You laugh a lot when you go to the hospice. You spend a lot of time laughing. And some of them, the nurses, are quite religious and that’s why they’re doing it, but they don’t push that down your throat at all. I mean they have the service but you don’t have to go to that if you don’t want to and I certainly never do. They provide all sorts of activities and because the one I go to is a charity if someone sort of wants to do something, if they can do it for you, they do;

You know, they… if someone says, “Oh I really would like to do such and such” if they can organise it, it’s organised;
They have lots of different groups like I go to the creative writing group. I know there are other discussion groups and art groups and things, but the creative writing group… the tutor who runs that is absolutely fantastic. I mean, I don’t think that group would be as good if it wasn’t for her. She really has made this group – I think shes a wonderful tutor and a wonderful person, as they all are.

I have nothing bad to say about the people at the hospice.

I started in January last year and it was a bit weird to start with because theres all these sick people there and I think that’s part of the process, learning to become an ill person rather than a well person that you’ve been all these years and you know, you have these images of day centres and everybody is sitting round in chairs but it was great.

Great support and I still go there and you’re assigned a nurse and they are so supportive and sympathetic and I’ve done art therapy and I have acupuncture and they offer other alternative therapies and what I discovered quite early on after the second or third art therapy session, was that I’ve been in shock and once you’ve discovered that then you can go on to the next stage and it took me a long time to get over that shock but you are, you’re in shock for a long time.

The worst thing about going there is that you do see people pass on and that is hard because again you are faced with the reality of why you are there.

So if you were talking to someone like I said earlier, about what help they should seek it, are you saying that you would recommend it?

I would yeah.

The contact with the Macmillan nurse and the hospice?

And the hospice and the other patients as well because they’re very supportive. They know what you know. Were all going through the same thing in trying to cope with this disease and you know, as I say, the worst bit is watching people deteriorate. At the moment there is a lady who is great fun and shes not well and you know it makes me quite sad because shes a nice lady and I’ve known her for a year now and that is hard but it’s part of being there unfortunately.

In what ways does the Marie Curie centre help improve your quality of life?
Well it gives you things to do. I mean you could tend to just half the time just be lazy, just lay about the whole day like, doing nothing like you know, but going to the Marie Curie, they’ve always got something for you to do;

They’ve got extensive gardens. If you’re a bit of a gardener you can do gardening. If you’re a bit of a joiner, they have you making the seed boxes and theres various things for the women’

You said that writing your poetry is your way of expressing your feelings

That’s right, that’s right.

Do you think you do that because theres not that many people around to talk to;

It came to me, well I wasn’t doing poetry first of all. I never think I could do poetry because I used to like it, and I… but I write. I was writing my life story from when I left Jamaica and then I revert back to my childhood and then I write it up to my illness, that’s when I started. And then, as I said, at the day centre they said to me, “Are you going to bring some creative writing?” and I jumped at the idea. And she said to do poetry and I said, “No I can’t do poetry” so she gave us the tree. “Write about the tree, write about the bed”. And she said, “Look at the one who can’t do poetry” and it started from there.

What does the hospice day centre do for people;

It’s a happy place. For me it’s love. You get love. From when you walk in until you come out its love. I’m not saying people are not people. You get love.

Who do you get the love from?

The staff. And as I said, really as a patient, although you may not sit and communicate that much we really. We really don’t have time to communicate over illness, cos you’ve been laughing, you been talking you don’t have time to discuss your illness. Really, So much going on.

What’s going on?

Well, you have… you test your brain, you know, your IQ. Like, you know, every day you got something different testing you. What you remember from what you remember. Singsong. People come in and talk to you and sing for you, and the staff themselves sometimes you know. You get excited cos they’re all dressed up in the Georgian days… It’s exciting;

Good;

You love to go, you want to go. I don’t miss one day. Not unless I can’t go. I’m sick.