I love Lemn Sissay’s poetry and I loved the book, My Name is Why, if you are allowed to love a book that is a real life story of loss, anger, bewilderment and sadness. What I mean is that I have read many “lives of” books and blogs of those who have been unfortunate enough not to be able to live with their own families during their childhood years. This is probably the best of them. Not only does it have the precision and brevity of the poet but it incorporates the real, albeit as Lemn says filtered ,records from the social work files. There is anger but that is not the overriding emotion in t ..read more

A question that has always bothered me but that I have not really crystallised until recent years is the one that asks is social work an art or a science. I recently reread, not every word I admit, Hugh England’s book “Social Work as Art” (1987 pub. Allen and Unwin) and whilst it had, as far as I can remember , little impact at the time I found it a helpful critique of why I and many others struggle with this dilemma. It quotes many academics and eminent thinkers in the profession in their recognition of the issue but they offer little solution. It then returns at the end of the book to some p ..read more

The lockdown has not been a very productive writing time for me. A shame, as suddenly there was time on hand but between cottage renovation and moving my mind was otherwise occupied. However two things this week have left me “reviewing the situation ” to quote Fagin ( I loved that character). The first was a visit to Gressenhall Workhouse museum here in Norfolk to discuss a piece of work about the children boarded out from the workhouse. Who knew the origins of fostering were in the workhouse system, not me. I suppose I could have worked it out as our welfare structures today owe much to the P ..read more

There’s a silence I have never heard. Out here in the evening town I feel as if I am breaking some ill defined curfew, I expect to be taken off the street by armed men, I feel guilty. It’s just the dogs last walk and I have no garden will be my defence. There is no curfew yet we are hidden in our homes to deny an unseen viral enemy the pleasure of using us as a host for its evil intentions. I am walking through town and though my footsteps are gentle soled and softly trodden they echo between the closed shops. Sorry closed until its safe to open again……..Closed on government advice……..Clo ..read more

Shock horror I have run out of tissues and there are none to buy. Just one of the things that we might run short of at the moment . So what are we to do? They are a token of how we have become reliant on certain products in our wonderfully materialistic lives. This huge loss in my 21st century existence led me to think about the loss of other things for example the splendid handkerchief. Now rarely used it’s history goes back to Egypt in ancient times but became popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. In England it is recorded that Richard II( 1377-1399) used squared pieces of cloth to wipe ..read more

I apologise to my followers for having stopped writing but last summer seemed to drain me and left me rather lacking in passion for writing anything. I will not bore you with the details but the political situation had much to do with it.  I felt that in the face of such a move to the right the most vulnerable in our society whose life chances are few anyway were really about to be lost to the tide of populism. That being so then anything I had to say was a waste of time. BUT “You may leave care but care never leaves you” This is a quote that never leaves me. Just like my childhood has never l ..read more

I’m laying in bed listening to the rain falling, gentle, steady soothing rain the sort of rain that falls softly into a summers evening and makes the world smell sweet and clean after a warm day. I am returned momentarily to my childhood and the memory of a bedroom at our home in Stanford-le-hope where I am laying listening to just such rain feeling warm, safe and secure. It is a memory that is so sharp and the feelings are so clear that I can see the wallpaper in that room and how the light used to stream through the window and the view onto the garden with its lawn and scalloped beds so neat ..read more

How hard can it be to sit still for a morning to have your portrait painted by a group of budding amateur artists? Well actually not too hard but occupying the  mind while remaining still  can be a bit tricky. I began to think about the resultant pictures and how these artists would interpret me,not just the physical ,the outward presence but what would they see of me, of my soul, of who I was. Perhaps nothing past the hair colour, the wrinkles, laughter lines and grey hairs but I hoped that they would see something else, something that maybe each individual would recognise and connect with, s ..read more