Vera

It’s thirty minutes till our minicab is due to ding on the door and whisk my family and I off to Heathrow, for a much anticipated few days in sunny Seville. Fixated on the fantasy of the 'internet hiatus' - of course in reality I was slyly connecting in any free wifi cafes over my fanta limons - I opened my email for a (theoretical) final time to see if I needed to reply to any last minute matters.

Caught off guard, I was met with this note from Cath, who runs Burnage Good Neighbours, a local community charity I am involved with in Manchester.

I had never anticipated that I would have the emotional reaction that I did, and I still don’t really know where it erupted from, but safe to say it was a very puffy face hiding behind ray-bans that flight.

Burnage GoodNeighbours (BGN) put on a lunch spread in the Community Center every other Thursday for elderly members of the community to come and chatter, win raffle prizes, and eat too many pork pies. I love it. The volunteers range from long-haired, dog-walking Peter who claims to be the washer upper of the group, even though he seems to do the least washing up; a couple of larger than life young Burnage mums, one of whose hysterical granny comes along to every lunch; from long-time Burnage characters to Spanish Juan who’s come over to improve his English, and we delight in translating phrases like ‘toy boys’ for him while berating his not drinking tea.

My housemates know that I cycle home every fortnight - balancing leftovers precariously on my handwheels: overly buttered potatoes, miniature scraps of quiche, once an ancient bottle of sherry dug out from the community centre's cupboards - beaming with feel good factor.

It’s not all jolly, jovial oldies. One week, the lunch essentially doubled up as a wake, as many of our attendees (and staff) had come on from burying a friend. Another week, one previously perfectly able woman’s MS was suddenly visibly more debilitating, she had to lean on me the whole way to and from the bathroom taking petrified, shuffling baby-steps. After lunch, I'd agreed to accompany her home with another volunteer and she froze, six short steps from her front door, utterly glued to the gravel and repeating and repeating over and over she would fall if she tried to take a step. We stood there holding her up and trying to coax her for three quarters of an hour until I eventually used my free hand to call for back up so someone could rescue us with a wheelchair.

The staff and volunteers at BGN breathe Burnage and go to whatever steps to help older residents enjoy their life in the community. They brush shoulders at Tesco with the oldies; they know and communicate with the families; they check up on people if they haven’t been heard from; drive them on errands; organise talks on things they feel they should be educated on, like inheritance laws and wills; we even hired a coach and spent the best afternoon strolling the pier at Llandudno,Wales!

BGN also organise home visits because not everyone is able, well or social-minded enough to make it to the big Thursday lunch, but may still be bored, lonely, and wanna hang. After berating Cath for enough weeks running how much I’d love to be set up with someone to make home visits to, I found myself sat in a quintessentially "old people" living room, being introduced to sisters Vera and Sybil.

Sybil was 80: very friendly and still pretty able. She loved to make drives around the Lancashire countryside and go on group rambles. But she was clearly hampered by the emotional drain and constant care she was giving to her 90 year old sister, Vera. Vera is who I was really there for.

Small talk was made and it was decided that the best times for my visits would be when Sybil goes on her excursions, to reduce Vera’s anxiety about being left alone, and so someone would be around to remind her to take her tablets after lunch!

The next week I was excited to be making my first independent visit. Nervous too, nervous that Vera – who’d seemed moodier, more exhausted by age and pains and less bubbly than Sybil – and I would have little to say to one another. Nervous that I’d sit awkwardly watching the clock, and feeling guilty for wanting to run away.

But I sat down and blurted out some questions and we were off. Vera and her sister had lived in this house their whole life, she told me. I marvel around at the space. They were bought up in it and still live in it, together, aged 80 and 90. They went to Levenshulme High, down the road. It’s the school on the mug I am sipping, gifted at a school reunion they’d had. They had both been working women. Secretaries at accountancy firms. Other professional jobs. I am impressed. There is no mention or photos of children or grandchildren, but I don’t want to seem nosy. I wonder if it’s unusual for two unmarried sisters to spend their whole lives living together and ponder whether they might have lost young partners in the war.

Naively, or judgmentally, looking at first glance at these two elderly women in this cute home they have lived in forever in this Manchester suburb, I wouldn’t have guessed it: but they had travelled. Seriously travelled. Vera pointed out the clock. It was the shape of Australia: a souvenir they picked up when they ventured there in their early retirement. There was a trinket on the mantelpiece of some safari animal Vera had once bought for a friend but grown too attached to give away. This memory amused her. I talked of my impending trip to Berlin and Paris and Vera reminisced over time spent in European cities. When I said I was from London she glowed telling of her's and Sybil’s antics on visits to a friend they had in Hackney, I delight in picturing these women as their young Northern selves frolicking round the capital’s East End.

I won’t claim I visited Vera a great deal of times. Maybe I wish I’d made it over more. Without fail on each trip though, I would stay chatting longer than I intended, enjoying lapping up both the sandwiches Sybil had prepared in advance and the pieces I was putting together of Vera’s life. 

I once snap-chatted to friends Vera walking on her frame, back from toilet to sofa, and was universally scolded for doing so ‘behind the old lady’s back!’. But I didn’t really feel bad; I think had the 1950s had snapchat, Vera would have found it funny.

Then there was one visit when I turned up to a clearly distressed Vera. Sybil told me in soft tones that she had arranged Vera to go in to temporary respite care for two weeks. Sybil needed a break. Vera got confused a lot and could be very demanding on Sybil. She gave her a hard time for going out and doing things, presumably bitter that this big sister is no longer fit to join in the once joint adventures.

Sybil looked pained but headed out as usual and I took my usual armchair. Vera’s eyes were swelling with tears. I felt uncomfortable. And sad. I had never seen her cry before. I asked her what it was that was upsetting her about the situation, maybe there would be fun things about being in the home and two weeks wasn’t really very long. She replied she knew it wouldn't be temporary. She said she’ll never come back to this home that she was born in. I promised her this wasn't true. She was convinced. When I went to go that day, Vera asked if I was really going to abandon her too? She was feeling bitter, and was guilt-tripping me. I felt manipulated but it worked and I sat for another 30 minutes, before making my escape, and tearing up with pity and guilt as I walked away from the house.

When I opened my blog today, feeling like posting something for Vera, I didn’t know quite what I was going to write. Maybe a little post about what these sort of community charities do and how enriching it is to get involved. But instead it has turned more into my fingers spilling out some memories of my time at Vera’s.

I did not know Vera for a long time nor very well. But we had some lovely chats over some lovely teas, and if I’m lonely in my last years, I think I’d enjoy similar teas with well, anyone who’d like a chat.

Ultimately, and unlike so much else in the world right now, this is not something that is tragic. A very elderly lady who lived a fulfilling life has died, and her sister was prepared and knew this was coming.

But it is just a bit sad.

I had thought Vera was someone I’d be returning to when I head back to my life in Manchester next month. Now she’s not.

Instead I will be sure to check in on Sybil, and keep enjoying the lunches.

HIV: The latest myth

I have recently had training from a Manchester based charity called the George House Trust which provides advice and support for HIV sufferers in the North West of England. Something I learnt at training has had a profound effect on me, and I have told next to every person I have since seen. Just like me, not one of these victims of my babbling had been aware of this beforehand:

For those being treated with effective HIV medication, it is next to impossible to pass on the HIV virus to somebody else.

They call this Treatment by Prevention. In other words, the more people they can help get medicated, the fewer people out there who can pass it on.

Speaking frankly, although I knew much of the talk surrounding HIV was based on myths, I always felt that being in a relationship with a sufferer would probably be too much for me. Nobody was worth the risk of my infection.

Reflecting on the way I used to feel about HIV, I realise that much of it comes from my sex eduction. Albeit mine was approaching a decade ago and I don't know how much it has changed, but I remember HIV/AIDs being presented as something separate from other STIs. Whilst the others were a bit nasty, they were treatable. We were never informed of the progress in modern medication, perhaps because those informing us were living in the previous mentality surrounding HIV. We were never told that if you did contract it, your world wouldn't melt away before you.

The man I was trained with has been living with HIV for several decades. His life expectancy is no different from mine or yours.

I'm really looking forward to working for this charity and debunking more myths, and I encourage you to go and tell one person about Treatment by Prevention.