“This is stunning. Memoir is such a fascinating genre isn’t it? And you write it brilliantly.”
Clover Stroud – author of four memoirs including the Sunday Times Bestseller, The Giant on the Skyline
Hi friends,
Welcome along if you’re new here; it’s so lovely to have you. On Wednesdays, I release a new audio episode of my memoir, Held in Mind. These episodes are usually behind the paywall, but it’s Carers’ Week here in the UK and while I have MANY an opinion on how we ‘celebrate’ the (mostly) unpaid labour of (mostly) midlife women for one week in the year, I also understand that we need to take up as much space as possible while more eyes and minds are on us.
So, in that spirit, today’s episode is free. As will be Sunday’s practical words on the conversations you (yes, you!) should be having with your loved ones as soon as possible. This post is called The Carers’ Cribsheet and is stuffed with practical advice I wish I’d known a long time ago. You might like to bookmark it or share it with your loved ones.
Today’s episode is one that can be listened to on its own, if you like, as it’s a vignette from COVID times when caring for my mother and her partner was made so much more difficult.
You might fancy, however, heading back to the beginning of this epic, intergenerational tale of mothers, daughters and the impact of caring. As I type this on Tuesday morning, I’m on a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, passing through Falkirk where my grandmother – Helen in the letters – grew up. It’s a funny thing, repeating the journeys she and my grandfather made across the central belt in the six months between meeting and their marriage in June 1946. They were desperate to put the horrors of the previous six years behind them and start afresh. Would do whatever they could to steal some hours together while she worked in service on the west coast and he awaited his demob from the Navy on the east.
It’s quite the romance: one that in this week’s episode finds Helen reporting to 21-year-old Tom that he’s written 377 pages to her already, and it’s only mid-April. She had racked up even more by this point.
I know, because I transcribed them all.
If you’re catching up…
head on over to this post for every episode so far. We’ve entered binge-worthy territory and I love hearing from listeners at all stages of their listening journey:
In this episode…
15th April 1946
Helen’s concerned that Tom’s opinion of her may be changed by the events of their recent weekend together, and reveals the extent of her health anxiety to him.
7th October 2020
Lindsay takes her mum to an out-patient’s appointment to remove a pre-cancerous lesion on her forehead, which prompts the onset of another depressive episode. She struggles to keep her own rage in check when they arrive back at Auchengate at the end of a long day and worries that despite her protestations, perhaps standing in that same kitchen, she is just like her grandmother?
“Back in the car, she tilts her head towards me and I see her forehead properly for the first time. It’s a shocking sight. Interweaving paths of black stitches crisscross the left side of her forehead before disappearing into the thicket of hair at her temples. Dark, dried blood congeals at tied-off crossroads. The landscape is pink. Swollen. Angry. Her left eye droops; fails to open more than a slit. No gauze? Nothing to protect this fresh wound from the elements?
“I never thought they’d take as much - ”
“Did you get a bit of a shock when you saw the wound, Mum? Did you? When the nurse showed you in the mirror? Look – don’t touch it - ” I reach for the fingers that have nervously migrated to those black stitches and encourage them back into her lap. I need to keep my voice calm. Make her believe that I had expected this much trauma, too. After all these years, finally, there’s something we can point at. Put our fingers on. Something others can see is most definitely wrong with her head, I think to myself.”
And I’ll be back with you on Sunday with The Carers’ Cribsheet.
Lindsay x
Episode Twenty Seven: Surgery