Today’s poem has been chosen and introduced by Director of Sixth Form and Teacher of English, Mrs Banks.

This poem is by a Northumbrian writer, Alison Pryde, who has one slender volume of poetry to her name. Here she writes about the experience of caring for her mother, who was suffering from dementia and could no longer recognise her. The pathos of this situation is conveyed with concrete details (that discarded lunch, those custard creams) and scraps of direct speech. The speaker is slightly distanced, and the emotion is beneath the surface – this is a daily experience after all. There is affection too as she notes the “faded, muddled eyes” of her mother, and dark humour blended with sadness in the wonderful closing image of her mother calling home “dead dogs.”

This is not a famous poem, nor even a great one, but it captures and conveys what is both a personal experience and one which is familiar to so many people who are caring for elderly and distracted relatives. Of course, with any poem, the reader’s own experience will shape their response to what they read. The imaginative leaps we make when we read can lead us to greater understanding and empathy – or sometimes, there is a sense of recognition and a feeling that we are not alone. Last week, Mr Galloway mentioned a play called The History Boys and one of its main characters, an English teacher called Hector. Hector argues that the best moments of reading come with these moments of recognition, when “it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

I only half apologise for a gloomy poem at a gloomy time and dedicate it to those “faded, muddled” old people, who are more isolated than ever at the moment, and in particular to all of those who care for them.

‘Have we Had Easter yet?’