Originally broadcast on: http://radiosoapbox.com Radio Soapbox
Women's Hour broadcasts live every Sunday at 7:00p.m. uk time.
In this heartfelt episode of Women's Hour, host Shelley Tasker is joined by co-host Jo Wood and later, Tracy Barnes, for a candid discussion about the passage of time and personal reflections. Shelley and Jo reminisce about the year gone by, sharing personal stories including a touching tribute to Shelley's late grandmother. The conversation takes a light-hearted turn as they discuss the peculiarities of keeping ashes and the cultural differences in mourning practices.
Jo introduces the historical figure Rosa Parks, shedding light on her pivotal role in the civil rights movement and dispelling common misconceptions about her story. The discussion highlights the importance of remembering influential women in history.
In the second half, Shelley and Tracy discuss the emotional closure of their care home, sharing the challenges and emotional toll it has taken on them. They reflect on the bonds formed with residents and staff, and the bittersweet nature of moving on. The episode closes with a commitment to new beginnings and the importance of cherishing memories and friendships formed along the way.
[00:00:58]
Unknown:
Good evening to all the beautiful women out there and the occasional gentlemen listening in. I know they do. You are listening to Women's Hour coming live from Radio Soapbox dotcom. Also, streaming live via Rumble. If you want to join in, leave in any comments, join in the chat, please do so. My Rumble channel is just Shelley Tasker. So today's date, Sunday, 8th December 2024, and I'm joined by co host, miss young Jo Wood for the first half and the lovely Tracy Barnes for part 2. Good evening, miss young Jo Wood.
[00:01:35] Unknown:
Good evening, miss Shelly Tasker.
[00:01:38] Unknown:
How are you doing, my lovely?
[00:01:41] Unknown:
I'm I'm doing okay. Tired, but I think, you know, accumulation of work in another projects. And it's the end of the year. And when you said the 8th December, I was like, oh, lordy lordy. Where has the year gone?
[00:02:02] Unknown:
I know. It only seems like yesterday. You know, when you start the new year and you've got to start writing out, like, 2024, and you're always Yes. Still doing the last year. Well, I've only now got used to 2024, and it seems like 2025.
[00:02:17] Unknown:
I know. It's it's crazy. And although I know that I have been busy, you know, doing whatever this year, I have a horrible sort of feeling that I just haven't done enough. You know, almost like I could have packed more in, but I guess it goes to that saying, you know, if you want a job done, give it to a busy person because it'll get done. But and then that busy person moans, which is me. But, yeah, I'm okay, but I'm exhausted.
[00:02:53] Unknown:
Oh, bless you. Yeah. There is something to be said though for being busy, isn't it? I mean, I'm I'm loving life at the moment. I'm still bouncing, and part of me thinks, oh, god. You've been bouncing for so long now, Shelley. When are you gonna fall? You know? No. Wow. I don't know. It's scary because I don't think I've been this content and happy for so long, which is lovely. But, you know, we're all gonna have our good days and our bad days, but, yeah, being busy is key. It keeps that mind out of trouble. Yeah.
So so, yes, this this week, and I do feel that I need to bring it up because I did mention it to you. We did speak on the phone the other day, but on Monday, it would have been my nan's 100th birthday, and we all met at the cemetery and scattered her ashes on her grave with her husband, all laid Rose, and it was lovely. And we all sang happy birthday to her. Crazy. And my dear cousin yeah. She's gotta be coming on for 60 now. Bless her. She's got a learning difficulty. She stood there, and we turned around, and she had her hands together, and she was praying, and she said, dear Nan, I hope you've settled in up there with papa. Oh, it was so lovely.
So So nice. Yes. Excuse me. So that was the start of my week. And I, you know, kept saying I wanted a bit of Nan, and I forgot to take some of the Ashes. And my mum said, well, look. I've got a bag here. So I scooped a handful up, and I carried her home. So I've now got a little bag with bits of my nana in in my bedside drawer, which is a bit weird. But, hey ho, that you know, you've got your dead cat in your wardrobe. So
[00:04:45] Unknown:
What let me just state for the record. I'm I am a crazy cat lady, but I'm not that far gone yet. The reason I have the dead cat's ashes in my shoe wardrobe is because I actually wanted to have the cat stuffed. Oh my god. And so, I mean, at that point in time, I was working for a corporation of vets. So it would have been quite easy for me to arrange to have that done. But everybody that I said it to, they were like, no. You can't do that. That's morbid. And I really I really cannot get my head around the fact of how that would be morbid. It's like, well, no. It isn't. Because then, you know, he's always with us as opposed to now being in a little box of ashes along with my shoes. And although that is a second best, and I have no problem with that, you know, I would have stuffed in a glass cabinet somewhere. But when you told me about your nan, I was just, like, I just think that is the most normal thing ever. You know, I have laughed and joked well, not so much with my mother, but I've joked with my mother and father that, you know, when their time comes, they will be in a pot somewhere.
I mean, and I'll give them the choice whether they wanna be with the cat in the wardrobe or I can put them some you know? But I I I'm not I'm not getting rid of them, and my mom is not happy with that idea. So when you told me about your nan, I'm like, no. I think that's the most normal thing in the world, to be honest. I I I just think it's very normal.
[00:06:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I'm just going, morning, nan. I don't know if I might have them made into a piece of jewelry or something like that. I know people get them, like you know, they can tattoo you now with ashes, camping, stuff like that, but I don't do tattoos. So Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, my nan would laugh, and I am morbid. I am. I can't help it. I like all things like that. But when we were chatting the other night, it was like, well, not only is that my nan, that's also my great nan as well because she's obviously got bits of her mum's DNA in with her as well. Yes.
So, yeah, food for thought.
[00:07:20] Unknown:
Oh, you have a whole sandwich bag full of DNA.
[00:07:27] Unknown:
Oh, bless her. Bless her heart. I love you.
[00:07:30] Unknown:
Buy a nice little pot and and put the bag in the pot. Don't tip the ashes out so they're loose. Keep them in the bag, but get a nice little pot.
[00:07:41] Unknown:
Yeah. That's Jo's handy tip for the week. Don't use a shoe box, be careful how you tip them out. Yeah. I'll do something, I mean there's enough, I thought I might buy a special little pot and give them to my daughter for a Christmas present. Oh, but What? No. Because she would she would love that. She'd say, what is this mum? And I'd be like, open it really carefully. It's nan.
[00:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I'd let the children play with that box.
[00:08:14] Unknown:
Oh, wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff. But it happens to each of us, and it is that we came from the ground. We go to the ground.
[00:08:22] Unknown:
So Yep. Well, you know, maybe not in my parents' case because they'd be in the wardrobe somewhere, but, you know, hey ho. Well, have you seen I saw it a few years ago. There was a guy. It was on Facebook.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
He'd actually he was at his funeral, and they just had him sat there. He wasn't in the coffin or anything.
[00:08:44] Unknown:
Well, I think I did. Was it in some crazy place like Bolivia or Spain or Somewhere like that.
[00:08:53] Unknown:
And there's another part of the world where they, like, lay their loved ones to rest, and every year, like, they bring them out and have photos taken with them and stuff.
[00:09:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I think that's, like, again, that crazy part of the world. I know. I mean and it's not like just they do it, you know, relatively soon after, like, you know, a year's anniversary or 2. I mean, these people are, like, doing it for decades. Yeah. So every year, they're out of the ground, and they're even more decomposed, but they're dressing them up and they're putting fags in their mouths and beards in their heads.
[00:09:31] Unknown:
It is do you know it's I won't be No. It is something I wish I did. I wish I did take a photo of my nan when she passed. Oh, god knows why. And I joked to my daughter on the day of the funeral. I said, you know, well, I went to see her. She looked lovely, and Maddie just joked, and she said, did she get a photo? And I said, well, I did get a selfie with her, but I don't think I should send it. And she was like, you never. You never. And I said, do you want me to send it to you? She's like, go on then. Send it to me. And I was like, I'm only joking. I would have done it, but I just thought that was a bit too disrespectful.
But I've got a bit of a Your mum would have laughed. She probably would have laughed. Yeah.
[00:10:11] Unknown:
Yeah. But as I speak to your nan, I always think of her when you did that little video about, you know, your your cleaning rates had gone up, and she was going, well, you know, you you you better give me some proper cleaning or some proper invoice here, because I'm not just giving you any old money. I always think
[00:10:29] Unknown:
and she was so tongue in cheek when she was saying it. Oh, she was good to wind up telling her that it costs, like, £6 for a birthday card, and she was like, never. Bless her. Grateful to have all those memories, and how many people can say that they've got their nan in their life all their life. You know? I'm 47, and she's always been there, but alas, you can't live forever.
[00:10:53] Unknown:
Not yet. Not yet.
[00:10:57] Unknown:
So I sorry. Carry on. Oh, no. No. I I was just saying I'm sure they will, but you go on. Go. No. I don't know what I was gonna say now. Well, I was just gonna go on, our our different part of the show. We because we've decided we're gonna, like, do historical women and what have you. So do you wanna go first? Yeah. Have you done your homework? Have you found a a woman?
[00:11:22] Unknown:
I have. But wouldn't it be awful if we've picked the same one? Because we haven't really discussed it. And I thought about this earlier whilst I was dealing with the little darlings and I was like, oh my gosh. It'd just be so typical you've got the same one as me. Well, my lady this evening is Rosa Parks.
[00:11:43] Unknown:
Oh, I've never heard of her.
[00:11:46] Unknown:
Oh, you must have done. She was the colored lady on the bus back in the fifties that had to well, she didn't. It was clearly, you've not heard of her, so I'll I'll just go off to the Yeah. Go for it for the listeners. They're not gonna know anyway. Well, some of them might. Yeah. So Rosa Parks was born in 1913 in Alabama, Tennessee. And she is famous for I think I think her nickname, quite a time after this incident that I'll explain to you in a minute. Her nickname was, and I love this, the mother mother of freedom fighters, I think they called her. Yeah. The mother of freedom fighters, which is just absolutely epic, isn't it? I'd love to have a name like that, but, you know, it's already been taken.
Anyway, she was born in 1913. And, obviously, back in Alabama, it was very much sort of the Ku Klux Klan territory. Blacks and whites totally segregated. Blacks were like literally something you had trodden in. So she didn't go to school. Obviously, she was home schooled. She, sort of worked on the farm with her mom and dad and grandmother picking cotton. And then in 1920 4, she attended a school, a black school, in Alabama. So she was there from 24 1924 to 1929, and she left in 1929 to care for her grandmother who was ill. So she had sort of, you know, nursed her until she was sick. Don't think she kept any of her ashes. Don't think they did that back then.
And she was caring for her grandmother. She also got a little part time job, that's when she sort of really had the full force of white supremacy forced upon her. She was a housekeeper for a white family, and the white neighbor had raped her. So that was her introduction to you will just be somebody that, you know, I use for my pleasure or you will basically get used and abused in whatever shape or form, you know, a white man dictates. So, you know, she obviously carried on sort of doing the job. She encountered a man called Raymond Parks, who was one of the first activists of that time.
A year later, she marries him. She returned to school in 1933. So don't forget, she left to in 1929 to nurse her grandmother. She then went back to school in 1933 to obtain what the Americans would call a high school diploma. And she was, like, one of the very, very few. Literally, you could count along one hand of black people that held a degree. Obviously, that would have pissed white people off big time. So she got back. She was married. She then started to work on an air force base in 1941, and she managed to have a integrated cafeteria.
So although in the outside world, it was still segregated, blacks and whites, within the air force base, she had managed to sort of introduce, not permission, but, you know, introduce normality that it was okay to have people around of a different skin color. So she was there in 19 NAACP. And, basically, it was sort of a black freedom movement. And they would sort of speak up about injustices to black people. They would investigate crimes on behalf of black people. They would investigate murders and police brutality. She did attempt to vote when she was of voting age, but god bless them, they told her after she'd gone back to school and got herself a degree, they told her that she failed her literacy test that was required for black voters.
Can you believe that? Crazy. Absolutely crazy. She came across a woman called Reki Taylor who had been gang raped by 6 white men. So the the NAACP had taken on this case and they had asked Rosa Parks to investigate and do some research which she did. She managed to bring it into court. However, the assailants never got charged. Although within, sort of, the town of Montgomery, they were well known for they were the ones that had done it. So she was already making quite a name for herself. What else did she do? Around 1949, she left the NAACP, this time to care for her mother.
And it was around 1955 while she had gone out to work. So she's married. She's working. She's now caring for her mother. So in 1955, she was coming back from work. I think she was like a seamstress in a factory. She She had a bad day, you know, very tired, didn't wanna walk home because back then everything was segregated. You had to eat in a different area. You had to go to the bathroom in a different area. If you were taking public transport, you had to sit at the back of the bus, you couldn't sit at the front with the white people. And she always tried to avoid that, but on this occasion walking home from work she decided to get the bus. She got on the bus, she played by the rules, she went to the back of the bus, and she sat down. And by this time she was about 19 sorry, not 19 42. She was 42 years of age in 1955.
So, you know, she sat at the back of the bus. It went on a couple of stops. It was getting busy. And back then, there was a rule that if there were no seats on the bus when the next white person got on, the bus driver would ask a black person to give up their seat. Well, this happened. 3 white people got on and there was 3 black people sitting at the back of the bus. Rosa was one of them. 2 black ladies got up and stood and the white men took the seats, but Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up. Of course, all hell broke loose. The bus driver reported to her, threw her off the bus, like miles from her own bus stop, and she got arrested. Police the bus driver called the police on her, and she got arrested, and she was charged.
How bad is that? Just simply because she wouldn't give up her seat. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that have heard about Rosa Parks think that she was just like a 10, 11 year old when this happened, and she didn't give up her seat. It's a misconception that she was, a young girl. She wasn't. She was a 42 year old woman. 9 months before that incident happened in 1955, a 15 year old called Claudette Colvin had the same happen to her, and they arrested a 15 year old because she refused to give up her seat to a white person. So there there's a misconception.
Rosa Parks was 42. 9 months before that, a 15 year old got arrested for the same thing. So, anyway, time went on. She got arrested. She got charged. I think back then, they fined her $10 plus, like, $4 in court fines. In 1956, she got let go of her job so she had a bit of time on her hands and this is when she ran into Martin Luther King, who was a good 20 years younger than her. And she joined forces with him, and she joined the civil rights movement. And she was quite instrumental to, Martin Luther King and that fight there. And she lived until she was I think it was near enough your brand's age. I think she lived till she was, like, 94, maybe 90 6, but she was really instrumental in the civil rights act and earned the title of the mother of the freedom movement, which I thought was really, really apt for everything that she had gone through.
[00:23:03] Unknown:
Oh, lovely. Excuse me. So she was called Rosa
[00:23:09] Unknown:
Parks as a walk in the park Parks.
[00:23:13] Unknown:
Rosa Parks. Right. I must try and remember that. Wow. I can remember watching a documentary about the whole freedom riders, about all the black people getting on the bus and stuff before they were even allowed on the bus, and I watched a documentary about it. It was just, just awful. They were such awful times. You could I can't imagine it. I don't like watching anymore those films about race, so to speak, because some of them have been, well, they've been horrendous, aren't they? The whole Ku Klux Klan and things like that. We've come a long way.
[00:23:47] Unknown:
She wrote a biography. She said that she remembered standing on her grandfather and grandmother's porch, standing behind her grandfather who had a shotgun in his hand because the Ku Klux Klan were marching down their street pulling black people out of their houses to burn.
[00:24:10] Unknown:
And that's you know, is that what? Even a 100 years ago?
[00:24:14] Unknown:
No. This was this was back in, it started back in 19 let me find it. 1940 41. Right. Gosh. Well, in in in in actual fact, I would say sort of the the the whole segregation probably started around 1908. And I remember I remember going to America back in 1982. And for some reason, I don't even know how. I can't remember. But some reason, I ended up in Pensacola. Let me just say, I wasn't traveling alone. I was traveling with my parents. I was a child. Now Pensacola is known as the Bible Belt, and that kind of stretches up from Florida to the left of Florida, which is Pensacola, all the way up to Pennsylvania.
That's renowned for being the Bible Belt. And I remember in 1982, in the airport, going to the bathroom, looking at two signs going white females and black females, and that was in 1982. I think shortly after that, they outlawed that rule, but Pensacola was one of the last states to keep that segregation in public places.
[00:25:54] Unknown:
Wow, and you remember that? It's, yeah, yeah, and I mean interestingly I think in Cornwall now we see a lot more well we see cultural different ethnics everywhere don't we? But I mean when I was a child one of my dad's friends knocked on the door, and he was, of mixed race, let's say mixed race. And I'd never seen anyone mixed race in real life before, and I went running down the hall and said, daddy, daddy, there's an Indian at the door. But we're we're much more used to seeing it now. But, yeah. Oh, well well done, Jo. That's a good one to come up with. I think over the forthcoming weeks, months, what have you, we'll, bring some great women to light because there's so many out there that have been forgotten about.
[00:26:44] Unknown:
There is. There is. It's amazing, really. You know, they they there's a saying, isn't there behind every great man is a great woman. And I really think that's true. I think, you know, I'm not just saying this because I am not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. I'm really not. But I really think women are the fore founders and leaders behind most great things in history. There may be men fronting it, and they may be men carrying it forward. But I will guarantee you, in in some shape or form, a woman would have been instrumental in supporting or pushing that male forward to to carry that fight into the public domain.
I guarantee it. Definitely. Definitely.
[00:27:36] Unknown:
Oh, I liked that. I do like a bit of history. And when we've gotta do this each week, like, come up with a person, it makes you you know, it doesn't take long, does it? Just to look up something and find out about someone, and you just feel like, oh, I feel a bit more educated. Well, thanks for that. Yeah. No. That was a really good one.
[00:27:54] Unknown:
Yeah. I always thought Rosa Parks was a little girl on the bus, but, no. She was 42. Yeah. And Colvin was the little girl. So it's funny sort of, you know, how history can get blurred in between what's factually correct and what isn't. Oh, isn't it funny?
[00:28:15] Unknown:
I think a lot of our history has been, totally Yes. Recorded wrong. Well, his story his story, isn't it, basically? But we've been lied to. It's been messed about with. Half the time you're like, is that true? Is that true? You know?
[00:28:32] Unknown:
There I I it was it was last week. I can't remember what state in in America. I think it may be Philadelphia. Not quite sure. But the school and the governor of that state had made state legislation that all books within state schools, anything that was before 2,008, they have eradicated from the school library.
[00:29:08] Unknown:
And how many of these older books as well have they destroyed? You know, I don't know if you've heard of, like, Jason RK, Jason Brashear, and when he was in prison a long time ago, he found all of these old books, and some of these books you can buy on Ebay for, like, ridiculous money, but you think ever since the day of books, where have they all gone to?
[00:29:29] Unknown:
So Yeah.
[00:29:30] Unknown:
Food for full. Exactly. Well It is. Well, with that, we will leave it there, Jo. It's been, a quick half an hour as always, and, thank you for that. That was good. That was really good. Oh, nice. Lovely. Right. Well, I'm gonna play a little Christmas song, and then after the break yeah. Dare I? I know. No hymn this week. No hymn Christmas song. I didn't I was looking at Christmas hymns, and I just left it too late. I was listening to them. I was thinking that's too long. That's you want something everybody knows. And, anyway, I've just chosen a bit of Frank Sinatra. Anyway, Jo, we'll speak to you the same time next week, my lovely. Enjoy your last half an hour at work.
Thanks. Thanks, my lovely. Thanks for your input. Take care. Bye. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Right. And with that, we shall play a quick Christmas song, and then I will be back, and we'll get Tracy Barnes on.
[00:30:34] Unknown:
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. Since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. It doesn't show signs of stopping, and I brought some corn for papa. Lights have turned down low. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. When we finally kiss good night, I'll hate going out in the storm. But if you'll really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm. The fire is slowly dying, and my dear, we're still good fire. As long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Weather outside is frightful, but that fire is delightful.
Since we have no place to go, let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. It does show signs of stopping, and I brought lots of corn for popping. The lights are way down low, so let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. When we finally say good night, I'll hate going out in the storm. But if you will only hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm. The fire is slowly dying, and my fear will still goodbye. Long as you love me so, let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.
[00:33:03] Unknown:
Lovely. Lovely. Right. Let's get Tracy on the line. Tracy, friend of the show, been on the show a few times. No doubt we're gonna talk to her about the care home industries and, hopefully, the the bill of assisted dying. Right. Let's get Tracy on, and we have done a test today. It was working a couple of hours ago. Come on. It's gonna work. It's gonna start ding ding ding ding ding. It's blue. It's blue. Okay. She says she's ready. I'm trying to phone her. I'm I'm trying to phone her. Hang on. It says you're unavailable, Tracey. Gosh. I'm gonna say call me.
Right. Just hello. Right. Good evening, miss Tracey Barnes. Hello. Woo hoo. It works. Is it working today? It's working. Hallelujah. Yeah. You're not messing up the show this week, mate. Yay. It's alright because fortunately, Maleficus was listening in last week, because he was the one saying I can't hear she can't hear you or what have you. And I was like, right, Maleficos. He always wanted to be on women's hour, so never mind. Anyway, how are you, Maleficos?
[00:34:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Alright.
[00:34:32] Unknown:
Alright. Right. Let's update the audience. A bit deflated. Yeah. Both Tracy and I work in the same care home. Tracy is a senior, and our care home is set to close with no more residents. Right. Go with the close. Resident when
[00:34:50] Unknown:
when? Friday. Last Friday. Yeah. Yeah. And it yeah. Yeah. It I don't know. It didn't feel how I thought it would feel, I think. I it just felt very nothingness and very meh. Right. And I don't know what I was thinking it was gonna be like.
[00:35:09] Unknown:
I know you've really suffered. I know because you've, like, messaged me a lot of in tears and so and so is going tomorrow. I'm quite an emotional person. Yeah.
[00:35:21] Unknown:
As a per as a person, I'm quite empathetic. Well, those are those sometimes it might not seem that way with things I say and stuff with, like, my personality and how I joke and stuff, but I I am quite empathetic, and I do feel things quite a lot. Mhmm. And I struggled a lot with this. I think it it has broken me a little big bit. Well, I know you said at one point you thought it was worse than COVID and COVID It was it was for me. And I mean, I know I I, you know, I suffered with that quite a lot, like, past everything that happened and what we went through, probably a little bit of PTSD sort of stuff going on, but I found emotional emotionally wise, this was harder.
Yeah. A lot harder because I you blame yourself a little bit. So, you know, to put into, context for people, we had a gentleman who's upstairs, moved him down, and he deteriorated very quickly due to the move, not being able to cope with the differences in the change of where, you know, that they're surrounding and things like that, surroundings and stuff, and I think I took that very hard on myself because I was the one that did that. Yeah. But you had to. And I and I felt very guilty about that I think and, and just, you know, knowing that actually, you know, for a lot of these guys moving them probably wasn't gonna be a great outcome for some of them, obviously, it wasn't, you know, as we know, a great outcome for some.
And when you work in this sort of industry and care and all, all you're striving to do every day in your job is to create good outcomes for these people so that they have a dignified and and good life with what they've got. Do you know what I mean? And when you know that that's not happening and it's not gonna happen, it it does get you, I think, quite a lot.
[00:37:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, we've had to watch, haven't we? People struggle to find find a new home, and, you know, and I'm sure what when they found their home where we're at, they thought that was their forever home.
[00:37:56] Unknown:
And Well, you know, I I thought that that would be my forever work, to be honest. I could have quite easily seen myself just stay in there and retire in there. Do you know what I mean? Definitely. It's the first time I've ever had a proper job and a proper proper work family. Probably say yeah. And people probably say it a lot, but I do think it was special there. No. It was special. And You know, I've worked in a few, places, and none of them were as special as this place to me. And I think it's because and and I've said it to you before, we kind of met our people.
We certainly did. We certainly did. Do you know what I mean? Like, when you work with people, sometimes you just gel and I think the team as a whole, we just gel so well, like, everybody was as mad as a box of frogs and as mad as each other. We could just be ourselves. Nobody was judging anybody, you know, people were allowed to be their own personalities. Nobody was sort of stopped from being who they are and I think that was really important and it it it it made the team really special.
[00:39:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, they'll never forget you, Tracey, those residents. What color hair has she got today? What crazy spectacles You know, I had a lovely card,
[00:39:15] Unknown:
given to me actually by one of the family members, and it just said in there, coming in every day and just, you know, seeing the staff and, you know, seeing, like, people with the different hair colors and just everyone's personalities. They said that it made it for them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's what made it special for them, and I think that's what it was. We had, you know, as a team, it and it was like you said, it was more like a little family, really.
[00:39:40] Unknown:
Well, you get to not not just become affectionate towards your residents. You can't help it, but you get connected with their loved ones as well when they come in regularly, and I think they look forward to seeing you as you as much as you look forward to seeing them,
[00:39:55] Unknown:
you know. And and staff as well. You know, you get you you get friendships that you will take with you now till the end. Do you know what I mean? I hope so. It's it's special. Yeah.
[00:40:07] Unknown:
You know? And I think to think a year ago over a year ago, we took on 2 new whole teams, and there was a lot of hoo hoo about that because they were all, Indian and stuff. But actually, it wouldn't make sense. Oh my god. Yeah. They they are some of the most lovely guys I've ever met.
[00:40:27] Unknown:
Yeah. 100%. And work hard workers, you know, just and that they slotted into the team amazingly, and, yeah, it's just a shame that it it all ended how it did, really.
[00:40:43] Unknown:
Yeah. It's almost cruel because lots of those guys were put on over sponsorship, weren't they? And, I mean, fortunately, I think nearly all of them have found
[00:40:50] Unknown:
somewhere else to work. Yeah. And and, you know, it's like, you know, with with the residents and stuff, you know, our goal is to, within care, is, you know, to make things better for people and, you know, they've had these awful diagnosis and stuff and, you know, they're living with this illness. And we try and make it as as nice an environment for them as we can, and we always strive to sort of get people home. That's where you wanna be. Do you know what I mean? And I'm very much a big advocate for you know, I 100% believe we need care homes and nursing homes and stuff, but I am a big advocate for people being at home if that's where they can be.
[00:41:28] Unknown:
Yeah. But
[00:41:29] Unknown:
you don't wanna see people going like this. Do you know what I mean? We want to see people going to go to their own homes Yeah. It was and be in their own environment. It it this the going like this. And, you know, I'm not slating anybody, and I'm not trying to, you know, say bad things about any anybody or anything, but I think I do think the way it was done as a whole maybe wasn't the best way.
[00:42:00] Unknown:
How could you have made it better, though, if the home was closing? I think it's gonna be painful.
[00:42:05] Unknown:
I think it is gonna be painful. I think things should have been truthful with us maybe sooner.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
True.
[00:42:18] Unknown:
I think we could if if possible, it should have been tried to have been done maybe after Christmas. I think that's I think what we're all feeling a little bit and this is from talking to other people as well is we didn't get to say the goodbye we wanted to say. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we had that last Christmas with everybody, we could have just made it banging.
[00:42:44] Unknown:
Yeah. But I think we've done lots of things over the last few months since we've known Oh, yeah. Lots of things. They've had a good time.
[00:42:52] Unknown:
And Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, and, obviously, when it all first came out, you know, morale was really low, which is gonna be. Yeah. You're not gonna get away from that. But I do think the last few weeks, it's actually gone up again.
[00:43:08] Unknown:
Yeah. We we had a good day on Friday in there.
[00:43:12] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, there was a there was a shift a few day a few days before that, and it was such an a lovely shift, and everybody was just smiling like that one that last session we had with you.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Oh, that was brilliant. Big break. Oh, that was so good. And it I think everybody needed that that was on shift that day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it became part of the staff's thing, and it was nice to get all the staff and even the nurses in the hall to join along with singing with Shelley. And It was just so much fun, wouldn't it? Do you know what I mean? And just getting Everybody joining in and being nuts, which is what it was all about. Okay. I actually did sing along with Shelley on Friday.
[00:43:52] Unknown:
It was a bit weird. Yeah. I was told about that. They the staff loved it. I think it was just just going around and just being a bit nuts. Do you know what I mean? I think that's just what people need at the minute, and it is just
[00:44:06] Unknown:
I'm all for that. It's brilliant. We was upstairs in room 3, and, 2 of them were there doing all the paperwork, binning things up, and I just brought in the speaker and the machine and all and I started singing. Then we were dancing, they were singing. Then 2 of the lads came upstairs and then one of them, Inam, I think he said, oh, you sing Dream. That's my favorite song. So I sang that to them in the dining room, and it was a bit odd because you'd sing into 2 people. Yeah. Every time one of them would look at me, and then it's like, well, this is a bit awkward, isn't it? So we finished off with a bit of Mitty the lucha in the manager's office, and everyone had a go. And,
[00:44:46] Unknown:
no. It was good. It was good to leave there, and I think They love it, and it needs to be done. And I think that's what it is. I think the way I've I'm trying to look at it now, and I've been looking for the past sort of week or so, I've been getting my head around. Because I think it it is and it does take time to process it. Oh, definitely. Because it a lot has happened since that initial with shutting. A lot has happened, and it is really it's been really stressful. Really stressful. You know, I think it's been horrible for you guys and the care staff having to, you know, carry on as normal and deal and, you know, deal with the worrying about jobs and everything else.
But I think behind the scenes, what some people don't realize is, you know, we're having to forward and deal with phone calls daily from, you know, from upset family members, from social workers, from adult social care, and doing assessments, and that I struggled really hard with that because, obviously, due to GDPR and stuff, a lot of the times when we have these conversations, people are referred to by initials.
[00:45:55] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:45:56] Unknown:
And things like that. And I think I struggle with that the most because I was like, these are people, for fuck's sake, excuse my language. It was like, these are people women's hour. Gosh. Tracey. And but, yeah, I couldn't vent that. No. No. Because I had to remain professional throughout. I couldn't and I think that's probably why I was as as tearful as I was. I just found it not a dignified process.
[00:46:23] Unknown:
No. Well, somebody asked me, do you know something about and they gave me 2 initials, and I was like, well, who who on earth is that?
[00:46:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, sometimes they would get the initials wrong. But I had one one phone call, and it was like, can I speak right blah blah blah? And I was like, we haven't got anybody there with those initials, I'm afraid. Yes. You have. I want the information. I was like, I'm telling you now. I work here. We haven't. And it was and, yeah, and it was just it it was frustrating, and I just found it really undignified for them. But I understand about confidentiality and things like that, but I just do think, you know, these are people. They deserve to be treated like people, and I don't think that was always
[00:47:05] Unknown:
I think that whole GDPR whatever thing, I don't think that's always for better. You know? It's like stupid little things. Like, I used to get frustrated if I thought people were being given the wrong drinks, and it's like, well, let us have a name on the trolley of everybody with everybody's specifics. And it's like, oh, no. We're not allowed to do that. We can't have a name in case I I just think things like that are just over the top.
[00:47:31] Unknown:
Yeah. And it was but that yeah. That I mean, that frustrated and upset me, and I'm I'm very big on person centered care, treating, you know, treating these guys with dignity, respect. You know, I'm I'm I am quite a a stickler for that, so I did struggle with that side of it quite a lot.
[00:47:51] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:47:53] Unknown:
But I saw you on fry no. I think it was on Monday this week when a particular gentleman left. I can't remember the room number. Who should I say? Let's just say our farmer friend. Yeah. Yeah. When he left, there was about 8 members of staff all in a line when he was being wheeled out of his room. I know. It was lush. Yeah. Yeah. And I gave him a kiss, and I said, good luck. And he said to me, you keep up all the good work because we always talk about tractors and the farmers stuff. But
[00:48:26] Unknown:
yeah. He says, I went in his room that morning because he was wanted his breakfast. And he's, like, I'm going today. I was like, I know. And I said, Saturday, and he said, I'm gonna miss you, pinky. That's what he used to call me. Yeah. Oh, bless you. Yeah. It's yeah. It's just it was really sad. And I think, you know, when the last resident left, I don't know what I thought I was gonna feel like. I think a little bit, it was a I had a little bit of a sense of relief that it was done, and it was finished. But it there was also just this big kind of empty nothing.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I was just waiting for everybody to go in the end because, like, it was prolonged. Some of them was supposed to have gone a couple of weeks ago. And I I don't know I don't know if it was because I was so emotional. Yeah. You just want it done.
[00:49:22] Unknown:
Previously that I'd kind of pride myself dry, maybe.
[00:49:27] Unknown:
I don't know. I don't know. I've I felt like that at the start. Even like today, I've been tidying up my work bag, and I took my diary out. And like I said, I've never had a proper job before where I I'm kind of my own boss, so to speak, to do to do that. I have my own diary. I've never had that with a job. Anyway, I just binned it. I thought, Shelly, you save everything. I don't need a diary to remind me where I worked for 1 year. 1 year where I was contracted and had sick pay and You know what I think is nice, though?
[00:49:56] Unknown:
I do think with the group of us that there is, I do think we will because I I mean, I can be a right annoying cow bag. You know that. And I will, like, I will annoy people by messaging them. Let's get some coffee. Let's do this. Let's do this. But I do think we like, we have made some friends there that we'll take with us now. Definitely. You, our chef friend. Do you know what I mean? Oh my god. I'll miss our chats. Like,
[00:50:23] Unknown:
I will miss our kitchen chats and some of the I will say some of the utter disgusting things that have been said too. I think it was last Tuesday that you guys had me urging, and I just had to leave. But I've never had that with workmates or anything before, and I love it. It's you know, Darren will say, how was work? I'll say, oh, so and so said this. We did this blah blah. And, our chef friend, god, I love him. I love all of them now. There's certain people you just like how much
[00:50:52] Unknown:
we all love him. I don't think he realizes how much we all love him.
[00:50:57] Unknown:
Well, he dug out his Christmas crackers on Friday, and on the lunch trolley, there was a cracker for us all when he was going around wearing a Christmas party hat.
[00:51:09] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's gonna be hard not seeing the people that, you know, we've seen for the last 3 years or whatever every day. Yeah. You know, I've seen some of these people more than I've spent time with my family probably. If you think about your work How many hours you're there? You know what I mean? It's just yeah. It's weird thinking that I'm gonna go somewhere else, and it's gonna be different faces.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
Yeah. And then you'll fit right in, and you'll love it. I think everyone know. I will, Tracy. You can fit in with anyone
[00:51:48] Unknown:
that's married. I'm not I'm not it's not I'm not I'm not worried about that side of it at all, really. But what what I struggle with is I've you create bonds, don't you? Mhmm. And I don't think I'll ever I won't have the friendships like I've got now.
[00:52:05] Unknown:
Well, we just gotta keep those ones alive, haven't we? We got that group chat and stuff. And like you say, there will be a few of us that we have to meet up.
[00:52:14] Unknown:
And I do think sometimes you go somewhere else within the same sort of setting, and you do think, oh, it's gonna be exactly like the last place. There's gonna be a Shelley. There's gonna be a chef. There's gonna be you know? And it it that's not the case. And I think that's that's where we struggle a little bit, isn't it? But, you know, and I do I you know, we we did have a special place there, and we had a special team, and we had special little relationships going on, I think, that were just these people get me.
[00:52:45] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can remember when I first picked up a bank shift there, the agency that I'm with, they said, oh, well, how about going such and such? And she said, everyone loves working there. And I said, oh, go on then. Put me down for a shift. And, yeah, it was. It was, yeah, brilliant from the offset.
[00:53:04] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think, you know, we were quite as a you know, like I say, I've worked in a few, and I'm not saying we didn't have any of it at all because, you know, everywhere you go, if there's a group of people working together, you're gonna get a little bit of bitching and a little bit of whatever. But it wasn't what I would say horrendous there at all. No. No. I've been in other places where it's been awful, and you've you've not wanted to go back. And I don't think we were like that at all. You know, I think as a team, I think, and at home, we were quite welcoming and, you know, anyone, you know, new agency wise, you know, people were always willing to help and show them what to do. And it was just it was just nice. It was just nice.
Yeah. Yeah. I never woke up thinking, oh god. I don't wanna go into work today, which I have done previously.
[00:54:00] Unknown:
I've never felt that. Well, I always look at you work, guys. It's like I'm not going to work just to see the residents. I'm going to see you, my little family, and see what everybody's been up to and just have our silly conversations about stuff.
[00:54:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And this is it. And, you know, I most mornings, I pick up if I'm on the same shift, our little chef friend, and we, you know, we have a right giggle in the car on the way in. And that kind of sets my day off then. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
[00:54:29] Unknown:
Yeah. No. And even the cleaners
[00:54:32] Unknown:
and what happened as well. I loved I loved I loved everybody. I obviously did love everybody, and I just everyone had their little place that they kind of slotted into, I think.
[00:54:44] Unknown:
You know? Yeah. Well, you've got new plans. You've got a new job sourced, haven't you?
[00:54:50] Unknown:
I have. I'm just waiting for everything, to be finalized with it, but I'll see how that goes and and, you know, it's very different to what I'm doing. Right. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. It still care, but it it is just, a different pace and a different level of what I've been doing. So we'll see how that goes. I'd like to do my level 5 at some point.
[00:55:17] Unknown:
Oh, what your MBQ? Yeah.
[00:55:20] Unknown:
And, because I've got my 4, but I thought if I get my 5 done, that's that out of the way. I'd like to try and keep my, venipuncture up to date and useful, but I don't think there's gonna be any need for that in what I'm gonna be doing, unfortunately.
[00:55:36] Unknown:
No. No. It's just a handy skill to have. Definitely. But then you can always recap if you can end up having to need that, can't you? You can do the training again. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I can go yeah. They they do, like, little top up sessions and things, you know. Yeah. But
[00:55:50] Unknown:
I'm quite excited to Yeah. It is. I am. And and I'm looking at it, like, I was saying to Scott the other night, I'm gonna look at it as a new beginning. Everything happens for a reason. That's how I've gotta look at it.
[00:56:05] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
[00:56:08] Unknown:
It's on to bigger and better things.
[00:56:11] Unknown:
Definitely. The world is calling for 2025.
[00:56:15] Unknown:
And I think that's that's how we've got to look at it, that, you know, we move forward. It's pointless looking back and going backwards. You just gotta keep going forwards, haven't you?
[00:56:25] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think knowing this the last couple of months, obviously, I I was upset for a few weeks because it's like, oh, but I think I also got drawn into the safety net of having that well, like, everybody needs a job, but that safety net that every month I get that wage. I get my holiday pay, sick pay, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And it's a risk And I think You know, when you do other things.
[00:56:45] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think that's it. I think what what was frightening me a lot was as well was getting to the end of because I I in my head, I always said, I don't care what happens. I'm staying till the end.
[00:56:57] Unknown:
You did say that?
[00:56:59] Unknown:
And that's just for me as a person. I wanted to stay right up to the end because, I just wanted to see through what I'd started.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
3 years ago. Do you know what I mean? And by that commitment as well, I think we'd be lucky because it looks like we'll get to have a couple of weeks off paid over Christmas.
[00:57:20] Unknown:
We deserve that. That'd be quite nice. 1st Christmas off for about 5 years. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's gonna be lovely. So, yeah, so that's that bit. Obviously, you know, we've got a sad occasion on 20th that we're gonna be attending. But
[00:57:35] Unknown:
Yes. Oh, dear dear client resident. Yeah. Was she 90?
[00:57:40] Unknown:
96? Something like that. Yeah. She was very well. She was a sweetie, but But, oh, she was the cutest little thing, wasn't she? She was. So so, yeah, so that's a bit of an honor, and I feel quite privileged.
[00:57:52] Unknown:
Yeah. Tracy's been asked to, yeah, to we we often ask to do that. Yeah.
[00:57:59] Unknown:
Well, you're doing it as well. So Yeah. But yeah.
[00:58:02] Unknown:
So it's you're gonna be crying and crying, and I'm gonna be like, don't look at Tracy. Don't look at Tracy.
[00:58:08] Unknown:
I do ugly cry. Proper Blair Witch is not out my nose and all sorts. Yeah. Yeah. All good. All good. But but yeah. So I've just been trying to kind of see the the silver
[00:58:21] Unknown:
lining in it all, really. Yeah. And what an honor to be thought of because I know the son Oh. Messaged me as well, and he said, oh, Tracy said that you're gonna do it with her. And I just said, yeah. Real honor.
[00:58:33] Unknown:
Yeah. 100%.
[00:58:34] Unknown:
Don't know that. You know, he would come in most day every other day to see his mom Yeah. Have a train ride, then a bus ride, and he loved coming in and spending time with us as well. He got to know us. And we love seeing him. You know what I mean? He was, you know,
[00:58:50] Unknown:
this is it. Like you said, it's you you get a rapport and a relationship with the families as well. It's not just the people that we're caring for, you know. So it does make it difficult.
[00:59:03] Unknown:
It does. It does. But, you know, 94 Gin's been helping. Sorry? Gin. Gin's been helping. Well, good. Good. Gotta have something. And without Tracy, I'm gonna have to say goodbye because half an hour is up, and it's the end of the show. But thank you, my lovely quickly. We still need to do another one about the assisted Don't we? We'll have you back on. You're, like, friend of the show every few weeks. I like it. We built up our routine. So, yeah, we'll we'll still have a date for that, definitely. Alright, my lovely look. You have a lovely evening, and thanks for your time and sharing your emotions. Thank you, and I will see you in a few days. Alright, my darling. You take care. Bye bye. You too. Bye. Bye bye. Well, there we are. Another week done and dusted. I don't think I've really got time to play the outro music for radio soapbox, so I will say have a great week, guys, and I will be back the same time next week.
Good evening to all the beautiful women out there and the occasional gentlemen listening in. I know they do. You are listening to Women's Hour coming live from Radio Soapbox dotcom. Also, streaming live via Rumble. If you want to join in, leave in any comments, join in the chat, please do so. My Rumble channel is just Shelley Tasker. So today's date, Sunday, 8th December 2024, and I'm joined by co host, miss young Jo Wood for the first half and the lovely Tracy Barnes for part 2. Good evening, miss young Jo Wood.
[00:01:35] Unknown:
Good evening, miss Shelly Tasker.
[00:01:38] Unknown:
How are you doing, my lovely?
[00:01:41] Unknown:
I'm I'm doing okay. Tired, but I think, you know, accumulation of work in another projects. And it's the end of the year. And when you said the 8th December, I was like, oh, lordy lordy. Where has the year gone?
[00:02:02] Unknown:
I know. It only seems like yesterday. You know, when you start the new year and you've got to start writing out, like, 2024, and you're always Yes. Still doing the last year. Well, I've only now got used to 2024, and it seems like 2025.
[00:02:17] Unknown:
I know. It's it's crazy. And although I know that I have been busy, you know, doing whatever this year, I have a horrible sort of feeling that I just haven't done enough. You know, almost like I could have packed more in, but I guess it goes to that saying, you know, if you want a job done, give it to a busy person because it'll get done. But and then that busy person moans, which is me. But, yeah, I'm okay, but I'm exhausted.
[00:02:53] Unknown:
Oh, bless you. Yeah. There is something to be said though for being busy, isn't it? I mean, I'm I'm loving life at the moment. I'm still bouncing, and part of me thinks, oh, god. You've been bouncing for so long now, Shelley. When are you gonna fall? You know? No. Wow. I don't know. It's scary because I don't think I've been this content and happy for so long, which is lovely. But, you know, we're all gonna have our good days and our bad days, but, yeah, being busy is key. It keeps that mind out of trouble. Yeah.
So so, yes, this this week, and I do feel that I need to bring it up because I did mention it to you. We did speak on the phone the other day, but on Monday, it would have been my nan's 100th birthday, and we all met at the cemetery and scattered her ashes on her grave with her husband, all laid Rose, and it was lovely. And we all sang happy birthday to her. Crazy. And my dear cousin yeah. She's gotta be coming on for 60 now. Bless her. She's got a learning difficulty. She stood there, and we turned around, and she had her hands together, and she was praying, and she said, dear Nan, I hope you've settled in up there with papa. Oh, it was so lovely.
So So nice. Yes. Excuse me. So that was the start of my week. And I, you know, kept saying I wanted a bit of Nan, and I forgot to take some of the Ashes. And my mum said, well, look. I've got a bag here. So I scooped a handful up, and I carried her home. So I've now got a little bag with bits of my nana in in my bedside drawer, which is a bit weird. But, hey ho, that you know, you've got your dead cat in your wardrobe. So
[00:04:45] Unknown:
What let me just state for the record. I'm I am a crazy cat lady, but I'm not that far gone yet. The reason I have the dead cat's ashes in my shoe wardrobe is because I actually wanted to have the cat stuffed. Oh my god. And so, I mean, at that point in time, I was working for a corporation of vets. So it would have been quite easy for me to arrange to have that done. But everybody that I said it to, they were like, no. You can't do that. That's morbid. And I really I really cannot get my head around the fact of how that would be morbid. It's like, well, no. It isn't. Because then, you know, he's always with us as opposed to now being in a little box of ashes along with my shoes. And although that is a second best, and I have no problem with that, you know, I would have stuffed in a glass cabinet somewhere. But when you told me about your nan, I was just, like, I just think that is the most normal thing ever. You know, I have laughed and joked well, not so much with my mother, but I've joked with my mother and father that, you know, when their time comes, they will be in a pot somewhere.
I mean, and I'll give them the choice whether they wanna be with the cat in the wardrobe or I can put them some you know? But I I I'm not I'm not getting rid of them, and my mom is not happy with that idea. So when you told me about your nan, I'm like, no. I think that's the most normal thing in the world, to be honest. I I I just think it's very normal.
[00:06:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I'm just going, morning, nan. I don't know if I might have them made into a piece of jewelry or something like that. I know people get them, like you know, they can tattoo you now with ashes, camping, stuff like that, but I don't do tattoos. So Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, my nan would laugh, and I am morbid. I am. I can't help it. I like all things like that. But when we were chatting the other night, it was like, well, not only is that my nan, that's also my great nan as well because she's obviously got bits of her mum's DNA in with her as well. Yes.
So, yeah, food for thought.
[00:07:20] Unknown:
Oh, you have a whole sandwich bag full of DNA.
[00:07:27] Unknown:
Oh, bless her. Bless her heart. I love you.
[00:07:30] Unknown:
Buy a nice little pot and and put the bag in the pot. Don't tip the ashes out so they're loose. Keep them in the bag, but get a nice little pot.
[00:07:41] Unknown:
Yeah. That's Jo's handy tip for the week. Don't use a shoe box, be careful how you tip them out. Yeah. I'll do something, I mean there's enough, I thought I might buy a special little pot and give them to my daughter for a Christmas present. Oh, but What? No. Because she would she would love that. She'd say, what is this mum? And I'd be like, open it really carefully. It's nan.
[00:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I'd let the children play with that box.
[00:08:14] Unknown:
Oh, wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff. But it happens to each of us, and it is that we came from the ground. We go to the ground.
[00:08:22] Unknown:
So Yep. Well, you know, maybe not in my parents' case because they'd be in the wardrobe somewhere, but, you know, hey ho. Well, have you seen I saw it a few years ago. There was a guy. It was on Facebook.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
He'd actually he was at his funeral, and they just had him sat there. He wasn't in the coffin or anything.
[00:08:44] Unknown:
Well, I think I did. Was it in some crazy place like Bolivia or Spain or Somewhere like that.
[00:08:53] Unknown:
And there's another part of the world where they, like, lay their loved ones to rest, and every year, like, they bring them out and have photos taken with them and stuff.
[00:09:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I think that's, like, again, that crazy part of the world. I know. I mean and it's not like just they do it, you know, relatively soon after, like, you know, a year's anniversary or 2. I mean, these people are, like, doing it for decades. Yeah. So every year, they're out of the ground, and they're even more decomposed, but they're dressing them up and they're putting fags in their mouths and beards in their heads.
[00:09:31] Unknown:
It is do you know it's I won't be No. It is something I wish I did. I wish I did take a photo of my nan when she passed. Oh, god knows why. And I joked to my daughter on the day of the funeral. I said, you know, well, I went to see her. She looked lovely, and Maddie just joked, and she said, did she get a photo? And I said, well, I did get a selfie with her, but I don't think I should send it. And she was like, you never. You never. And I said, do you want me to send it to you? She's like, go on then. Send it to me. And I was like, I'm only joking. I would have done it, but I just thought that was a bit too disrespectful.
But I've got a bit of a Your mum would have laughed. She probably would have laughed. Yeah.
[00:10:11] Unknown:
Yeah. But as I speak to your nan, I always think of her when you did that little video about, you know, your your cleaning rates had gone up, and she was going, well, you know, you you you better give me some proper cleaning or some proper invoice here, because I'm not just giving you any old money. I always think
[00:10:29] Unknown:
and she was so tongue in cheek when she was saying it. Oh, she was good to wind up telling her that it costs, like, £6 for a birthday card, and she was like, never. Bless her. Grateful to have all those memories, and how many people can say that they've got their nan in their life all their life. You know? I'm 47, and she's always been there, but alas, you can't live forever.
[00:10:53] Unknown:
Not yet. Not yet.
[00:10:57] Unknown:
So I sorry. Carry on. Oh, no. No. I I was just saying I'm sure they will, but you go on. Go. No. I don't know what I was gonna say now. Well, I was just gonna go on, our our different part of the show. We because we've decided we're gonna, like, do historical women and what have you. So do you wanna go first? Yeah. Have you done your homework? Have you found a a woman?
[00:11:22] Unknown:
I have. But wouldn't it be awful if we've picked the same one? Because we haven't really discussed it. And I thought about this earlier whilst I was dealing with the little darlings and I was like, oh my gosh. It'd just be so typical you've got the same one as me. Well, my lady this evening is Rosa Parks.
[00:11:43] Unknown:
Oh, I've never heard of her.
[00:11:46] Unknown:
Oh, you must have done. She was the colored lady on the bus back in the fifties that had to well, she didn't. It was clearly, you've not heard of her, so I'll I'll just go off to the Yeah. Go for it for the listeners. They're not gonna know anyway. Well, some of them might. Yeah. So Rosa Parks was born in 1913 in Alabama, Tennessee. And she is famous for I think I think her nickname, quite a time after this incident that I'll explain to you in a minute. Her nickname was, and I love this, the mother mother of freedom fighters, I think they called her. Yeah. The mother of freedom fighters, which is just absolutely epic, isn't it? I'd love to have a name like that, but, you know, it's already been taken.
Anyway, she was born in 1913. And, obviously, back in Alabama, it was very much sort of the Ku Klux Klan territory. Blacks and whites totally segregated. Blacks were like literally something you had trodden in. So she didn't go to school. Obviously, she was home schooled. She, sort of worked on the farm with her mom and dad and grandmother picking cotton. And then in 1920 4, she attended a school, a black school, in Alabama. So she was there from 24 1924 to 1929, and she left in 1929 to care for her grandmother who was ill. So she had sort of, you know, nursed her until she was sick. Don't think she kept any of her ashes. Don't think they did that back then.
And she was caring for her grandmother. She also got a little part time job, that's when she sort of really had the full force of white supremacy forced upon her. She was a housekeeper for a white family, and the white neighbor had raped her. So that was her introduction to you will just be somebody that, you know, I use for my pleasure or you will basically get used and abused in whatever shape or form, you know, a white man dictates. So, you know, she obviously carried on sort of doing the job. She encountered a man called Raymond Parks, who was one of the first activists of that time.
A year later, she marries him. She returned to school in 1933. So don't forget, she left to in 1929 to nurse her grandmother. She then went back to school in 1933 to obtain what the Americans would call a high school diploma. And she was, like, one of the very, very few. Literally, you could count along one hand of black people that held a degree. Obviously, that would have pissed white people off big time. So she got back. She was married. She then started to work on an air force base in 1941, and she managed to have a integrated cafeteria.
So although in the outside world, it was still segregated, blacks and whites, within the air force base, she had managed to sort of introduce, not permission, but, you know, introduce normality that it was okay to have people around of a different skin color. So she was there in 19 NAACP. And, basically, it was sort of a black freedom movement. And they would sort of speak up about injustices to black people. They would investigate crimes on behalf of black people. They would investigate murders and police brutality. She did attempt to vote when she was of voting age, but god bless them, they told her after she'd gone back to school and got herself a degree, they told her that she failed her literacy test that was required for black voters.
Can you believe that? Crazy. Absolutely crazy. She came across a woman called Reki Taylor who had been gang raped by 6 white men. So the the NAACP had taken on this case and they had asked Rosa Parks to investigate and do some research which she did. She managed to bring it into court. However, the assailants never got charged. Although within, sort of, the town of Montgomery, they were well known for they were the ones that had done it. So she was already making quite a name for herself. What else did she do? Around 1949, she left the NAACP, this time to care for her mother.
And it was around 1955 while she had gone out to work. So she's married. She's working. She's now caring for her mother. So in 1955, she was coming back from work. I think she was like a seamstress in a factory. She She had a bad day, you know, very tired, didn't wanna walk home because back then everything was segregated. You had to eat in a different area. You had to go to the bathroom in a different area. If you were taking public transport, you had to sit at the back of the bus, you couldn't sit at the front with the white people. And she always tried to avoid that, but on this occasion walking home from work she decided to get the bus. She got on the bus, she played by the rules, she went to the back of the bus, and she sat down. And by this time she was about 19 sorry, not 19 42. She was 42 years of age in 1955.
So, you know, she sat at the back of the bus. It went on a couple of stops. It was getting busy. And back then, there was a rule that if there were no seats on the bus when the next white person got on, the bus driver would ask a black person to give up their seat. Well, this happened. 3 white people got on and there was 3 black people sitting at the back of the bus. Rosa was one of them. 2 black ladies got up and stood and the white men took the seats, but Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up. Of course, all hell broke loose. The bus driver reported to her, threw her off the bus, like miles from her own bus stop, and she got arrested. Police the bus driver called the police on her, and she got arrested, and she was charged.
How bad is that? Just simply because she wouldn't give up her seat. Interestingly enough, the majority of people that have heard about Rosa Parks think that she was just like a 10, 11 year old when this happened, and she didn't give up her seat. It's a misconception that she was, a young girl. She wasn't. She was a 42 year old woman. 9 months before that incident happened in 1955, a 15 year old called Claudette Colvin had the same happen to her, and they arrested a 15 year old because she refused to give up her seat to a white person. So there there's a misconception.
Rosa Parks was 42. 9 months before that, a 15 year old got arrested for the same thing. So, anyway, time went on. She got arrested. She got charged. I think back then, they fined her $10 plus, like, $4 in court fines. In 1956, she got let go of her job so she had a bit of time on her hands and this is when she ran into Martin Luther King, who was a good 20 years younger than her. And she joined forces with him, and she joined the civil rights movement. And she was quite instrumental to, Martin Luther King and that fight there. And she lived until she was I think it was near enough your brand's age. I think she lived till she was, like, 94, maybe 90 6, but she was really instrumental in the civil rights act and earned the title of the mother of the freedom movement, which I thought was really, really apt for everything that she had gone through.
[00:23:03] Unknown:
Oh, lovely. Excuse me. So she was called Rosa
[00:23:09] Unknown:
Parks as a walk in the park Parks.
[00:23:13] Unknown:
Rosa Parks. Right. I must try and remember that. Wow. I can remember watching a documentary about the whole freedom riders, about all the black people getting on the bus and stuff before they were even allowed on the bus, and I watched a documentary about it. It was just, just awful. They were such awful times. You could I can't imagine it. I don't like watching anymore those films about race, so to speak, because some of them have been, well, they've been horrendous, aren't they? The whole Ku Klux Klan and things like that. We've come a long way.
[00:23:47] Unknown:
She wrote a biography. She said that she remembered standing on her grandfather and grandmother's porch, standing behind her grandfather who had a shotgun in his hand because the Ku Klux Klan were marching down their street pulling black people out of their houses to burn.
[00:24:10] Unknown:
And that's you know, is that what? Even a 100 years ago?
[00:24:14] Unknown:
No. This was this was back in, it started back in 19 let me find it. 1940 41. Right. Gosh. Well, in in in in actual fact, I would say sort of the the the whole segregation probably started around 1908. And I remember I remember going to America back in 1982. And for some reason, I don't even know how. I can't remember. But some reason, I ended up in Pensacola. Let me just say, I wasn't traveling alone. I was traveling with my parents. I was a child. Now Pensacola is known as the Bible Belt, and that kind of stretches up from Florida to the left of Florida, which is Pensacola, all the way up to Pennsylvania.
That's renowned for being the Bible Belt. And I remember in 1982, in the airport, going to the bathroom, looking at two signs going white females and black females, and that was in 1982. I think shortly after that, they outlawed that rule, but Pensacola was one of the last states to keep that segregation in public places.
[00:25:54] Unknown:
Wow, and you remember that? It's, yeah, yeah, and I mean interestingly I think in Cornwall now we see a lot more well we see cultural different ethnics everywhere don't we? But I mean when I was a child one of my dad's friends knocked on the door, and he was, of mixed race, let's say mixed race. And I'd never seen anyone mixed race in real life before, and I went running down the hall and said, daddy, daddy, there's an Indian at the door. But we're we're much more used to seeing it now. But, yeah. Oh, well well done, Jo. That's a good one to come up with. I think over the forthcoming weeks, months, what have you, we'll, bring some great women to light because there's so many out there that have been forgotten about.
[00:26:44] Unknown:
There is. There is. It's amazing, really. You know, they they there's a saying, isn't there behind every great man is a great woman. And I really think that's true. I think, you know, I'm not just saying this because I am not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. I'm really not. But I really think women are the fore founders and leaders behind most great things in history. There may be men fronting it, and they may be men carrying it forward. But I will guarantee you, in in some shape or form, a woman would have been instrumental in supporting or pushing that male forward to to carry that fight into the public domain.
I guarantee it. Definitely. Definitely.
[00:27:36] Unknown:
Oh, I liked that. I do like a bit of history. And when we've gotta do this each week, like, come up with a person, it makes you you know, it doesn't take long, does it? Just to look up something and find out about someone, and you just feel like, oh, I feel a bit more educated. Well, thanks for that. Yeah. No. That was a really good one.
[00:27:54] Unknown:
Yeah. I always thought Rosa Parks was a little girl on the bus, but, no. She was 42. Yeah. And Colvin was the little girl. So it's funny sort of, you know, how history can get blurred in between what's factually correct and what isn't. Oh, isn't it funny?
[00:28:15] Unknown:
I think a lot of our history has been, totally Yes. Recorded wrong. Well, his story his story, isn't it, basically? But we've been lied to. It's been messed about with. Half the time you're like, is that true? Is that true? You know?
[00:28:32] Unknown:
There I I it was it was last week. I can't remember what state in in America. I think it may be Philadelphia. Not quite sure. But the school and the governor of that state had made state legislation that all books within state schools, anything that was before 2,008, they have eradicated from the school library.
[00:29:08] Unknown:
And how many of these older books as well have they destroyed? You know, I don't know if you've heard of, like, Jason RK, Jason Brashear, and when he was in prison a long time ago, he found all of these old books, and some of these books you can buy on Ebay for, like, ridiculous money, but you think ever since the day of books, where have they all gone to?
[00:29:29] Unknown:
So Yeah.
[00:29:30] Unknown:
Food for full. Exactly. Well It is. Well, with that, we will leave it there, Jo. It's been, a quick half an hour as always, and, thank you for that. That was good. That was really good. Oh, nice. Lovely. Right. Well, I'm gonna play a little Christmas song, and then after the break yeah. Dare I? I know. No hymn this week. No hymn Christmas song. I didn't I was looking at Christmas hymns, and I just left it too late. I was listening to them. I was thinking that's too long. That's you want something everybody knows. And, anyway, I've just chosen a bit of Frank Sinatra. Anyway, Jo, we'll speak to you the same time next week, my lovely. Enjoy your last half an hour at work.
Thanks. Thanks, my lovely. Thanks for your input. Take care. Bye. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Right. And with that, we shall play a quick Christmas song, and then I will be back, and we'll get Tracy Barnes on.
[00:30:34] Unknown:
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. Since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. It doesn't show signs of stopping, and I brought some corn for papa. Lights have turned down low. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. When we finally kiss good night, I'll hate going out in the storm. But if you'll really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm. The fire is slowly dying, and my dear, we're still good fire. As long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Weather outside is frightful, but that fire is delightful.
Since we have no place to go, let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. It does show signs of stopping, and I brought lots of corn for popping. The lights are way down low, so let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. When we finally say good night, I'll hate going out in the storm. But if you will only hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm. The fire is slowly dying, and my fear will still goodbye. Long as you love me so, let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.
[00:33:03] Unknown:
Lovely. Lovely. Right. Let's get Tracy on the line. Tracy, friend of the show, been on the show a few times. No doubt we're gonna talk to her about the care home industries and, hopefully, the the bill of assisted dying. Right. Let's get Tracy on, and we have done a test today. It was working a couple of hours ago. Come on. It's gonna work. It's gonna start ding ding ding ding ding. It's blue. It's blue. Okay. She says she's ready. I'm trying to phone her. I'm I'm trying to phone her. Hang on. It says you're unavailable, Tracey. Gosh. I'm gonna say call me.
Right. Just hello. Right. Good evening, miss Tracey Barnes. Hello. Woo hoo. It works. Is it working today? It's working. Hallelujah. Yeah. You're not messing up the show this week, mate. Yay. It's alright because fortunately, Maleficus was listening in last week, because he was the one saying I can't hear she can't hear you or what have you. And I was like, right, Maleficos. He always wanted to be on women's hour, so never mind. Anyway, how are you, Maleficos?
[00:34:31] Unknown:
Yeah. Alright.
[00:34:32] Unknown:
Alright. Right. Let's update the audience. A bit deflated. Yeah. Both Tracy and I work in the same care home. Tracy is a senior, and our care home is set to close with no more residents. Right. Go with the close. Resident when
[00:34:50] Unknown:
when? Friday. Last Friday. Yeah. Yeah. And it yeah. Yeah. It I don't know. It didn't feel how I thought it would feel, I think. I it just felt very nothingness and very meh. Right. And I don't know what I was thinking it was gonna be like.
[00:35:09] Unknown:
I know you've really suffered. I know because you've, like, messaged me a lot of in tears and so and so is going tomorrow. I'm quite an emotional person. Yeah.
[00:35:21] Unknown:
As a per as a person, I'm quite empathetic. Well, those are those sometimes it might not seem that way with things I say and stuff with, like, my personality and how I joke and stuff, but I I am quite empathetic, and I do feel things quite a lot. Mhmm. And I struggled a lot with this. I think it it has broken me a little big bit. Well, I know you said at one point you thought it was worse than COVID and COVID It was it was for me. And I mean, I know I I, you know, I suffered with that quite a lot, like, past everything that happened and what we went through, probably a little bit of PTSD sort of stuff going on, but I found emotional emotionally wise, this was harder.
Yeah. A lot harder because I you blame yourself a little bit. So, you know, to put into, context for people, we had a gentleman who's upstairs, moved him down, and he deteriorated very quickly due to the move, not being able to cope with the differences in the change of where, you know, that they're surrounding and things like that, surroundings and stuff, and I think I took that very hard on myself because I was the one that did that. Yeah. But you had to. And I and I felt very guilty about that I think and, and just, you know, knowing that actually, you know, for a lot of these guys moving them probably wasn't gonna be a great outcome for some of them, obviously, it wasn't, you know, as we know, a great outcome for some.
And when you work in this sort of industry and care and all, all you're striving to do every day in your job is to create good outcomes for these people so that they have a dignified and and good life with what they've got. Do you know what I mean? And when you know that that's not happening and it's not gonna happen, it it does get you, I think, quite a lot.
[00:37:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, we've had to watch, haven't we? People struggle to find find a new home, and, you know, and I'm sure what when they found their home where we're at, they thought that was their forever home.
[00:37:56] Unknown:
And Well, you know, I I thought that that would be my forever work, to be honest. I could have quite easily seen myself just stay in there and retire in there. Do you know what I mean? Definitely. It's the first time I've ever had a proper job and a proper proper work family. Probably say yeah. And people probably say it a lot, but I do think it was special there. No. It was special. And You know, I've worked in a few, places, and none of them were as special as this place to me. And I think it's because and and I've said it to you before, we kind of met our people.
We certainly did. We certainly did. Do you know what I mean? Like, when you work with people, sometimes you just gel and I think the team as a whole, we just gel so well, like, everybody was as mad as a box of frogs and as mad as each other. We could just be ourselves. Nobody was judging anybody, you know, people were allowed to be their own personalities. Nobody was sort of stopped from being who they are and I think that was really important and it it it it made the team really special.
[00:39:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, they'll never forget you, Tracey, those residents. What color hair has she got today? What crazy spectacles You know, I had a lovely card,
[00:39:15] Unknown:
given to me actually by one of the family members, and it just said in there, coming in every day and just, you know, seeing the staff and, you know, seeing, like, people with the different hair colors and just everyone's personalities. They said that it made it for them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's what made it special for them, and I think that's what it was. We had, you know, as a team, it and it was like you said, it was more like a little family, really.
[00:39:40] Unknown:
Well, you get to not not just become affectionate towards your residents. You can't help it, but you get connected with their loved ones as well when they come in regularly, and I think they look forward to seeing you as you as much as you look forward to seeing them,
[00:39:55] Unknown:
you know. And and staff as well. You know, you get you you get friendships that you will take with you now till the end. Do you know what I mean? I hope so. It's it's special. Yeah.
[00:40:07] Unknown:
You know? And I think to think a year ago over a year ago, we took on 2 new whole teams, and there was a lot of hoo hoo about that because they were all, Indian and stuff. But actually, it wouldn't make sense. Oh my god. Yeah. They they are some of the most lovely guys I've ever met.
[00:40:27] Unknown:
Yeah. 100%. And work hard workers, you know, just and that they slotted into the team amazingly, and, yeah, it's just a shame that it it all ended how it did, really.
[00:40:43] Unknown:
Yeah. It's almost cruel because lots of those guys were put on over sponsorship, weren't they? And, I mean, fortunately, I think nearly all of them have found
[00:40:50] Unknown:
somewhere else to work. Yeah. And and, you know, it's like, you know, with with the residents and stuff, you know, our goal is to, within care, is, you know, to make things better for people and, you know, they've had these awful diagnosis and stuff and, you know, they're living with this illness. And we try and make it as as nice an environment for them as we can, and we always strive to sort of get people home. That's where you wanna be. Do you know what I mean? And I'm very much a big advocate for you know, I 100% believe we need care homes and nursing homes and stuff, but I am a big advocate for people being at home if that's where they can be.
[00:41:28] Unknown:
Yeah. But
[00:41:29] Unknown:
you don't wanna see people going like this. Do you know what I mean? We want to see people going to go to their own homes Yeah. It was and be in their own environment. It it this the going like this. And, you know, I'm not slating anybody, and I'm not trying to, you know, say bad things about any anybody or anything, but I think I do think the way it was done as a whole maybe wasn't the best way.
[00:42:00] Unknown:
How could you have made it better, though, if the home was closing? I think it's gonna be painful.
[00:42:05] Unknown:
I think it is gonna be painful. I think things should have been truthful with us maybe sooner.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
True.
[00:42:18] Unknown:
I think we could if if possible, it should have been tried to have been done maybe after Christmas. I think that's I think what we're all feeling a little bit and this is from talking to other people as well is we didn't get to say the goodbye we wanted to say. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we had that last Christmas with everybody, we could have just made it banging.
[00:42:44] Unknown:
Yeah. But I think we've done lots of things over the last few months since we've known Oh, yeah. Lots of things. They've had a good time.
[00:42:52] Unknown:
And Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, and, obviously, when it all first came out, you know, morale was really low, which is gonna be. Yeah. You're not gonna get away from that. But I do think the last few weeks, it's actually gone up again.
[00:43:08] Unknown:
Yeah. We we had a good day on Friday in there.
[00:43:12] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, there was a there was a shift a few day a few days before that, and it was such an a lovely shift, and everybody was just smiling like that one that last session we had with you.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Oh, that was brilliant. Big break. Oh, that was so good. And it I think everybody needed that that was on shift that day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it became part of the staff's thing, and it was nice to get all the staff and even the nurses in the hall to join along with singing with Shelley. And It was just so much fun, wouldn't it? Do you know what I mean? And just getting Everybody joining in and being nuts, which is what it was all about. Okay. I actually did sing along with Shelley on Friday.
[00:43:52] Unknown:
It was a bit weird. Yeah. I was told about that. They the staff loved it. I think it was just just going around and just being a bit nuts. Do you know what I mean? I think that's just what people need at the minute, and it is just
[00:44:06] Unknown:
I'm all for that. It's brilliant. We was upstairs in room 3, and, 2 of them were there doing all the paperwork, binning things up, and I just brought in the speaker and the machine and all and I started singing. Then we were dancing, they were singing. Then 2 of the lads came upstairs and then one of them, Inam, I think he said, oh, you sing Dream. That's my favorite song. So I sang that to them in the dining room, and it was a bit odd because you'd sing into 2 people. Yeah. Every time one of them would look at me, and then it's like, well, this is a bit awkward, isn't it? So we finished off with a bit of Mitty the lucha in the manager's office, and everyone had a go. And,
[00:44:46] Unknown:
no. It was good. It was good to leave there, and I think They love it, and it needs to be done. And I think that's what it is. I think the way I've I'm trying to look at it now, and I've been looking for the past sort of week or so, I've been getting my head around. Because I think it it is and it does take time to process it. Oh, definitely. Because it a lot has happened since that initial with shutting. A lot has happened, and it is really it's been really stressful. Really stressful. You know, I think it's been horrible for you guys and the care staff having to, you know, carry on as normal and deal and, you know, deal with the worrying about jobs and everything else.
But I think behind the scenes, what some people don't realize is, you know, we're having to forward and deal with phone calls daily from, you know, from upset family members, from social workers, from adult social care, and doing assessments, and that I struggled really hard with that because, obviously, due to GDPR and stuff, a lot of the times when we have these conversations, people are referred to by initials.
[00:45:55] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:45:56] Unknown:
And things like that. And I think I struggle with that the most because I was like, these are people, for fuck's sake, excuse my language. It was like, these are people women's hour. Gosh. Tracey. And but, yeah, I couldn't vent that. No. No. Because I had to remain professional throughout. I couldn't and I think that's probably why I was as as tearful as I was. I just found it not a dignified process.
[00:46:23] Unknown:
No. Well, somebody asked me, do you know something about and they gave me 2 initials, and I was like, well, who who on earth is that?
[00:46:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, sometimes they would get the initials wrong. But I had one one phone call, and it was like, can I speak right blah blah blah? And I was like, we haven't got anybody there with those initials, I'm afraid. Yes. You have. I want the information. I was like, I'm telling you now. I work here. We haven't. And it was and, yeah, and it was just it it was frustrating, and I just found it really undignified for them. But I understand about confidentiality and things like that, but I just do think, you know, these are people. They deserve to be treated like people, and I don't think that was always
[00:47:05] Unknown:
I think that whole GDPR whatever thing, I don't think that's always for better. You know? It's like stupid little things. Like, I used to get frustrated if I thought people were being given the wrong drinks, and it's like, well, let us have a name on the trolley of everybody with everybody's specifics. And it's like, oh, no. We're not allowed to do that. We can't have a name in case I I just think things like that are just over the top.
[00:47:31] Unknown:
Yeah. And it was but that yeah. That I mean, that frustrated and upset me, and I'm I'm very big on person centered care, treating, you know, treating these guys with dignity, respect. You know, I'm I'm I am quite a a stickler for that, so I did struggle with that side of it quite a lot.
[00:47:51] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:47:53] Unknown:
But I saw you on fry no. I think it was on Monday this week when a particular gentleman left. I can't remember the room number. Who should I say? Let's just say our farmer friend. Yeah. Yeah. When he left, there was about 8 members of staff all in a line when he was being wheeled out of his room. I know. It was lush. Yeah. Yeah. And I gave him a kiss, and I said, good luck. And he said to me, you keep up all the good work because we always talk about tractors and the farmers stuff. But
[00:48:26] Unknown:
yeah. He says, I went in his room that morning because he was wanted his breakfast. And he's, like, I'm going today. I was like, I know. And I said, Saturday, and he said, I'm gonna miss you, pinky. That's what he used to call me. Yeah. Oh, bless you. Yeah. It's yeah. It's just it was really sad. And I think, you know, when the last resident left, I don't know what I thought I was gonna feel like. I think a little bit, it was a I had a little bit of a sense of relief that it was done, and it was finished. But it there was also just this big kind of empty nothing.
[00:49:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I was just waiting for everybody to go in the end because, like, it was prolonged. Some of them was supposed to have gone a couple of weeks ago. And I I don't know I don't know if it was because I was so emotional. Yeah. You just want it done.
[00:49:22] Unknown:
Previously that I'd kind of pride myself dry, maybe.
[00:49:27] Unknown:
I don't know. I don't know. I've I felt like that at the start. Even like today, I've been tidying up my work bag, and I took my diary out. And like I said, I've never had a proper job before where I I'm kind of my own boss, so to speak, to do to do that. I have my own diary. I've never had that with a job. Anyway, I just binned it. I thought, Shelly, you save everything. I don't need a diary to remind me where I worked for 1 year. 1 year where I was contracted and had sick pay and You know what I think is nice, though?
[00:49:56] Unknown:
I do think with the group of us that there is, I do think we will because I I mean, I can be a right annoying cow bag. You know that. And I will, like, I will annoy people by messaging them. Let's get some coffee. Let's do this. Let's do this. But I do think we like, we have made some friends there that we'll take with us now. Definitely. You, our chef friend. Do you know what I mean? Oh my god. I'll miss our chats. Like,
[00:50:23] Unknown:
I will miss our kitchen chats and some of the I will say some of the utter disgusting things that have been said too. I think it was last Tuesday that you guys had me urging, and I just had to leave. But I've never had that with workmates or anything before, and I love it. It's you know, Darren will say, how was work? I'll say, oh, so and so said this. We did this blah blah. And, our chef friend, god, I love him. I love all of them now. There's certain people you just like how much
[00:50:52] Unknown:
we all love him. I don't think he realizes how much we all love him.
[00:50:57] Unknown:
Well, he dug out his Christmas crackers on Friday, and on the lunch trolley, there was a cracker for us all when he was going around wearing a Christmas party hat.
[00:51:09] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's gonna be hard not seeing the people that, you know, we've seen for the last 3 years or whatever every day. Yeah. You know, I've seen some of these people more than I've spent time with my family probably. If you think about your work How many hours you're there? You know what I mean? It's just yeah. It's weird thinking that I'm gonna go somewhere else, and it's gonna be different faces.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
Yeah. And then you'll fit right in, and you'll love it. I think everyone know. I will, Tracy. You can fit in with anyone
[00:51:48] Unknown:
that's married. I'm not I'm not it's not I'm not I'm not worried about that side of it at all, really. But what what I struggle with is I've you create bonds, don't you? Mhmm. And I don't think I'll ever I won't have the friendships like I've got now.
[00:52:05] Unknown:
Well, we just gotta keep those ones alive, haven't we? We got that group chat and stuff. And like you say, there will be a few of us that we have to meet up.
[00:52:14] Unknown:
And I do think sometimes you go somewhere else within the same sort of setting, and you do think, oh, it's gonna be exactly like the last place. There's gonna be a Shelley. There's gonna be a chef. There's gonna be you know? And it it that's not the case. And I think that's that's where we struggle a little bit, isn't it? But, you know, and I do I you know, we we did have a special place there, and we had a special team, and we had special little relationships going on, I think, that were just these people get me.
[00:52:45] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can remember when I first picked up a bank shift there, the agency that I'm with, they said, oh, well, how about going such and such? And she said, everyone loves working there. And I said, oh, go on then. Put me down for a shift. And, yeah, it was. It was, yeah, brilliant from the offset.
[00:53:04] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think, you know, we were quite as a you know, like I say, I've worked in a few, and I'm not saying we didn't have any of it at all because, you know, everywhere you go, if there's a group of people working together, you're gonna get a little bit of bitching and a little bit of whatever. But it wasn't what I would say horrendous there at all. No. No. I've been in other places where it's been awful, and you've you've not wanted to go back. And I don't think we were like that at all. You know, I think as a team, I think, and at home, we were quite welcoming and, you know, anyone, you know, new agency wise, you know, people were always willing to help and show them what to do. And it was just it was just nice. It was just nice.
Yeah. Yeah. I never woke up thinking, oh god. I don't wanna go into work today, which I have done previously.
[00:54:00] Unknown:
I've never felt that. Well, I always look at you work, guys. It's like I'm not going to work just to see the residents. I'm going to see you, my little family, and see what everybody's been up to and just have our silly conversations about stuff.
[00:54:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And this is it. And, you know, I most mornings, I pick up if I'm on the same shift, our little chef friend, and we, you know, we have a right giggle in the car on the way in. And that kind of sets my day off then. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
[00:54:29] Unknown:
Yeah. No. And even the cleaners
[00:54:32] Unknown:
and what happened as well. I loved I loved I loved everybody. I obviously did love everybody, and I just everyone had their little place that they kind of slotted into, I think.
[00:54:44] Unknown:
You know? Yeah. Well, you've got new plans. You've got a new job sourced, haven't you?
[00:54:50] Unknown:
I have. I'm just waiting for everything, to be finalized with it, but I'll see how that goes and and, you know, it's very different to what I'm doing. Right. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. It still care, but it it is just, a different pace and a different level of what I've been doing. So we'll see how that goes. I'd like to do my level 5 at some point.
[00:55:17] Unknown:
Oh, what your MBQ? Yeah.
[00:55:20] Unknown:
And, because I've got my 4, but I thought if I get my 5 done, that's that out of the way. I'd like to try and keep my, venipuncture up to date and useful, but I don't think there's gonna be any need for that in what I'm gonna be doing, unfortunately.
[00:55:36] Unknown:
No. No. It's just a handy skill to have. Definitely. But then you can always recap if you can end up having to need that, can't you? You can do the training again. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I can go yeah. They they do, like, little top up sessions and things, you know. Yeah. But
[00:55:50] Unknown:
I'm quite excited to Yeah. It is. I am. And and I'm looking at it, like, I was saying to Scott the other night, I'm gonna look at it as a new beginning. Everything happens for a reason. That's how I've gotta look at it.
[00:56:05] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I think so.
[00:56:08] Unknown:
It's on to bigger and better things.
[00:56:11] Unknown:
Definitely. The world is calling for 2025.
[00:56:15] Unknown:
And I think that's that's how we've got to look at it, that, you know, we move forward. It's pointless looking back and going backwards. You just gotta keep going forwards, haven't you?
[00:56:25] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think knowing this the last couple of months, obviously, I I was upset for a few weeks because it's like, oh, but I think I also got drawn into the safety net of having that well, like, everybody needs a job, but that safety net that every month I get that wage. I get my holiday pay, sick pay, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And it's a risk And I think You know, when you do other things.
[00:56:45] Unknown:
Yeah. And I think that's it. I think what what was frightening me a lot was as well was getting to the end of because I I in my head, I always said, I don't care what happens. I'm staying till the end.
[00:56:57] Unknown:
You did say that?
[00:56:59] Unknown:
And that's just for me as a person. I wanted to stay right up to the end because, I just wanted to see through what I'd started.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
3 years ago. Do you know what I mean? And by that commitment as well, I think we'd be lucky because it looks like we'll get to have a couple of weeks off paid over Christmas.
[00:57:20] Unknown:
We deserve that. That'd be quite nice. 1st Christmas off for about 5 years. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's gonna be lovely. So, yeah, so that's that bit. Obviously, you know, we've got a sad occasion on 20th that we're gonna be attending. But
[00:57:35] Unknown:
Yes. Oh, dear dear client resident. Yeah. Was she 90?
[00:57:40] Unknown:
96? Something like that. Yeah. She was very well. She was a sweetie, but But, oh, she was the cutest little thing, wasn't she? She was. So so, yeah, so that's a bit of an honor, and I feel quite privileged.
[00:57:52] Unknown:
Yeah. Tracy's been asked to, yeah, to we we often ask to do that. Yeah.
[00:57:59] Unknown:
Well, you're doing it as well. So Yeah. But yeah.
[00:58:02] Unknown:
So it's you're gonna be crying and crying, and I'm gonna be like, don't look at Tracy. Don't look at Tracy.
[00:58:08] Unknown:
I do ugly cry. Proper Blair Witch is not out my nose and all sorts. Yeah. Yeah. All good. All good. But but yeah. So I've just been trying to kind of see the the silver
[00:58:21] Unknown:
lining in it all, really. Yeah. And what an honor to be thought of because I know the son Oh. Messaged me as well, and he said, oh, Tracy said that you're gonna do it with her. And I just said, yeah. Real honor.
[00:58:33] Unknown:
Yeah. 100%.
[00:58:34] Unknown:
Don't know that. You know, he would come in most day every other day to see his mom Yeah. Have a train ride, then a bus ride, and he loved coming in and spending time with us as well. He got to know us. And we love seeing him. You know what I mean? He was, you know,
[00:58:50] Unknown:
this is it. Like you said, it's you you get a rapport and a relationship with the families as well. It's not just the people that we're caring for, you know. So it does make it difficult.
[00:59:03] Unknown:
It does. It does. But, you know, 94 Gin's been helping. Sorry? Gin. Gin's been helping. Well, good. Good. Gotta have something. And without Tracy, I'm gonna have to say goodbye because half an hour is up, and it's the end of the show. But thank you, my lovely quickly. We still need to do another one about the assisted Don't we? We'll have you back on. You're, like, friend of the show every few weeks. I like it. We built up our routine. So, yeah, we'll we'll still have a date for that, definitely. Alright, my lovely look. You have a lovely evening, and thanks for your time and sharing your emotions. Thank you, and I will see you in a few days. Alright, my darling. You take care. Bye bye. You too. Bye. Bye bye. Well, there we are. Another week done and dusted. I don't think I've really got time to play the outro music for radio soapbox, so I will say have a great week, guys, and I will be back the same time next week.
