Alan Bennett reading from A Life Like Other People's

I tried to find some way in the book whether were jokes but there aren't really very many girls today and it's about the end of my mother's life when she was in there no people's home in western Superman that there is something not right around homes for the elderly is evident in the language associated with them it's swampy terms do not quite fit and category start to slip a home is not a home but neither is it a hospital not yet a hotel what do we call the old people who live and die there are they residents patients inmates no word altogether suits and who looks after them nurses not really since very few of them are qualified as mom herself pointed out early in her residency they not nurses these most of them are just lassies and not knowing what to call them makes getting hold of one difficult not least for the residents in a hospital it would be nurse here it tends to be hello hello which said to nobody in particular and sometimes to an empty room already sounds deranged of course calling them by name could be the answer but though the staff all wear their nametags names are what these lost women are not good at not being good at names one of the things that has brought them here in the first place and what do I call them a visitor even if I cared for the word caring carer is not a word you can call down a corridor as it is and feeling like one of those old-fashioned gentlemen who call every policeman officer I settle for nurse remembering at the same time mrs. Catchpole Alan Bates his mother-in-law who incarcerated in the geriatric ward at the Royal Free remarked bitterly of one such nurse whom she called bouncing betty she's not as highly qualified as she makes out and she has very hard hands these blurred classifications a home that is not a home a nurse who is not a nurse arise because strictly speaking the people in homes are not ill it is not sickness that has brought them here so much as incurable incompetence they are not dying they are just incapable of living though capable of being long-lived nevertheless my mother lives like this for 15 years my two coats attorney to oversee I sit in the upstairs room and hold my mother's hand the skin now just a translucent sheath for the bones and a hand anyone who comes into the room is free to take and hold as mam will not mind or even noticed one of the maids now erupts into the room and sees his mam sound stroking her face and kissing her lavishly isn't she a love aren't you a love aren't we pretty this morning who's going to give me a kiss the dialogue makes me wince and the delivery of it seems so much bad acting better directed at a parrot or a Pekinese but irritatingly mom seems to enjoy it this grotesque performance ELISA taken far more of a response than my more tasteful contribution but then taste has always been my handicap and so it is here when in this sponge and squeegeed bedroom with an audience of indifferent old women I do not care to Bend call my mother chick fetch my face close to hers and tell her or shout at her how much I love her and how we all love her and what a treasure she is instead smiling sadly I lightly stroked her limp and so on garish my display of affection I might be the cure at not the Sun the nurses or whatever have more sense they know they're in a carry on film I'm playing it like it's brief encounter aren't you good Lily I've eaten all your mints now she's Lily who's eaten all her mints and polished off her arctic roll and her eyes closed her mouth opens and her head fall sideways on the pillow she's a real Cardus Lily we always have a laugh her name's actually Lillian I say primly I know but we call a lily the strip lights go on this winter afternoon and I get ready to leave I never come away but I think this may be the last time I shall see her and it's almost a superstition therefore that before I leave I should make eye contact with her but to make her see me is not easy sometimes it means bringing my head down my cheek on the coverlet in order to intercept our eye line and obtrude on her gaze in this absurd position my head virtually in her lap I say goodbye mom goodbye trying as I say it my head pressing into the candle wick to picture her with dad getting no response I kiss her and go to the door looking back for what I always think will be the last time what I want to see is her gazing lovingly after me her eyes brimming with tears or even just looking but she's not noticed I've gone and I might never have been in the room at all I walk to the station just one more thing when I learn to read the only books we had access to was at the local library in Leeds and libraries have been closed all over the place now and the people are going to suffer a children and closing libraries is child abuse

Channel: Hibrow

Views: 10,389

Rating: 4.8762889 out of 5

Keywords: Alan Bennett (Author), world book night, Reading (Quotation Subject), A Life Like Other People's, alan bennett, interview

Id: rr1abGhLQsQ

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 08 2014