BARD IN BED PART ONE
I recently spent some time in hospital following what used to be referred to in the Rhondda where I spent my childhood as ‘a nasty turn’. In the early days of my return home when I finally left hospital, my husband explained to friends and family on the telephone that he now had 9,750 jobs to do each day, (9,655 of which were associated with his patient, she used to be his wife but the ‘nasty turn’ had robbed her, temporarily of course, of her fairly prolific “get up and go”.) It had gone. I was turning, fast into Elizabeth Barratt Browning. But in the joyful company of cats not small dogs. He, husband that is, also, when answering the many questions about my progress on the phone from 24 CARDIFF TIMES
by Sara John
well-wishers, was always truthful and often reminded me of going shopping, when I was little, years ago, with my mother who would be questioned, if not interrogated, by neighbours, about my grandparents and their health troubles. The neighbours would want an assessment which could then be passed on to another neighbour who would label it as ‘the honest truth’. A primitive form of currency with considerable exchange value in a community where information was deemed very valuable. I was reminded of the vocabulary used then, when ‘Wenglish’ was the local patois, but it was not encouraged as a way of communicating for small children in my infants school! A subject, which still fascinates me, for another time I think, when we can do it justice.
