She loved that couch. She was so excited the day it was delivered, she made the people who delivered it a curry. She was a very hospitable woman. It was so ridiculous to have such a big sofa and then no one could sit next to her because it was so hazardous. It was like a huge throne. It became her home really, even within the house. That was her territory. Unfortunately, as she got older, it became more and more a challenging environment. She was so addicted to newspapers. She'd get The Times every day and The Mail twice a week and you really had to fight to get any of it away from the sofa. There'd be mountains of old papers, snacks she'd forgotten about, and she was always losing her glasses so it was the most hazardous spot you could imagine.
Sometimes I had to really be very assertive and just go and chuck stuff when she wasn't looking. I actually wrote a poem about her on her couch.
Mum’s Newspaper Nest
Mum, 89
hatches headlines on her newspaper nest on the sofa.
It’s a stand-off when I try and clear away a few.
She wants to keep current with last year’s colour supplements.
I get an earful and silently scream on the loo.
Neither of us have the patience to be patients
or the parenting skills to parent the other,
We’re jumbled up now between child and mother.
What's worse: during lockdown we found out there was a rat living in the back of it! She lived in a barn so it was easy to attract rodents. She was a very proud woman —she used to be a teacher—so she would tell you how things should be. If you took away her old newspapers she got really angry. Mum was obsessed that she was going to lose awareness of what was going on. So for her the news was a real security blanket. Thankfully, even during the pandemic, we found some really intelligent rat experts who got rid of the rats. But oh God, it was the worst thing to think: your mum sitting on a sofa and there's a rat running around in it.
Lockdown was hard. Mum was a very outgoing person; she loved to have an audience, going back to when she was a teacher, I think. She got a real kick out of talking to different people. It was a huge fun for her. She had just started going to a day centre but it shut up shop as soon as Lockdown started and she got very lonely. People would ring her, and brought round a cake a couple of times, but it won’t the same.
But I also started writing more, and because of the pandemic, I could take part in poetry sessions from, like, Beirut to New Zealand. It was quite incredible. It completely changed my mindset. It started as a sort of therapy. A friend had just died, mum was ill, I wanted to process the sadness. I did it in dribs and drabs. I found it could be very therapeutic.
She spent the final two months in hospital, which is not a nice place for old people. Or anyone really. But we made a good thing out of it, and we had a little party. One of her favourite pupils came and showed her her old sketchbooks, to remind mum of what a good teacher she'd been. It was really quite moving, and I was so happy we managed to fit it in before she passed.
It was actually quite a challenge finding a photo of the couch. I got stressed just at the sight of it! It was just insane, because you just want people to be hygienic and not in danger. But my mum would always say, "Oh, I was a school health and safety executive so I know what I'm talking about!" I would think, no you do not! But that's the thing about being a carer, you have to let things go sometimes.