Let's be positive for a change...by Sheila Claydon

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I always try to find a link to one of my books when I blog, but this time it is a very weak one! In Remembering Rose (Book 1 of Mapleby Memories) Rachel's one hospital visit to see her grandmother is a very small part of the story. Hospital visits this month, however, are a much bigger part of my and my husband's story. There is also a slight resemblance in that, like hers, they were far from dispiriting.  Most importantly, however, I am writing this piece as a counterpoint to the almost daily negative Press coverage of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). 

My husband, aged 82, has been an avid and very good tennis player for 70+ years.The downside of this  was that he needed a new hip. He wasn't desperate because, with a painkiller, he could still play, and as all his team mates are over 70 these days it was never going to be so physically challenging that he could no longer cope.  He did, however, make a doctor's appointment on the advice of his physiotherapist, who told him the sooner the better while he still had the necessary musculature to help him with his recovery. 

Within a month of that first doctor's appointment he had had the operation and was home. He was operated on only12 days after seeing the surgeon. No 2 year wait, no 7.5 million waiting list, no traumatic tales of delays and less than optimum care. Everything ran like clockwork. The aids and adaptations necessary for his recovery were delivered at the promised time, the nurses, doctors and ward orderlies were all cheerful, caring and dedicated. Nothing was too much trouble and when he attended the occupational therapy clinic to prepare him, he was introduced to other patients waiting for the same operation.  

He was actually playing tennis when I received the call saying he was booked in for 3 days hence so had to attend a pre-operative check later that afternoon. 

We had to be at the hospital at 7.30 on a Sunday morning (yes, some of our medics do work weekends despite what the media says) and by the time I visited that evening he was in bed recovering, and although hooked up to various machines, had eaten a good meal and was very cheerful. The next day he was up and dressed and doing the mandatory physio and the day after that he was home! District nurses turned up when they said they would to tend the wound and remove the sutures, the GP pharmacy sorted out his meds and made arrangements for a post operative check, and now, only 3 weeks later, he's walking unaided up to a mile at a time and no longer needs any special care.

Much of his recovery is down to his general good health and strong muscles of course, so not everyone will be so lucky, but many will be. One of the two lovely surgeons who operated told him that hip replacement is one of her favourite jobs as it gives people their life back, and she is right. And what is even more important is that all of this excellent care was free, including all the the aids and medication. We were prepared to pay privately if, as the daily news seemed to convey, he was going to have to wait years, but when he suggested this to his doctor, he dismissed it, saying let's test the NHS first as I don't think that will be necessary.

There are similar tales. One friend has just had a stent inserted following a mild heart attack. Another is waiting for a new heart valve and has been told she will probably have it done by the end of the month. Another has been given a 3-year open appointment with his surgeon in case the 'wait and watch' treatment he is receiving breaks down and he needs more urgent care. And these are in different hospitals in different parts of the country, so it's not just special where we live. And to top it all, we have just been booked into a local pharmacy for our booster Covid and Flu vaccines. All free. All without any angst or waiting. 

We feel very blessed and we also wish that just once in a while the British Press would report some of these positives instead of making the UK, and especially the NHS, look as if it is going to hell in a handcart. It isn't! 

On a lighter note, here is the short extract of Rachel's hospital visit in Remembering Rose, where her nonagenarian grandma is playing her part as a link between Rachel and Rose, Rachel's long dead great-great-grandmother, who has breeched the boundaries of time itself to stop her great-great-granddaughter making the biggest mistake of her life.

    Grandma was as pale as the pillow behind her head and Ma didn't look much better. They smiled when Daniel and I walked up to the bed though. Ma with relief and Grandma with satisfaction.

    "Rose said you'd both come," she told me, and then closed her eyes.

    I shrugged when Ma raised her eyebrows, and for once I wasn't lying. I had no idea what Rose had told Grandma. I didn't find out for ages either because she wasn't talking. Ma looked at her inert figure in consternation.

    "She seems to have worn herself out calling for you."

    I took hold of one of Grandma's hands. It was warm and I felt a faint pressure as her fingers curled in mine. She wasn't asleep, she was just binding her time. I settled down to wait.

    Ma stayed in the chair opposite and Daniel set off in search of coffee. When he returned with three cardboard cups of questionable liquid he suggested Ma take a break once she had finished hers. "I passed the hospital canteen on my way back to the ward and the lunch smells good," he said.

    I saw my chance. "Why don't you both go? You haven't had a thing since early this morning Daniel, and Ma would probably appreciate the company. I'll be fine here with Grandma until you get back."

    They both looked doubtful, Daniel because he had seen how panicked I was earlier, and Ma because she was worried. "I wish we had never shown her a single photo, let alone tried to persuade her to remember the past. She's done nothing but talk about Granny Rose ever since she saw that picture of her. On her worst days she even confuses her with you, Rachel, so who knows what she'll say when she wakes up and sees you next to the bed."

    I aimed for a suitably understanding expression as I nodded my agreement because I knew that if I didn't Ma wouldn't leave me on my own with Grandma."It's only because I look a bit like Rose," I said, as I wondered how long it would be before Ma and Daniel totally trusted my sanity again. Then I remembered all the times I had seen Rose and spoken to her and I didn't blame them because I wasn't entirely sure how sane I was myself anymore.

    "I suppose so," Ma looked doubtful. She didn't demur when Daniel asked her a second time though. Draining her coffee cup, she stood up and stretched. Then she picked up the large tote bag she carries with her everywhere and followed him out of the ward. Left to my own devices but aware that we didn't have that much time, I squeezed Grandma's hand.

    "You can open your eyes now because they've gone."

    She peered at me through two slits. I laughed. "Did Rose put you up to this?"

    "Rose wanted Daniel, too."

    "You mean she wanted me to realise how much I need Daniel and this was the only way she could arrange it. I suppose she was the one who made me forget to switch on my cell phone this morning too." I was getting better at reading Rose's mind by the minute. I was also beginning to have an inkling about what she was up to.

    Grandma nodded. "She made me promise."

    I frowned. "Well, from now on you can tell her to leave you out of it. If she wants to talk to me she knows where I live."

    But Grandma was too intent on relaying the rest of her message to listen. "Daniel is a good man."

    "I know he is, and so was Arthur. Tell Rose I know she loved Arthur. Tell her I understand."

* * *

    

Knights Loaf, Cheat Bread, Maslin: what's in a name?...by Sheila Claydon

 

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So let me introduce you to one of the main characters in my next book. Old Mill!

Hidden away in woodland on the edge of a golf course, it has stood four-square for more than 600 years. Its roof fell in long ago. Its water wheel has disappeared, and so, more bizarrely, has the tumbling river that turned it. If it wasn't for the blue placque beside what was once a door, you wouldn't know it had ever been a mill. A best guess would have been a tumbledown shack a couple of hundred years old. 

Because I wanted to use it as the basis for my next book, the third one in my Mapleby Mysteries trilogy, I needed to find out more about it, however, and goodness me I've been amazed. Not about the old mill itself but about medieval mills in general and medieval life in particular.

For example, I learned that the same as a church, there was a mill in every medieval village, usually owned by the lord of the manor but operated by a miller. The miller was always better off than most of the peasant farmers who used the mill. This was because everyone needed their corn, rye, oats and barley milled, ground into flour and made into bread, so he (it was always a he) was never out of work. Many millers also made bread from the peasants own flour and then charged them for it. The peasants also had to pay the feudal lord banalities (small fees) for the use of the mill, so no wonder they were always poor.

The miller, who often had a baking house next to the mill, made as many as 20 different types of bread, most of which had names unusual to today's ears. There was the Knights loaf, the Popes loaf, Maslin, which was a mix of wheat and rye, and Manchets and Pandemain. Manchets were large rolls and loaves of white bread, while Pandemain  was the loaf preferred by the lord of the manor and his wealthy friends and relatives. Both of these were made from finely ground and sifted wheat flour, while their poorer cousin was Wastel,  a white bread made from flour that had been less carefully sieved. 

There was also Cheat bread, made from wheat flour that had the worst of the bran removed, and horse bread, which was made from a mix of cereals, pulses, bran and acorns.This was originally made for horses but many of the poorest people had no choice but to eat it to keep themselves alive, especially in times of famine. And that was another thing I learned. There was often famine, or flooding, and living in medieval times was very, very hard. 

There was no such thing as rest either . Millers and peasants alike toiled from dawn to dusk, working to the seasons. Everything from planting to ploughing, sowing and harvesting, scaring the birds (done mostly by children) pruning and weeding, and even fertilising the fields, had to be done in the correct season, the same as shearing and butchering. And all this was done  alongside basket making, weaving, animal husbandry, collecting  eggs and nuts and berries, preserving food by salting and smoking, digging ditches to protect the fields from flooding, and of course collecting wood to repair their own houses and tools and keep them warm in the winter. No electricity, no glass in the windows of their one roomed huts or cruck houses, where everyone, including the animals, slept together around a central fire in the winter both for warmth and as protection from the wild animals that roamed the fields at night. No wonder life was short and brutish. No wonder more babies died than lived. 

Of course I won't put all of this into my book because there is nothing more boring than reading too much detail about a particular activity, so the skill of the writer is to give just enough to inform and not a single word more.However, for realism, I'm going to have to convey the poverty and dirt of those times while somehow making the medieval protagonists attractive enough to intrigue the modern day reader. I've also got to come up with a title. The first two books in the trilogy are Remembering Rose and Loving Ellen, so to go with the flow I need to find something short that goes with Sophie, the heroine. I'm still working on that but when I've found it, I'll let you know.