Caring for criminals

I recently did an ‘early late sleep’ shift at a home where I’ve worked quite a bit, and was disturbed to find that there were three young adults there with a vulnerable young girl, who were basically criminals awaiting their trials.  One had a tag and was probably going down for all sorts of crime, including drug dealing and car theft, one was regularly assaulting staff, and another (almost eighteen) was at the scene of a murder which had been reported on TV a couple of weeks before and was facing a prison sentence for possession of a fire arm.  I found myself having to constantly face down confrontational young men, and had to drive one of them to Birmingham for an interview with a criminal solicitor.  All of a sudden this relatively settled care home was more akin to a remand centre and the staff there were bravely maintaining some kind of order in the face of some pretty intimidating behaviour.  It was clear also that the young girl there was under pressure from them too; there was definitely some bullying going on and some inappropriate behaviour too.  The manager and the staff there are a fantastic team, but they should not be expected to baby sit career criminals.  I have worked in the education department at Brinsford Young Offenders Prison and feel that pastoral work within that environment is important, but people like these should not be placed in children’s homes; especially among vulnerable kids, and I question the authority that allowed this to happen. 

Assisted Dying

While I was recovering from my cancer operation in hospital, sometimes the pain was so great; (especially when the epidural drip was removed) that even morphine hardly helped – it was all enveloping, and there was literally no escape from it; pain was me, it was all I could think of, and of course I just wanted it to go away, and thankfully eventually it did.  But there were moments when I thought if this continued I would want my life to end, because it was just so unbearable and defined my every waking moment, so even when Sarah and Lucy visited it was an effort to even speak to them.  I also remember my mum’s last moments on earth, sitting with her in her hospital room while she grimly and bravely faced her end, dying from lung cancer in excruciating pain; it was distressing for us her family, but for her it was truly awful, and I remember too wondering why she had to suffer the indignity of this long drawn out death for so long when there were surely drugs available to help to ease her on her way.  But recently it seems assisted dying is being considered seriously as an option to help us on our final journey, and now that church leaders such as the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey and Desmond Tutu are speaking up in favour of the bill that is facing Parliament there may be an option for the terminally ill to make an informed choice about how they die.  It’s an emotive subject, and of course laws like this should not be rushed into for all sorts of moral reasons, and many safeguards must be put in place to ensure that elderly relatives who may think their lingering illness to be a burden on their carers are not therefore pressured to end their lives before their time.  As I said, this is a subject I have been thinking about for some time for very personal reasons, and following my mum’s death I wrote and acted in a short film inspired by her called Rhubarb And Roses.  Below is some stuff about the film and a link so that you can watch it too if you like…

Short Film funded by Screen West Midlands, screened Bristol Brief Encounters Festival, Birmingham Film Festival, Soho Rushes and was short-listed for a BAFTA nomination and was a finalist in the fujifilm best new writer competition.

Molly has lung cancer and not much longer to live. As her pain increases, her son Ricky tries to give her everything he can to make her comfortable. When nothing seems to be working, she asks him to help her end her life. A last supper is prepared to help her on her way.  Rhubarb And Roses is a tribute to my mom, Jean Jones:  I spent eight months watching her die of lung-cancer, and although I have no firm conviction either way, it's also my informed contribution to the debate on euthanasia for people with terminal illness and in acute pain.  Ged Maguire (the director) lent a sympathetic touch as his father too had recently died of cancer.  It was a challenge to make a short film of life’s final taboo and to do it with dignity.  But I think it’s both funny and moving, and that was how my mom was right up to the end.

Click here to see the film

69 Shades Of Black - not '50 Shades Of Black'

A mate rang me today to ask if I had a play touring, as she thought she saw one of my titles.  The play in question was called 69 Shades Of Black, and I had a short play at Soho Theatre 'Terror Night' a while ago that did very well and had some great reviews called 50 Shades Of Black, so that’s where the confusion came from.  Thing is I’ve been trying for bloody ages to get a producer/director interested in me rewriting the two-hander as a two act play, but have met with utter indifference.  It’s frustrating when you know you have a good idea and even one with a decent pedigree to discover that finding another home for it is for someone like me, a struggling playwright, near impossible; I’m not even sure if I had one response or acknowledgment, and so after a while I gave up trying with that one.  I guess it was only a matter of time before someone else came up with a similar idea, so - best of luck!  I was approached by someone who was interested in making my play into a short film though, so you never know it might still have a further life.  Anyhow, below is one of the reviews from my production in the Terror Season; this one, Charles Spencer for The Telegraph…

There are four short plays and three of them are no great shakes. Robert Farquhar’s No Place Like proves an entirely damp squib but comic actor Mike McShane’s Representation does at least achieve a couple of shivers with its tale of vampires in Hollywood. There is also a characteristically nasty and disconcerting piece from Mark Ravenhill about sinister experiments on children in which the narrator seems to be confusedly recalling a bad dream. This one does indeed haunt the memory but never delivers the required final punch.

Alex Jones’s Fifty Shades of Black however achieves exactly the required jolting impact. It stars the two likeable cabaret performers, Desmond O’Connor and Sarah-Louise Young, as a pair of lovers who, clearly influenced by 50 Shades of Grey, are engaging in a spot of S&M. They set about the domination and submission routines with nervy embarrassment and it all feels like a risqué lark. But suddenly the mood changes with a payoff that really does shock and terrify.

The fact that this deeply disconcerting moment comes from two artists who have come to seem like reassuring friends in the course of the show proves a genuine theatrical coup in an evening that is otherwise not nearly as scary as one might wish.

Stephen Sutton - an inspirational kid

Apart from my caring work, I have also been busy recently writing audio trails for the National Trust, and when I am at home I generally go for a walk before settling down to write.  So I dropped Sarah off at the school where she works and set out nice and early on a beautiful May day for a stroll.  I usually trudge up the Malvern Hills behind our house, but today I decided to go downhill instead and take in some of the beautiful woodland walks in the valley below us.  The grass was wet with dew and the birds were singing their hearts out; I saw a woodpecker and heard a cuckoo too as I made my way through the trees and flower meadows, and just had to stop now and again to take in the various amazingly beautiful scenes and vistas on my way; the bluebells were still there, although fading a little now, but the tiny white flowers of wild garlic and peppery yellow celandines lined the pathways everywhere.  I didn’t see a single soul, apart from a few horses galloping away in the distance, and a roe deer furtively making its way through some undergrowth.  And I got to thinking about how I felt when I came out of hospital following my cancer surgery, and how I had blogged about how surviving that trauma had made me appreciate the commonplace and ordinary things in life more, and speculating if after a while life would just become normal again and routine…  Well I guess you do have to settle into life’s little routines and find a way to earn a living and pay the mortgage and stuff, but my perspective in life I realise was changed forever by that experience, and I really don’t take moments like these for granted anymore – I’m very lucky to be here still to see and hear the beauty of the natural world as I walk around the woods here, and experience… well as a million other things too.  On returning home I switched on the radio and heard the news that Stephen Sutton, the teenager who had raised over three million pounds for the Teenage Cancer Trust had sadly passed away.  I kind of had an affinity with this kid; when I first saw him on TV, he was lying back in bed and you could clearly see the long surgical scar right down his abdomen – I have a replica of my own.  He was an amazing guy; a teenager who in spite of being diagnosed with a terminal illness still managed to have a positive outlook on the life he had left.  He achieved his bucket list, and along the way raised an incredible amount of money to help other young people who are suffering from cancer too.  He like me had bowel cancer, and in an interview he talked about how unfortunate it was that his illness was diagnosed too late to save his life.  It seems that doctors weren’t able to believe that a young man could be suffering from a disease that usually affected people much, much older.  And even though I myself am much, much older, this is what I was told too – “You’re not old enough to have bowel cancer, and you don’t smoke; I have other patients who are far more at risk than you.”  In my case, persistence paid off – I’m still here, and am grateful for every precious moment, and grateful too for inspirational people like this young man who didn’t waste a second of what life was left for him to live, and who has left behind a legacy of hope for other young people who may be in a similar place.  Sometimes life can be cruel and totally random tragic stuff can happen; but as he said – “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”…  God bless you, kid, I give thanks for your presence here on earth however brief it was – you made a difference, and not many of us can say that.

Poem of the week - 'Marriage Vow'

A mate of mine got married recently and I was asked to do a reading as part of the ceremony.  She asked if I had any suggestions and I mentioned that I had a piece that I was asked to write for another friend’s wedding many years ago.  So I read the piece on the day and it went down really well; ‘hitting the emotional spot’, I guess.  Afterwards one of the guests told me that she loved that poem, and that a friend of hers had used it at her wedding too.  I remember that the girl I wrote it for asked if she could pass it on to someone else who wanted to use it, and apparently it has somehow become a bit of a favourite piece for wedding readings, being emailed on and on, I suppose. So if anyone out there is using it, perhaps you wouldn’t mind just acknowledging the author?  Anyhow, it’s called ‘Marriage Vow, and here it is…

Marriage Vow

There is now,

There is here;

The two of us before so many

Saying “We are here together

Sharing a word;

A word that brings us together”.

And so we say to all of you

“Here we are - the two of us

Now,

Now and always”.

And so let this be our vow:

That we, imperfect people

In an imperfect world

Will strive for that word:

That single word, perfect in its simplicity;

And our lives from here on

Are as husband and wife,

Man and woman

Linked together until death

By a pledge before you.

Witness us,

Bear witness to us

As we say to each other

“I love you”.

For what more can one person say to another?

So bear witness

And share this moment with us

As we pledge our troth,

As we sign our names on paper

For some official to record and mark in time,

Not knowing how we feel now;

Standing before you, our witnesses,

Sharing with us

This ceremony that brings us together

And these words that bind,

This word,

This single word

That brings us here together,

This word -

“Love”.

Poem of the week - Hello Sarah

The momentous revelations last week about the origins of the big bang and the existence of gravity waves really fired me up; it’s such an exciting time we’re living in scientifically.  And so I found myself one night unable to sleep, turning it all over in my head, and suddenly I felt inspired at 2.am to get out of bed and write this poem, which oddly enough isn’t just about inflation, the big bang and gravity waves, but is also about the creation of my wife, Sarah… whom in case you haven’t guessed, I quite like.

HELLO SARAH

An eye blinks a universe into existence,

The thud of passion sending waves of fear and possibility through the void –

White on black,

Red on white,

Fireworks ripping into the fabric of space-time.

And there,

Right there in the moment of inflation

When time begins to click its idea into substance,

There,

Right there in the centre of a fireball,

In the melding of atoms,

Right there

In the red hot blistering crucible of creation,

There…

There’s a spark,

A fuse that ignites a star,

A star that will one day explode in a blaze of light,

A stardust sparkle of galaxies that holds the essence of you.

Who would have thought that gravity waves could be so creative?

There,

Right there

You stand,

Your eyes shining, so human and frail,

Eyes twinkling with the dust of stars,

Your smile a greeting from the beginning of time,

A smile 13.8 billion years old –

Hello Sarah.

Trapped in the floods.

Struggling a bit financially (what’s new?), so I’ve decided to go back to my caring job and have been doing some shifts at a children’s home out in the sticks I’ve never worked before.  They are mostly boys there, and when the manager explained that they were somewhat challenging I sort of knew what to expect.  Sure enough within half an hour of being there, I was pulling two lads apart as a fight broke out, and throughout the day things were kicking off almost every hour.  But later on I went out with them and another carer and we all played snooker together, and gradually I got to know them, and they me I suppose.  By the end of a long, long day they were laughing and joking and I was showing them some riffs on a guitar one of them had.  Yeah, they’re challenging and boy it was one of the most difficult shifts I had worked for a long time, but essentially these kids are hurting inside, and have been let down by the adults in their lives, so unfortunately we carers sometimes have to take the brunt of their disappointments and anger full on.  I went back to do a double shift this weekend gone, and as the weather turned bad, one of the carers rang in and asked me to do his sleep for him as he would struggle to get in.  The kids were kicking off and it took us ages to get them settled, but eventually I got to bed just before midnight; although they did get us up a few times during the night.  The next morning however, the manager told me I couldn’t go home as it had rained so heavily overnight, the home was completely surrounded by flood water and no other carers could make it in.  Food stocks were also running low and the kids were expecting to be taken to a skate park for the day, so somehow we had to keep them occupied and compensate for the loss of their day out. So I baked cakes with them, played chess, monopoly, guitar, pool, watched as one kid showed of his casting techniques with his fishing rod into the lake that had overnight appeared in the garden, played drama games (mostly Cinderella) with the only girl there, cooked a sort of dinner with the remnants of food I could find in the freezer, and then at the end of the day one of them pelted me with tomatoes and fruit, while another spat full in my face.  It took ages for the floods to recede enough for me to get away, and on the way home I stopped at a garage and bought a bottle of wine!  Strangely I somehow find this work somehow fulfilling… but I think I’ll wait a few days before booking another shift.