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FEAR OF ALZHEIMER'S

5/21/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture


   Alzheimer's disease has been very much in the news this week, especially in Cymru.
   Firstly, there's the news that more people over 50 fear it than cancer and, on the other hand , a real breakthrough in the research ( pioneered by Cardiff Uni. and others) into identifying its causes.
   Apparently, the body's own immune system attacks the brain cells of those who are genetically susceptible, what the professor described as like 'dismantling the brain at its roots'.
   This could lead to many preventive therapies, but not initially a cure.
   There are 45,000 dementia sufferers in Wales (many with Alzheimer's) and BBC Wales News did a feature on the forthcoming National Theatre Wales production 'Before I Leave' written by Red Poet Patrick Jones.
   This is a play inspired by Patrick's work with Cwm Taf choir in Merthyr, all of whom have dementia.
   'This play is a testament to the healing power of song', he says and it includes one song especially-written by Manics Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield.
   It opens on May 27th at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff and promises to be an uplifting experience about a very harrowing subject.
   Whenever I meet former teaching colleagues we share news about others and I'm always shocked to hear the number who have dementia and several who died because of it.
   One ,in particular,stays in my mind because he was a good friend who I lost touch with and later saw on a TV documentary, sitting in a wheelchair and tended to by his wife, his carer.
   The blankness of his hollow eyes haunts me; the disease had eaten away at his personality.
   For me, it's a particular fear, worse even than UKIP being elected in Merthyr or the Bluebirds being relegated.
   If the genetic factor is uppermost, then I am surely vulnerable.
   Many of the older relatives on my father's side suffered, including my dear old Aunty who ended up roaming the streets of Barry at night and trying to evict her long-time tenants from the flat below her as she'd forgotten who they were. 
   But it's my grandmother ,above all, who I recall and whose deterioration I witnessed closely.
   When I moved in to live with her in Barry she was already exhibiting the early signs : her short-term memory disappearing rapidly.
   She began asking the same questions over and over, especially about the time and the day and, though she still managed to do the newspaper crossword regularly, I could see how depressed she became with her illness and powerlessness to do anything about it.
   She took her eye-drops daily and her physical health was robust for a woman in her 70s, yet no doctor could remedy the 'holes in her head'. 
   When my father moved in to her house with his second wife (who was suicidal) it only added to her disorientation.
   He lived separately in the lounge, while she inhabited the sitting-room. He had no time for her whatsoever and she sometimes confused me for him and ordered me to leave the house instantly.
   She began to confuse dreams and reality and became convinced that her dead husband was in the house and refused to go upstairs.
   Her phone-calls became jumbled and she'd frequently phone the doctor to order her groceries.
   She was an excellent baker, but she made Victoria sponges and forgot about them : her large larder was full of tins containing these in various stages of rotting.
   Most worrying, she began to be a danger to herself and others, to burn things and drink Sherry, forgetting she had taken a glass.
   I came home once to find her flat on the floor and was certain she was dead, but she had fallen unconscious from all those 'forgotten' glasses.
   It was hard to cope, with my father also suffering from mental illness and I wasn't always the most patient of people I admit.

   She had been a teacher in a small village school in Rutland for many years and the best times were chatting with her about the past ( often looking at old photos), even though her deep regrets were evident.
   She often told me how my grandfather would walk with her and try to persuade her to return and live in Barry again. Those 13 years of separation must have tortured him.
   She'd been a great reader, though her eyes prevented her from continuing ; her sitting-room full of novels and poetry anthologies and she enjoyed when I read aloud to her ; Keats and Wordsworth her favourites.
   For a trial she stayed a while in the Home at the top of the road, but it never worked out. She missed her house too much and cried and screamed the place down.
   Going away to teach and get married, I left her there with my father, who by then had acquired a third wife.
   By the time I returned to Wales she was confined to the geriatric ward of a psychiatric hospital, the most cruel and despondent of places.
   She seemed to know who I was ( which was surprising), yet had no idea where she was . One time she was in a hotel, another in the waiting-room of a station longing for a train to take her away.
   It was a place of the lost and forgotten: patients drugged just to make them pliable for over-worked staff who struggled in very difficult conditions. There was certainly no therapy then.
   It was a tragic ending for a person who had been a pioneer : a woman who ( for whatever reasons) had actually prioritised her career over her role as wife.
   And now, whenever a glaring hole appears in my memory, I can't help but think of her sad slide away from time and into a pit from which it's impossible to climb.  


                            THE  GREAT  EXCAPE


My mam lives in an Ome
down by where The Great Excape ewsed t be.

One day she wen wan'drin
an searchin f Steve McQueen.

She wen inta the buildin
an arst f'r a G an T.

They woz kind an elpful,
the men from-a fewnral parlour.

I live not far away from er,
jest up the ill;

an sometimes my own memree
slike pot-oles in-a street.

My dad ewsed t ride a motorbike
jest like Steve McQueen.

Years ago they pulled down-a sign,
but never put up a coffin.
 
1 Comment

TESTING  TIME

5/15/2016

0 Comments

 
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   To anyone who believes in the severe testing regime used in all Welsh schools ( Welsh Government Tests), I'd ask a simple question - 'What do you remember from school?'
   My own answer is equally direct - ' The things I enjoyed.'
   This wasn't always down to good teaching and at English 'O' Level I enthusiastically took to the course because of interesting texts like 'Modern Short Stories, a contemporary poetry anthology, Graves's 'Goodbye to all that' and even old colonial Arthur Grimble's 'A pattern of islands', which gave me a fascinating insight into a very different culture .
   I still failed English Literature first time though!
   I knew why I'd failed Physics : I loathed it. I couldn't see the sense in learning all those laws we copied into the teacher's Little Blue Book ( we even nicknamed him 'Mao Tse Hoot'!).
   Despite my new-found love of lit., after years of stale daffs and very depressed clouds, I'd failed in the very subject I went on to study at Uni and then to teach.
   The school found out why : I simply hadn't grasped the trick of learning loads of quotations and using them regularly ( just as pupils have to nowadays).
   Armed with this tactic, I passed the re-sit without a problem. 
   The SATs in England have been reduced to chaos and farce in recent weeks because of two leaks of the papers and one was even abandoned as a result. Sabotage is suspected!
   I read letters in the Guardian praising Wales and Scotland for their progressive systems.
   Yet , our present testing process is no better than the SATs and many teachers believe it's worse as they have to mark and moderate papers, thus taking even more time away from preparation and teaching.
  In Scotland, the SNP intends to introduce a similar system, despite its utter failure here in Cymru.
   Teachers are encouraged to differentiate more and more in their lessons, gearing them towards individuals' special needs and the various levels of attainment within one class.
   However, in these WAG tests - which have recently been taken by Years 2-6 in Primary schools -  there was no attempt at differentiation whatsoever.
   If this were an exercise to be judged for teaching assessment, it would be totally rejected.
   The youngest pupils of Year 2 ( aged 6) and the oldest of Year 3 ( aged 8) even sit the same tests.
   Some pupils will simply fail to cope at all and their feelings of failure will be reinforced. Others will try really hard , but become very frustrated by the ludicrous time-limits imposed.
   Teachers can help them to cope, but all this pointless stress is ultimately the fault of the Welsh Gov. who are obsessed with data and do not trust teacher assessment.
   No party in the recent Assembly elections made education a priority.
   No party so much as mentioned this tortuous testing in their leaflets and broadcasts.
   Just a glance at a single test paper reveals so much.
   The Reading Test for 7-9 year-olds is 13 pages long ( 21 pages for the younger ones, by the way) and the first comprehension entitled ' A journey through time' consists of paragraphs about 19th century bicycles.
   There are many tick-box and fill-in answers, but no room for expression or......for goodness sake, opinions.
   Whoever created this cannnot have taught at this level. It was probably set by a computer in England , using cells taken from Leighton Andrews' famous brain.
   Though the next comprehension is more child-friendly, the final one is intimidating : called 'A castle tour', it is based on a detailed, annotated diagram of a Medieval castle.
   I recall teaching SATs to Year 9 and the format was actually easier!
   For children starting Primary and still in the Foundation Phase (of predominantly 'outdoor learning') all this must be terrifying. For older ones, it threatens to put them off school for life.
   Just because they aren't studying spellings and intransitive verbs like in England, let's not be smug about the Welsh system.
   Our rulers in the Bay have lost touch with what education should be.
   Music, art, history and creative writing are all side-lined to focus on the core curriculum and coursework is jettisoned, meaning that pupils' ability to research is diminished drastically.
   Yet, without any serious political opposition or alternatives, Labour were re-elected and will continue to ruin the lives of future generations because......we get what we voted for : low morale, heavy workload, large classes , bullying management and intelligence defined merely at strategies to pass exams.  


                           THINGS I REMEMBER FROM INFANTS AND JUNIOR

Frogspawn pudding
skin of blancmange
mashed spuds with bullets in
and having to stand in front of everyone
to explain why I didn't like them.

Finding Cambridge on a map
and tracing my finger over from Aber:
two distant stars.

​Being called names like 'Welshie!'
being called nicknames like 'Jinks!'
being asked if I was chasing mice.

The map of my island 'Marshenland'
and the world I created
of my own I lived in
and wanted to remain.

Stick insects the teacher brought in
in jars, perfect camouflage :
aliens in the classroom.

New girl from the States
sat and chatted endlessly
and once peed on the floor.

The Head who turned me over
and hit me for messing
( next day I took ill,
but I never explained).

The whole sheet I missed
from the 11+ Exam,
so I never got to the posh school
where they wore stripy blazers.

The story about the penny
I wrote christening him Clitterclop
and sobbing when my teacher
told me not to exaggerate.

Roles of Prince Charming, Otter, Friar Tuck
and 'Once In Royal David' soprano solo
persuaded my mum I needed to go
to that school with fancy uniform
( I still wonder, did I not do
that page because I knew?).
             
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