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| The Masked AMHP when he was a hippy |
As I approach retirement from the job I have been doing for
the last 42 years, I’ve started to think more about what led me into social
work in the first place.
Several years ago I wrote in the Guardian about how I ended
up becoming a social worker. It was almost accidental. No child has it in their
mind that they want to go into social work; for one thing, it is not generally
a high visibility profession, unless something goes wrong, and then social
workers always seem to be identified as the guilty parties.
But there were a couple of incidents in my adolescence,
long before I actually applied for, and got, the job of social worker, that
with hindsight first put the idea of being
able to help people into my
mind.
The old lady
The first incident was when I was 16, when I was still at
school studying for A Levels. The Post Office were wanting temporary assistant postmen
to cover the pre-Christmas period. I managed to get one of these jobs, to earn
some pocket money.
I was assigned to assist Bill, one of the permanent postmen,
on his round. This involved carrying a huge bag of post around a housing estate,
while he went here and there in his van.
But part of his round involved having to drive to more
remote houses. He went to a rather dilapidated looking bungalow and then asked
me to deliver a small bundle of what appeared to be Christmas Cards and a couple
of parcels. He said that he didn’t want to do it himself as the occupant would
keep him in conversation for hours.
I knocked on the door and after a while the door opened. An
elderly and frail looking lady was standing there. I noticed that she had dried
food attached to the whiskers on her chin.
The bungalow beyond was dirty and
ill cared for, with random piles of newspapers and cobwebs hanging from the
ceiling.
An almost overwhelming sadness gripped me as I gave her the cards and parcels.
She seemed desperately disappointed.
“Isn’t Bill delivering today? Such a nice man. We always
have such a nice chat.”
“No,” I replied. “He’s … busy, what with the Christmas rush
and everything.”
“Oh, well, never mind.” Her voice petered out, and she
closed the door.
I felt for the lady’s loneliness, and her disappointment at
not being able to have a conversation with the postman. How many people did she
see in a week? The experience haunted me.
Surely there must be services that could help someone like
her, I remember thinking.
The driver
The second incident taught me something else.
I was 17 years old, and trying to be a hippy, with long
hair, a beard, bell bottomed jeans, and sandals. (Give me a break. This was the
early 1970’s.)
It was the summer, and I was hitch-hiking in England. I
don’t remember where I was going to. It may have been a pop festival. (Weeley?)I
had a rucksack, and a sleeping bag, and was hoping for some sort of adventure.
A very upmarket car stopped to give me a lift. When I got
in, I was surprised to see the driver was an immaculately dressed woman in her
40’s. Women never usually stopped for a young male hitch-hiker who looked a bit
like a hippy.
I couldn’t help noticing that her face and bare arms were
covered in a blotchy rash.
We drove off. Looking straight ahead at the road, she said,
“I expect you’re wondering what’s wrong with my skin.”
She didn’t wait for a reply.
“It was my husband. The person I love most in my life. He
went to the doctor one day because of a pain in his head. The doctor sent him
for tests.
“My husband had a brain tumour. It was inoperable. Within 6
weeks he was dead.
“The funeral was 2 months ago.
“I thought I was doing fine. I thought I was managing. But
a couple of weeks later I woke up one morning and saw that my whole body was
covered in this rash.
“The doctor told me it was nothing to worry about. It was a
reaction to the stress.
“Nothing to worry about.
“I‘ve lost my husband, the love of my life.
“Nothing to worry about.”
She continued to tell me her story for the rest of the
journey. When it came time to drop me off, she looked at me and said, “You
don’t know who I am. I don’t know who you are. We’ll never see each other
again. Thank you.” She smiled for the first time during the trip.
Even though I was only a 17 year old self-absorbed
teenager, I realised that something significant had happened.
She needed to tell someone how she was feeling, someone she did not know, who was nothing to do with her family or social circle, someone who would not judge her, who would not argue with her, who would just listen. She just needed to talk.
She needed to tell someone how she was feeling, someone she did not know, who was nothing to do with her family or social circle, someone who would not judge her, who would not argue with her, who would just listen. She just needed to talk.
So simply by being there in the car with her, and sharing that journey, I had helped
her in some way to come to terms with her bereavement.
I realised that making a difference to people might not be
so difficult after all. And it was oddly satisfying to realise I had helped in
some way.
