Five Weeks in Another Country

Roger Rees, David Threlfall:
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982)

Well it didn’t go all that well, really.

Did it go as well as could be expected?.
 I suppose it didn’t sound all that good did it? It looked dodgy, right?

Yessss….. I was quite apprehensive about this job.

Apart from the odd setup at the start....You know, the bit that went:
Have you any relevant experience with this sort of client?: 
No
Have you a current Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure Form to show you're not an axe murdering Satanist?:
No.
Do you have any references from people who can vouch for you?
Might be difficult. Everyone was made redundant. Everyone who could have written a reference has gone "poof"
Poof? I see. That's a "no" then? No references?
Possibly it's a "no"..... probably it's a "no"
Excellent. Sign here and can you start tomorrow?
Apart from that, which was a Bit Odd, I was quite scared at the prospect of working with people with Learning Difficulties.

Now there’s a label for you: “Learning Difficulties”.

It doesn’t really mean anything does it? But that seems to be the point

Once upon a time the great unwashed public knew what the collecting tin was for.

You know, there was the collecting box in the shape of a girl with leg callipers. That was for the Spastics Society.

Now you can’t say that word anymore. It’s like using the “n” word to describe a black person. It could get you arrested and deported to Abu Ghraib.

But people used to know what you meant when they said your donation was “for the spastics”. Now they say it’s for ‘Scope’.

“What’s that then, some sort astronomy project?”

And “Learning Difficulties”.

Used to be mental handicap. Now it isn’t.

Mental handicap is a pejorative term, so we say Learning Difficulties.

Which nobody understands.

I mean I have learning difficulties. I can’t read a map. My sense of direction is useless. Also I never did learn my multiplication tables.

Do I have Learning Difficulties?

No, I don’t. I’m just a bit thick.

Names get changed to protect Service Users.  And don’t get me started about the term “Service users”. Sounds like someone who jumps on a bus.

Society is always trying to protect vulnerable groups. Nothing wrong with that. But you can go too far in the wrong direction. Just like me when I try and read a map.

Old geezers will remember Brian Rix.

He starred in lots of TV shows in the 60’s and 70’s then dropped out of sight.

He had a child who had “learning difficulties” and decided to dedicate his life to that cause.

Except it was called mental handicap back then.

Brian Rix’s son was on the radio in a debate about political correctness.

He said “I really don’t like the new terms people use.

Nobody understands them except the professionals. “Mental handicap” the public understand. Nobody knows what you mean when you say “My child has learning difficulties”

I wonder if anyone asks the service users before they change their labels. But no. They cannot give their informed consent and so they need to be protected from the world.

Anyway, I digress….

I was quite apprehensive about working with these people.

Why, I’m not sure. Something about looking into the abyss and the abyss staring back at you. Maybe.

When I arrived at the large, brick-built house I was shown around it by one of the residents.

Simon was a middle aged man and had been in one institution or another for many years. His parents had recently passed away and this had caused him huge anxieties. Recently the police had been called and he had been arrested following an emotional and physical outburst.

Simon was one of the reasons I was being placed on this house. No more single cover from staff teams.

 He did an okay job showing me around though. At least his sense of direction was better than mine.

I met some of the other residents. They were friendly and seemed quite content.

Content. Now there’s an interesting concept.

Is that what we should aim for with people?  Contentment?

Some of the residents exhibited odd behaviours that were probably characteristic of some mental illness or other. I didn’t know enough about these, but it would become obvious that nobody else seemed to know what these behaviours meant either.

There were lots of strange hand gestures.

One of the residents would punctuate his sentences with a bizarre motion which involved placing his hands in front of his mouth and wriggling his fingers furiously. This made him look like a feeding crab or something decidedly insect like. Maybe like an Ood for you Dr. Who fans out there.

 Whatever the gesture meant it was repeated regularly and without variation during his communications.

I asked another worker about it. The other worker said to me

“Oh, it’s him being threatening. I’ve told him off about that”

“Threatening?” I replied. “No, I don’t think so. He does it when he’s happy. He does it when he’s excited. I don’t think he does it when he feels threatened”

“Really?”  He said this in a way that suggested that nobody had ever brought it up before. Either way, he didn’t seem to think it important.

There were lots of strange facial expressions in this group of service users.

Lots of repetitive behaviour and lots of speech disorders.

I hadn’t seen anything like it since Prime Minister’s Question Time.

There was a young man. Eighteen years old. His name was Thomas.

Thomas was a big lad, about six foot three and well built.

He was very friendly, he made excellent eye contact. He was quite appropriate in most of his communications, except that his voice was way TOO LOUD and he would make some repetitive and sometimes bizarre statements.

He would say to most of the staff team, regardless of their gender that they looked like Cheryl Cole.

 Or better than Cheryl Cole.

I think I got “You look better than Cheryl Cole” but he might have just been trying to get in my good books.

I think I struck up a good relationship with Thomas. Or he struck up a good relationship with me. I’m not too sure which way round it went.

Although he was an adolescent he had a learning age of three and he couldn’t read or write at all.

He was, however very enthusiastic about almost everything, and he loved being busy and engaged. He loved music. His taste was a little off the wall but he loved music.

It was Christmas and he’d been bought an MP3 player by the staff team.

I asked him what music he liked and I put some on his machine. Culture Club and Status Quo. Weird.

I tried to teach him how to download but as he couldn’t read we kept running into brick walls.

Ditto with the MP3 player.

 In order to navigate around menus and find the tracks you need you need to be able to read.

And he couldn’t read.

But buying presents for people in institutions is like that.

This is your present.

Isn’t it lovely?

Now go away and stop bothering me.

Thomas had previously been bought a camera.

 Great idea. I love photography

“Can I see what you’ve got on your memory card?” I asked him

I looked at the pictures he had taken.

There was one of him staring at the camera and gurning.

And here was another one him staring at the camera and gurning …and another….and another.

That night we went for a walk. It was cold, too cold to be out really but I was determined we would come back with something other than gurning pictures.

So we stood in the freezing night air

So he turned the camera round

Darkness.

Inky black. Chill and oh so very clear

Apartment blocks lit up like neon signs, reflecting shimmering pools of light on the lake surface.

So he turned the camera around, we took some pictures and he was happy.

We walked back to the house through the winter cold and the freezing mud.

Thomas showed the pictures to another worker who seemed almost shocked by them.

They are…very artistic really.

Yes. They were.

Really.

Thomas would meet me at the door when I came on shift. He was keen to do stuff.

It didn’t really matter what the stuff was, he just wanted to do things.

I was quite happy to do things with him, and to do things with anyone else who wanted to do things. And there seemed to be quite a few service users who wanted to do things.
Maybe they wanted more than just being content after all.

That’s when I took a look at the staff rota and found that I was to be moved out….

To be continued...