The Home

It's not a Home - a Home is a house with a future.

I wrote this piece maybe twenty years ago and for me, it still stands as one of the finest things I've written. After seeing a documentary about the lives of a group of elderly folk confined to a home, and knowing a few people who had spent time working in that environment, I taped an interview with my Nan - a hugely important figure in my life. This was in the mid '90's, a long time before the scandals in the press about care homes, amid deep concerns about institutionalisation, Government and care-worker's attitudes to the elderly, and a long time before any of these things were actually to affect my own family directly. 

First published in an edition of 'SILT', it's never really found a space of its own, but I've always felt it deserves it. Maybe someday soon... It's about many, many things, but rather than trying to explain it, I would like you to read it. That's what it was written for - you'll make your own connections, and hopefully find your own resonances.  - D.