A tale of the egg and the chicken[s]

Christmas is coming! I went to pick up my repeat prescription on Friday from our local chemist. I have a batch prescription, which means the one prescription is good for three separate months dispensing. Whilst everyone working at the chemist knows me, every time I go to pick up my medication, we go through the rhetoric of confirming my address. Likewise, that I like to be called Tony, whereas my prescription (and by association apparently, the NHS) names me as Anthony. There are always smiles, so it’s never a problem. Anyway, the young lady, who looked after me on this occasion, asked if wanted two months’ supply. I said ‘No thanks’, and she said ‘are you sure, as it will tide you over the Christmas period’? Now that is what I call kindness in action, and kindness matters, always.

So, we now have a rooted Christmas tree in a pot, currently outside and battling the worst of Storm Bert. We also have a Christmas cupboard complete with Christmas cake, crackers, Twiglets, bottles of mulled wine, chocolates, and all kinds of continental Christmas goodies. Our freezer contains a nut roast for me and a turkey crown for Jane, and a wide selection of interesting Lancashire cheeses from our local food and drink fair.

Although turkey, goose and duck are the traditional fare at Christmas, with the continued cost of living crisis, I think there will be many folk who will opt for chicken for their Christmas Day roast. I have reassured our chickens that they are all safe from the chop. Frizzle the sizzlepoo, hatched this year, and the smallest and most timid of our hens, also needed a hug just to be on the safe side.

Now the same can’t be said for the more than 51 million chickens being industrially farmed in the river valleys of Severn and Wye. Their story appeared last week, due to the association between intensive poultry units and river pollution. It appears that chicken droppings contain more phosphate than any other animal manure. It is the phosphates that starve rivers, fish and river plants of the oxygen they need to survive and remain healthy. Planning permission was being sought for a new intensive poultry unit to be built in Shropshire, through which the river Seven passes. Indeed, the rivers Wye and Severn flow right through Herefordshire, Shropshire and Powys. Of these, only the Shropshire local authority has been granted planning permission.

Powys local authority couldn’t grant planning permission, as the Welsh Government had put a dozen planning applications on hold back in 2023 (five were for units to be built in the Severn valley and seven for the Wye valley area). There seems to be an ever-growing demand for chickens to eat, and it’s a world-wide phenomenon.  For example, in the US, over eight billion chickens are eaten each year, in China, it is 9.3 billion chickens a year, whilst here in the UK, we eat around 800 million chickens a year. Overall, it is estimated that 79 billion chickens are killed for food around the world every year. That is a lot of chickens. Thankfully, none of ours will ever be killed for the table.

Wales was also in the news last week for other reasons. That great politician, John Prescott died. Now, I don’t do politics here in this blog and John and I held very different political views. That said, he was someone I greatly admired for all kinds of reasons. One being, in a rapidly changing world, he always seemed to exemplify the human face of politics. His death also brought back to the front pages, one of the most famous moments in his political career. He was on the campaign trail in Rhyl, Wales, when a protesting agricultural worker called Craig Evans, threw an egg at him. In an almost instinctive response, he turned and punched Craig in the chin. Sky News captured the incident live on TV.

The protesters were picketing the venue demonstrating against low agricultural wages and the Labour Party’s support for a fox hunting ban. Like many country folk living in Wales at that time, Craig was a supporter of the pro-fox hunting brigade. Reflecting upon the incident in 2019, the then Lord John Prescott, somewhat ruefully noted that ’when you get to being 80, you are not scared of anything. I have four or five years to think about death. When I do die, after 50 years in politics, all they will show on the news is 60 seconds of me thumping a fellow in Wales’. How true this proved to be. That fellow, Craig Evans now lives in a remote farm in North Wales. Last week when asked about the egg throwing protest, he said he ‘had no regrets’ about throwing the egg, but his thoughts were with John Prescott’s family. I wonder if his 15 minutes of fame were really worth it.

One of other things I liked about John was his love of Jaguar cars, something I too have enjoyed. I did wonder what John would have thought about the new Jaguar car advertisement released last week. I thought it totally bizarre. If you have not seen it, look here and see what you think. Although I love my electric car, by the time the new all-electric Jaguar cars arrive on the market in 2026, I don’t think I will be getting one at an estimated £100,000 starting price!

Finally, the last thought about John was his unique conversational style, and the way he had of presenting a speech. Matthew Parris in The Times newspaper, once famously wrote of a speech John made at political rally in Brighton: ‘John Prescott went 12 rounds with the English language and left it slumped and bleeding over the ropes’. He is not alone. My nemesis has always been the pronunciation of peoples names. So, at our university graduation ceremonies, due to my often failed miserable pronunciation of many of the students names, I’ve received similar comments from folk. 

RIP John, you made a difference.

The Passing of Thomas

Death will happen to us all. Just ten days ago, Thomas died. He had been given three years to live, seven years ago. He and his wife Sarah were our neighbours. Roll back five years. It is Christmas 2019 and it was J and my first Christmas in our new house. It was a house I thought about as our forever house. At that first Christmas we wanted to share our warmest wishes with neighbours. So, to the dozen or so houses on either side of the road to us, we posted a Christmas card inviting folk to come to our open house celebration between Christmas and New Year. Eight couples turned up and they have been our steadfast neighbours ever since. Thomas and Sarah wee one of these couples. As a neighbourhood community, we got through Covid together and our relationships have been stronger ever since. Which is good, as we don’t intend on moving any time soon.

Our forever house by the sea allows us to keep our goats, chickens, parrot, dogs and cats and still have beautiful gardens too. Last Wednesday evening, as J and I were relaxing watching some bubble-gum TV, there was a knock on our front door. It isn’t something that often happens that late in the evening. I went to answer and found a very upset Thomas’s wife on the door step. She was crying and said she didn’t know where to go. She had seen our lights were on and knocked on the door. She was clearly in distress, and without hesitation we welcomed her in.

As it was the day before my Board meeting day, we hadn’t intended on being late going to bed. However, Sarah wanted to talk, and that’s what we did. We talked about their life together, and what her life looked like to her without Thomas. It was a difficult discussion at times, but it felt important to keep talking. J had been with Sarah just 10 minutes after he had died and had helped with the immediate aftermath of his death. Thomas had been taken to our local undertakers, just some 100 yards up the road. The arrangements have been agreed for the funeral to take place tomorrow.

Sarah worried about her Thomas being up the road and imagined him to be lying in a fridge type compartment. She worried that the funeral directors would not have dressed him in his favourite pyjamas, his silly socks, or they would have lost a woollen heart they both were given as keepsakes. In trying to provide her with some reassurance, we suggested she went up to see Thomas herself, but this was a step too far for her. So, we offered to go and sit with Thomas and in so doing reassure her that he was being cared for. J agreed to go on the Thursday and I agreed to go on the Friday.

J went and sat with Thomas for 30 mins and was able to hold his hand as she spoke with him. The funeral directors had dressed Thomas as he wanted, the woollen heart was clasped in his hand and the ‘I love you’ beaded bracelet, a gift from one of his grandchildren was around his wrist. Telling Sarah all this seemed to bring a degree of calm and reassurance, but I said I would still go and be with Thomas on the following day. I did. It is a long time since I have been in a chapel of rest with someone I knew lying there.

It was a wonderfully calm place. There were perfumed candles burning and the quietness just gently enveloped you. The member of staff welcomed me in and took me to Thomas. She said I must stay as long as I wanted. She left the room and then there was just Thomas and myself sharing the quietness. He looked at peace, and he looked a great deal better than he had in the previous three weeks. I thought the funeral directors had ensured Thomas had been cared for with great care and dignity.

Thomas died at home. If he had died in hospital others would have provided the care for him up to and after his death. Looking at Thomas I was reminded of the last time I had been privileged to perform the last offices on a patient. It was a long time ago. The word ‘offices’ comes from the Latin ‘officium’ meaning service and or duty, so literally the last duties carried out on a body. In hospital, this is a duty usually performed by a nurse. Nearly every nurse will have carried out this duty at least once in their career. When someone dies in hospital, the body of the person is often left for an hour as a mark of respect. This is not the place to describe the full procedure, but one aspect of performing the last offices is in bathing the person from head to toe. This is something common to many different cultures around the world. In my experience it is a very emotional and almost sacred act to be part of.

For Thomas, these duties had been performed by the funeral directors. I spent my time in simply talking to him. I told him of Trump’s election victory and what I thought that might mean for the world. I spoke of the futility of mainstream politics in the UK (we have enjoyed many a political discussion, as Thomas and I held very different political views). I also spoke of my work and my hopes for the next couple of years; I described where we had travelled to this year and a multitude of other topics. It was a strange experience. Speaking my thoughts out aloud in the quietness of the chapel was somehow, quite cathartic. As was having a weep. Men don’t cry, do they?

And when we have this year’s neighbours Christmas celebration, we will raise a glass (or two) to our absent friend and neighbour Thomas.   

Forever grateful for memorable moments

Last week saw me take a walk down my memory lane. My beautiful dog Cello, died, suddenly but peacefully last week. He was 17 years old. His death stirred up all kind of memories, some good, and some not so. But, lets get to memories later. Whilst regular readers of this blog will know I try and steer clear of politics, but it is hard to ignore the news this past week from the US. America has chosen Trump once more as their president. I have no interest in commenting on this, but my eye was caught by a Trump related story. It involved Rowan Mackenzie, a so-called Doomsday fanatic.

Although I have never heard of her, she is apparently quite famous for sharing survival tips in preparation for apocalypse-level events. Over the years, Rowan had spent over £270k on both building an underground bunker in her basement and stocking it with food, water and other essentials necessary to survive for a long period underground. Following Trump’s election, she now feels she doesn’t need to keep her stockpile going as in her words, he is the ‘hero’ who will ‘save us all’. Time will tell, I guess.

Her story piqued my interest, as I too have been a long-time hoarder. It started when I lived in a remote part of rural Wales, where each Winter and on a regular basis, we would get snowed in for weeks. Despite being mocked by others over the years, I have kept up my hoarding practice. As I do our weekly shop, I try and buy one or two extra things on top of what we need. These go into our storage room. When the pandemic struck, our storage room was renamed the Covid cupboard. As a consequence, and fortunately, we had no need to buy any of the things that due to panic buying, suddenly became hard to find on the supermarket shelves. The room’s name changed to the Brexit cupboard in preparation for leaving the EU. However, these days, J still refers to it as the Covid cupboard.  

One other nudge down my memory lane came from being asked by a colleague for advice on getting a paper published in one of the international mental health journals. We met and discussed what she wanted to say and how she might best construct her paper, what was an average word length, references and so on. We also talked about the peer review process. This can be brutal as well as rewarding. I can’t recall ever having a paper accepted without a reviewer (or two) suggesting an amendment for me to consider.  Of course, you never know who your reviewers are.

I have long ceased being a reviewer myself, but the anonymity of the process allows all reviewers to say whatever they want without any fear of any repercussions. Although you can, as the author, address any challenges made to you, the anonymous reviewer has the advantage of being able to recommend or not, your paper being accepted for publication. At conferences and meetings, I have often wondered curiously if the person I’m sitting next to ever reviewed one of my papers.

Last week also saw me finally revising and updating a chapter for a new edition of one of the best textbooks for mental health nursing ever published. The first two editions were edited by Professor Phil Barker*. It was his brainchild. Phil was a phenomenal nurse and academic, and was the first professor of psychiatric nursing practice in the UK. He was well known for his bright patent leather red clogs, his ZZ Top beard and being fabulous company. I met him at conferences in many places around the world, including Manchester, Alice Springs, Dublin and Turku. On the first occasion we met in person I discovered that we both wore clogs as our chosen footwear, both liked to wear black, and both had a penchant for silver jewellery.

As an academic, he was a generation ahead of me, and his work inspired my desire to find a voice in mental health academia. Fortunately, I found an equally likeminded colleague, someone who not only became my long-term co-author, but my best friend too, Professor Sue McAndrew. We enjoyed great success in getting our ideas published, and for many years enjoyed presenting our work at conferences around the world. These days, we don’t tend to write many papers, so it was a refreshing change to revise our chapter, a chapter first published in 2017.

The first two editions of the book saw chapter contributions from some of the best mental health academics ever.  I’m not sure how well known some of these authors are outside of mental health circles, but just look at the author list here. Many of these folk have become long term friends and colleagues to Sue and me. One of whom is Professor Mary Chambers.

Mary took over from Phil as the book’s editor. It’s great that the third edition (and now fourth edition) contributors continue to develop and build upon the work of the previous generation. I felt inspired and will meet up with Sue soon to discuss how we might revise our edited book ‘Using Patient Experience in Nurse Education’ and in so doing, increase the number of service users and carers contributing their experiences.

 

*Phil retired from active academia in 2008 to pursue a new life as an artist – have a look here at some of his work – in my opinion, it’s simply as brilliant as his writing

A pandemonium of parrots, the revenge of crows, and me

I loved reading about Lily and Margot’s story last week. This was the story of two blue-throated macaws, who decided to go on a bit of a six-day jolly and get away from the hustle and bustle of London Zoo. Lily and Margot fly freely each day, but always return home to their enclosure at the end of the day. On the 21st October, they decided to just keep going. Eventually, they were found in a back garden 60 miles away. Reading the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lily and Margot had actively planned their trip, or whether it was a spur of the moment decision. Parrots are quite capable of coming up with a cunning plan and they have the patience of Job when it comes to getting what they want. So, I wondered if they had simply decided they needed a bit of a change, worked out how to do it, and away they went. However, once the zookeepers arrived to try and catch them, Lily and Margot simply flew to the keepers and tucked straight into their fruit and nut treats. I’m sure they knew they were safe once more.

I can speak from many years’ experience, as to how parrots operate. Our parrot, Billy, is well over 35 years old now. He has lived with me for all that time. Whilst he is not as pretty as Lily and Margot, he is super intelligent. He is a brilliant mimic, has a fabulous repertoire of words and phrases, but most all is totally aware of context, mood and presence. If he sees J and I hug, he makes the kissing sound even before we kiss. If he hears the front door open, he will say ‘see you later’. If he sees me walking into the kitchen with a bottle of wine, he will make the sound of the screw cap coming off and the sound of wine being poured into the glass. His favourite music is the blues and he will sing and whistle along to the blues for hours.

Over the years he has changed. When I first got him, he liked to fly about the house, but my goodness, he was destructive. I remember once coming home to find he had flown onto my bookcase, and had systematically stripped all the spines from most of the books. So, I started to clip one of his wings, but this was a real trauma for him and for me. Eventually, I stopped doing this, bought a much larger cage, and he has lived happily in this for the last few years. These days, Billy doesn’t try to escape, even when his cage door is wide open and I’m cleaning him and his cage. It is his secure place.

One of the other ways he has changed is in his acceptance of change. For many a year, if I went away from home for a week or more, when I came back, he would go into a sulk and not speak nor interact for a number of days. Billy would literally turn his back on me and I would be ignored. He would eventually thaw, but it could take a while. These days he doesn’t seem to mind at all and always greets me with a ‘hello Billy’ and a cry of exclamation – like ‘where have you been?’ He doesn’t bear a grudge at all, unlike crows apparently.

John Marzluff, a professor from the University of Washington, has studied crows for over 17 years. His research has shown how crows bear grudges against folk, who they feel have upset or threatened them. Even after many, many years, crows will attack those who they remember harming them, if they see them again. It seems to me that there might be many folk, who display the same behaviour. Last week I came up against three people like that. They appeared to be out to seek revenge for harm that had happened to them and/or their loved one, and harm that had occurred many years ago. Unlike with crows, I happened to be the person in the firing line albeit, I hadn’t directly caused them harm. My sin was simply to work for an organisation that, in their experience, had.

Now for as far back as I can remember, and certainly as a therapist and manager, I have tried to practice unconditional positive regard. Carl Rogers’ concept is easy to understand, but difficult to always put into practice. In a therapeutic sense, it requires the therapist to have a complete and non-judgemental acceptance in caring for and supporting their client, regardless of whatever the person says or does in the therapeutic interaction. Positive regard is not withdrawn even if the person does something, or says something that challenges the therapist’s sense of self.

Last week I experienced a similar challenge (and threat) to my sense of self from a number of different folk. Whilst I no longer seek or receive supervision, I’m thankful to have several very supportive colleagues. Along with the always listening ear of J, their support makes a difference and helps me maintain that sense of unconditional positive regard for those folk, who appear to want to harm me. Their support, and attentive listening, collectively helps provide me with my own secure space. Like Lily and Margot, at the end of the day, last week, I was grateful to tuck into their hypothetical fruit and nut treats.