A poem for a General Election Campaign

If you identify as a Christian and a Tory, you probably need to have a rethink.

In Praise Of Filton Library

Filton Library has been part of my life all of my life. When I was small, it was one of my favourite places in the world.  Even now, if I close my eyes, I can smell the strong scent of floor polish that assailed my nostrils the instant we opened the entrance door into the tiny vestibule, and picture the 1950s formica reception desk which wouldn't have disgraced the Tardis or Starship Enterprise.

My father would take me and my sister there every fortnight.  When I was very small, I would pick out books for my mother to read to me at bedtime.  I remember my father encouraging me to choose several squat Thomas the Tank Engine books every week because they were quite long and my mother hated reading them.  (I dutifully did as I was told even though I didn't like them much either, apart from Henry the Green Engine - and years later, fate had its revenge as Thomas was to feature heavily in my own autistic son's predilections.)  Marmaduke the Lorry was another early choice.

Later, I had custody of eight treasured brown cardboard library tickets that constituted my quota of books.  Stories for Six Year Olds was one of the earliest I chose to read myself. I read it when I was five but it was a struggle, as it was a hefty book of not always very exciting tales, and it had an orange cover.  (I didn't like orange then and I don't much now either.)  I remember my parents joking that if I didn't get a move on, I'd be seven before I finished it.

From then on, it was a point of honour always to have read all of the books by the time the two weeks were up, unless the book was a particular favourite in which case I would renew it and renew it for as long as I was allowed.  Books I discovered there included The Adventure series of novels by Willard Price; Monica Edwards' stories set on Romney Marsh; Ruby Ferguson's novels about Jill Crewe who had two ponies AND a mother who wrote novels (even though Jill thought they were rubbish);  and Pat Smythe's oh-so-sophisticated tales of the Cotswolds horsey set, which mentioned things I knew even then would never be for the likes of me, like sports cars, off-the-shoulder dresses and daiquiris.

And then there was The Red Pony, which I took out when I was about seven or eight, thinking it would be about gymkhanas and rosettes and fictional heroines living my pony dream.  I got as far as Gabilan dying and that buzzard dipping its beak into his eye and marched straight back to the library with it, outraged. It was the only book I recall not finishing.  Later, as part of my coming of age, I read the major Steinbeck novels and short stories but never glanced to the bottom of the list of published works – or if I did, I didn’t twig.  I think I was in my 30s before the penny dropped and I read it to the end and cried and cried for the boy and the old stable hand and the child whose life was to be so haunted by a half-read book.


Giving a poetry reading at the library with Hazel Hammond in March 2012

Years later, in 1999, the library moved to a purpose-built home in the new Shield Retail Centre. I remember my first visit.  I was quite impressed by the building, but disappointed when I reached my favourite sections - poetry and local history - to discover that there were no new books on the brand new shelving at all.  Still, it was a much needed focus for Filton in a shopping complex that included specialist shops such as Snow and Rock and a bathroom fittings outlet, a KFC, an estate agents and Farm Foods - hardly meeting points for a community. 

And it has proved to be the hub of the town, hosting many events, cafes and meetings, as well as providing its core services of lending books and computer/printing access.  It is a particularly important resource for the elderly, the poor, the unemployed and the disabled, all groups which have suffered the most from government cuts, including the closure of day centres, massive redcutions to Direct Payment budgets, etc - and this is why the proposal to cut our library's opening hours to two days a week, or even close it altogether, is so distressing.

At a well-attended demonstration outside the library on Saturday, we learnt that a majority of Tory-controlled South Gloucestershire councillors voted to reduce the green bin charge by £6 per year (from £36 to £30), instead of saving libraries and youth services, thus proving, yet again, that they are prepared to keep penalising the same groups of people without the least remorse; also, that they have proposed increasing the number of volunteers in a library with already the highest number in the area, rather than staff it with trained library staff.

The library was all-important to me as a child and I doubt I would have grown up to become a writer myself without exposure to all those books at such a young age.  I urge you please to sign the petition to keep the library open. 

Cameron Must Go! National Demonstration - March for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education

Very proud to share this report my daughter, Jennifer Drewett, put together following the demonstration in London yesterday. (You won't have seen anything like this on the news, of course.)

Over the years Jen and her brother, who were both effectively written off at the ages of four and three respectively by a diagnosis of severe autism with learning disabilities, have benefited from disability allowances, Statements of Special Educational Need which provided them with access to the education they required, and years of speech therapy from the NHS. One senior registrar once said to me that their progress was a miracle, but I say it was in large part down to our welfare state.

All this is now being swept away by the Tory government. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, the poor pay a hugely disproportionate burden of tax, and the Daily Mail tells its idiotic readers that we should leave the EU and lose the tattered remnants of our human rights. It does my heart good to see that there are still those who will stand up and protest.

The Day The Oil Flowed Uphill

Once upon a time there were well-staffed, well-equipped day centres for people with disabilities, offering them the chance to meet with their friends and carers, have fun and practise new skills and hobbies. Then successive Tory governments capped local government spending and lo, the centres were closed because they were too expensive to run. This cost-cutting exercise was presented as a chance for disabled people to choose how they spent their time and (reduced) funding, by employing support workers and receiving some money (Direct Payments) towards expenses, whether that be occasional petrol, accommodation and food costs incurred in the pursuit of hobbies or social activities, or materials to do crafts, learn an instrument, etc - anything, really, as long as it was part of their care plan.  

But now, with another Tory administration and further shrinking of the state, disabled people are no longer allowed to enjoy themselves and the funding for Direct Payments has been slashed.  (Serves them right  for making all those ill-advised loans to flighty foreign countries, eh?) The hatchet fell on my son's funding back in the spring, with his social activities deemed by some local government manager 'what any mother would do for her son' - something that really doesn't wash when he's 24 and you have more than one son and can contrast and compare.  Still, we scrimped enough to be able to afford the one last trip we'd already booked to the Robot Wars World Championships in Colchester - a chance for my son to say goodbye to his friends who travel all over the country to cheer on their favourite teams.  

Robot Wars doesn't really do it for me, so while he was cheering himself hoarse, I'd planned a trip to three nearby churches in Essex to see their mediaeval wall paintings.  I also intended to see the three hares glass in the church at Long Melford, and the half-timbered higgledy-pigglediness of Lavenham, having never been to Suffolk. 

The early morning mist had burnt off by the time we passed Reading and all was set fair for our weekend, when the traffic came to a standstill on the M25.  We caterpillared our way around, still making progress, when I noticed that the the tarmac was getting really bumpy.  Rumble strips? I thought. On the motorway?  But despite switching lanes and surfaces, the juddering continued.  Then an orange light started to flash on the dashboard. To pull in on the hard shoulder or limp on 15 miles to South Mimms Services and safety, with the possibility of risking further damage to the engine? One look at my travelling companion and how scarily busy and noisy the traffic was and I opted for the latter.

There was a further alarming moment when I ended my call to the breakdown people, opened the driver's door and saw a huge oil stain on the ground.  Argh!  Except that weirdly, it seemed to have pooled uphill.  I was still puzzling over this when the repair man turned up and informed me that the area I'd parked in, just inside the entrance and to one side, under some shady trees, was notorious for breakdowns.  Someone else's disaster in the adjoining bay, then. 

As for my poorly car, it was a misfire in cylinder 4. I've no idea what that means except that it's common in Vauxhalls apparently. But that's little consolation when it comes down to a wasted hotel reservation, tickets and petrol costs for a final road trip that didn't happen.

We did get home safely, however, and I'm thankful for that.  

Poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2015

It's World Autism Accepantance Day today, and on a day when there are reports of a 10-year-old pupil with autism being kept in a cage in a Canberra classroom, I want to say how thankful I am to the autists in my life - for their courage in being themselves in a society bent on conformity, and for showing me every day that difference is to be embraced and nurtured.

Here's a poem about autism I prepared earlier.

Poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2014

I'm posting this poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2014, which was yesterday.  I wrote it a long, long time ago - around 1999, I think - when the two of my children who have autistic spectrum disorder were aged 10 and 8.  They are adults now and have exceeded all expectations of the medics who diagnosed them.  The neighbour who terrorised me every time I let my children into the back garden is still living two doors away. 

There's still a long way to go before autism is accepted.  Certainly books like 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime' by Mark Haddon have helped, though I doubt Herr Nachbar has read it.  

I still struggle to go out into the garden.  

The Village Idiot

Four children in a photograph –

sisters and brothers –

all scrubbed, all dutifully gleaming.

So which are deemed deficient?

The camera doesn’t know.

But there you go

windmilling down our street,

and there’s our Nazi neighbour

who thinks that you are thick,

he tells me you should be locked up.

See how he battens down spent daffodils,

entrenches his French marigolds

with pissy little rings of slug pellets!

Let’s grub them up at midnight,

let malnourished molluscs feast.

                        © Deborah Harvey  1999, 2014

Poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2013

It's World Autism Acceptance Day 2013, and as anyone who has children or other family members rather further along the spectrum than is deemed 'normal', once the white coats have their foot in the door, it can be hard to close it again.  When my two autists were small, I always felt torn between wanting to further the understanding of this often debilitating condition, and a longing for privacy which at one point made me consider doing a bunk with all of my kids and hiding out in the middle of Dartmoor.  

One of the studies we became involved in concerned the molecular genetics of autism.  This involved hours of videotaped face-to-face interviews and tests over quite a few years.  (Apparently I achieved the highest ever score on word recognition, but was really rather unimpressive when it came to spatial awareness, though I reckon my prowess in the former category was down to studying Latin to A-level, rather than an indication of innate savant capabilities.)

 Anyhow, this is a poem I wrote a few years ago about the study, when I had to travel to Oxford for a MEG scan. 

The Molecular Genetics of Autism

for J and S

The White Coats know everything

and today they will explain

the hidden mysteries of my brain

so they strip me of all metal,

tape electrodes to my skin,

then they clamp me in a scanner

in a windowless white box

with lead-lined door.

The scanner will illuminate

the wiring in my head. One day

autism will be dead,

the minds of everyone so perfect

they will glide in punts through Oxford

sipping Pimms.

But the scanner’s wires are crossed.

It can’t unveil the wicked fairy

who bestowed those christening gifts,

it fails to break the wheel

that spun the damaged threads

and I leave with straw and silver seeds

still filling up my head. 

Outside

a vixen prints herself on drifting mist

and disappears

© Deborah Harvey 2010, 2013

Poem for World Autism Acceptance Day 2012

This is a poem I wrote 13 years ago.  I don't much care for polemical poetry and seldom write it but this wrote itself.  (Plus, it's always satisfying to have a pop at the Daily Mail!)  I am reposting it for World Autism Acceptance Day 2012 which is today.

Back then I could never have known how well things would turn out for my two autists.  They were written off at the ages of four and three.  'No functioning intelligence,' said one White Coat. 'They'll never learn to speak.'  But they are both warm, creative and talkative people with hearts full of love.  I couldn't be prouder of them.

                 
                 Cut Out and Keep 

Already you test me with questions.

But how to explain the inexplicable

in ways you’ll understand?

I have no glib replies.

You bear off my inadequate words

in your hands

to look at, sniff and taste.

Meanwhile I ponder

what I’m not going to tell you –

how in years gone by

they’d have burnt you as witches

or left you to wolves

or the mental asylum,

simply because you’re you.

And I compare this

with latter-day attitudes:

patronising Daily Mail articles

re the latest miracle cure

that works for (a few of)

the Poor Brave Victims

they would deem you.

But we know

there’s no bravery

in no choice.

And so I love this otherness,

as much a part of you

as your scent and skin and smiles

and this is why

I do not wish you otherwise.

© Deborah Harvey 1999, 2012

Arse, elbow ... elbow, arse. Try and work it out ...

Two hours before his tribunal to appeal against the decision not to grant my autistic/learning disabled son ESA it is cancelled because the ruling has been overturned already. This happened because apparently the appeals panel only looked at his case this morning. 

So good news, except that I, my son's careworker and, most importantly, my son have been put through huge amounts of unnecessary stress (and work, in the case of the careworker, the benefits officer at the local council, and me). I have rearranged working hours, cancelled appointments, called in favours, and driven miles to and from his supported accommodation for meetings for absolutely no reason. Good job I am just a parent of a young disabled adult and not a human being.

Not to mention the extra cost. Because how does outsourcing the process to decide who is entitled to ESA and who isn't to people who haven't got the first idea about the impact of that disability save money? They might get paid less than someone who knows their arse from their elbow, but this five-month long appeals process has cost far more than it would have done to employ someone with the requisite knowledge and intelligence in the first place.