and champagne, for all the world like we had money to burn, and chock full of Je ne regrette rien. David B. died in 2010, and I still miss him, always will, but I have a very benign father figure imprinted on my heart, and I thank him for that. A gentle person and a kind soul. The picture shows the two of us at a family party many years ago. Who knows what we are laughing at? But dad’s love of silly hats is on prominent display here – and his goofy grin too. Happy October, dad – a very fine month, after all.

Finding my Tribe

Szabadság híd (Liberty Bridge) in Budapest. Many a tram ride has taken me over this bridge – to freedom!

Dancing with bruised knees/Chapter 8

This is a tiny glimpse of Chapter 8, from my new manscript and memoir, ‘Dancing with bruised knees’. To read about the previous chapter – and all the others before that one, press here.

There are so many times in a life – well, in my life, certainly – when all seems over and gone. Illness or loss of any kind can shunt your mind into a dead end, when nothing is working any more, and it seems as if nothing ever will. This happened to me most profoundly at mid life, after the untimely death of my husband Tim in 2004. After 10 years of being partner and carer to him, as well as mother to a young child, I had lost sight of many of the things that had formerly given me pleasure and independence: work, travel, new experiences. Initially, I retreated to my allotment and dug myself in there, in a kind of furious funk (See Chapter 7).

But life has a way of surprising you, always. And after a long period of isolation, I began to emerge, despite myself. I started to have the courage to travel again – to Paris, to Budapest – and found a new and lovely working environment at Leeds Playhouse, teaching writing and movement classes on the Creative Engagement programme: and, in the process, teaching myself how to live again. Fully, joyously. It was as if everything had come full circle, and life felt new, exciting – even though I was, most definitely, older, more bruised: but still standing.

Two brief extracts below, then, on TRAVEL and TRIBE.

Travelling onwards…

Balcony table in Józsefváros, Budapest. Best seat in the house.

‘It starts with Paris. I went there once or twice in my twenties, but remember little of its allure. A friend was working in the city, and I took the long – cheap – journey by coach and boat, to pay her a visit. But she was unhappy at the time, and maybe that unhappiness tarnished my experience. Her flat was dark and tiny, and the shared toilet in the corridor – one of France’s notorious holes-in-the-ground – was swampy and disgusting. We slipped on special s**t shoes, that she had relegated outside the flat’s front door, to use whenever we needed to go. It was hard to resolve this stinky procedure with the surface chic of the Parisians, as they drifted confidently through their streets, cafés and bars. But I wasn’t fooled.

‘Then the coach driver on the way back to England, in a display of ferocious Gallic temper, rounded on me when – famished from an early start – I unwrapped my breakfast baguette on board to take a discreet bite. “No eating on the bus!” he snapped in rapid French. “We’ll be stopping for food breaks soon!” But he never stopped once. That was my last memory of Paris.

But my daughter is the one who changes my mind. Just after her dad died, someone asked her where she would like to travel to: what little holiday might sweeten her experience of life, after such a long hard time? “Paris,” she said, with immediacy and conviction. I promptly forgot all about it. But, in 2007, the year she turns fifteen, I do remember. And as I emerge from my solitary digging and planting, and can raise the funds to finance a few days away, we do something I’ve always avoided till now, with my lofty love for the “authentic”, non-tourist experience. We book a package tour to Paris.

‘Just four days in all, including travel there and back – and it is an absolute, unmitigated delight. The sights we see, and the things that we do, are entirely predictable. Walking along the Seine. Diving down the back streets of the Latin Quarter. Driving up and down the Champs Elysées after dark. Meandering through the cobbled alleys in Montmartre, stuffed with painters in their visitor-friendly smocks and berets. The Sacré Coeur. The Louvre. Notre Dame. Versailles. Not an original destination in sight. But it doesn’t matter. We are somewhere else: somewhere well-groomed and haughty and undeniably beautiful, for all its knowing and somewhat old-fashioned air. This is long before the Charlie Hebdo 2015 terror attacks start turning Paris into a battleground rather than a playground. And the unreal loveliness of it all suits me fine. (The toilets have improved, too.)

……

‘But a deeper, stronger calling comes to me now – from an altogether more moody and complicated city. Budapest. In 2009, almost two decades since I last was there, Hungary is beckoning me back…

‘So, come the autumn, I find myself sitting in a Manchester Airport bar, with a Rough Guide to Budapest, a miniature Magyar-Angol dictionary and a large gin and tonic. It is 11 a.m. and I am starting as I mean to go on. It will not sound like a big deal to many: a fifty three year old woman, flying out alone to Europe, to see an old friend. But for me, after ten years of critical care and responsibility, and a self imposed exile to house, garden and scruffy allotment, all within a perimeter of a few square miles, this solo journey – 1,000 miles as the crow flies, but unfathomably further and deeper in the span of personal memory and experience – is significant. It has the freight of so much love and loss (as well as two large bottles of whiskey), packed tightly into my luggage and my mind. I truly believed I would never come back here. Now I am wondering, how could I have stayed away so long?

….

‘On my last day in Budapest, I wander through the city streets alone, whilst my friend József is busy working. Never a sightseer (at least, until Paris), I prefer to stroll along, with no particular agenda, weaving through the backstreets and little squares of Józsefváros, and listening for snatches of conversation as I go. Friends flash their greetings at each other across the street, in warm-hearted, rapid Hungarian. “Szia! Jó reggelt! Hogy vagy?” Maniac drivers blare their horns as they pass by, the filthiest of swear words pouring from their mouths in frustration, at any delay. It’s noisy and busy, full of smells and sounds and sights, and I am, as ever, bewitched.

‘It is utterly liberating to be here. Older. Alone. Freed from my usual day-to-day responsibilities and ties. Just me, re-discovering a city – and myself. Someone once told me I looked a little Hungarian: a certain profile, dark hair, and a propensity for seriousness, even brooding, across the brow. Whether that’s true or not, I have a sense here of being seen, somehow. Recognised. Silently acknowledged. I feel as well-worn in my heart as the cityscape itself – and am worthy, maybe, of the same respect, of some kind of dispassionate, loving regard. So a twenty year spell is broken – and Snow White finally awakes – and I return to Hungary after this visit, year on year, to deepen my new found connections….’

Finding the tribe

A scene from ‘A Horse Called Freedom’, co-authored by me and Rosa Peterson and performed in the Festival of Theatre and Dementia, Leeds Playhouse, 2018

‘Meanwhile, back on home territory, things are shifting and changing too. It is a chance conversation with a yoga teacher in Leeds that draws me back, unexpectedly, into a long-relinquished theatre life. Not since those anarchic romps with the drama students I taught in Oxford, and the company I worked with in Hungary, decades ago, have I had much, if anything, to do with the stage. It’s even longer ago – as a fledgling journalist and critic in London – that I would watch and review fringe shows several nights a week, then scamper all over the city during the daytime, to interview actors, directors, writers and designers. All vanishingly remote: but clearly not out of the bloodstream entirely.

‘When I first moved to Leeds, I did start going to a few productions at Leeds Playhouse, but the theatre life is such an extroverted scene – so busy, sociable, collaborative, often combative too – and I, in my years of caring, was such a slow tortoise in contrast, hiding under my thick protective shell, that stepping back into the fray never seemed possible or remotely desirable. But 2009 changes all that.

‘Not only do I climb onto a plane back to Budapest, but I also step through the doors of Leeds Playhouse, covering for said yoga teacher, as part of the theatre’s extensive creative arts programme. It is the tentative start of a ten year trip back down a theatre pathway: one that culminates in 2019, when I join a company as a performer myself. By then I am in my early sixties, but still hurtling around a rehearsal room with the same unexpected passion that I felt at thirty, as a freshly fledged dance student, bouncing off the walls in the Laban Centre studios. (I thought I was too old then, too. What a delusion.)

…..

Standing outside Leeds Playhouse, 2021.

‘My work at Leeds Playhouse slowly deepens and diversifies. It becomes a source of connection and friendship, as well as a profound progression in my awareness of how people flourish when encouraged, and in my own capacity to teach. My manager, Nicky T., suggests I join her in leading workshops for people living with dementia.

‘I am wary and unsure: carrying within me all the usual social prejudices towards the word “dementia”, with its unfortunate similarity to “demented”, an entirely different descriptor and diagnosis. But the misgivings melt away from the very first session. The work proves to be tender, insightful, and deeply humane. People living with dementia – unless they are in the late stages, where distress and disorientation begin to make their lives, and that of those around them, unbearably hard – have a heart warming capacity to live in the present moment, and to enjoy that moment in a pure and unfiltered way.

‘The usual social inhibitions which burden most adults and push them into leading lives constrained by “should’s” and “must’s”, with a constant looking over the shoulder to see what everyone else is up to, are stripped away. Some of the most joyous experiences of my life have happened in creative sessions with people who have dementia. There is singing, writing poetry, making artwork, and going on imaginary journeys of great invention and daring. There are sometimes tears – as an unwarranted memory floats to the surface – but there is also laughter. Raucous and unrestrained!

‘Some of the people who have come through our door are loud and confrontational – a product of dementia’s disinhibition, along with the spontaneous expression of enthusiasm and zest. Others – the ones who touch me the most, being an introvert myself by nature – are quiet, body-bound, anxious. The body speaks its mind. And, as with the refugees and asylum seekers whom I also work with, as part of the Theatre of Sanctuary scheme, the bodies of people living with dementia tell eloquent, silent stories of distress. The shoulders that bow under pressure of bewilderment and sadness. The uncoordinated walk that reveals scrambled messages from the brain. The averted gaze that says, “Don’t look me in the eyes. The reality is too much to bear.” But what quickly becomes apparent, is that all these shut down bodies and anxious minds respond eagerly to creative stimulus of any kind. The theatre is the right place for them to be – and, right now, it’s the right place for me to be, too.