“Aha! Good afternoon. Very nice to talk! You’re the first voice I’ve heard today…”
(Participant)

Since the Spring, the Necklace of Stars project has reached out to older people in Derbyshire, using phone calls to write poems and make embroideries. Today I was struck again by the value of these calls to all involved, to me and to the people I speak with. In this time of restrictions, it is a wonderful luxury to spend time in the company of new people without worrying about masks and viruses.

Several people I spoke with today have been isolated since the beginning of the year. Their seclusion has continued for months, and for some it feels unending. This is no longer about simply contracting an illness, it’s about living in a new way, especially for older people. And this new way of living needs to take into account emotional lives as well as physical health.

Whether Forecast

I’m cooking up a kitchen storm, lighting a flare,
leaving the doldrums in the yellow chair.
I’m braving a peasouper, blithely unaware
of fusing blue sky thinking to navigate the dare.
And if I reap a whirlwind then I’ll take to the air.
It’s time to break through the heavy side layer.

Linda Goulden

Out of my seven calls on this day, three people told me they’d had very limited, or no, company since February.

Out of my seven calls on this day, three people told me they’d had very limited, or no, company since February. To be isolated for such a long time is akin to solitary confinement in a jail. That particular punishment is meted out because it is so psychologically devastating. If we have any hope of getting through to the other side of the pandemic without a great deal of damage to everyone’s mental health, then we need to deal with the urgent need people have for human connection.

And sometimes that’s a phone call to discuss that poem you wrote about your grandma wearing a polka dot bikini, or astrophysics and its relationship to God, or childhood journeys to adulthood, or an argument with your big sister when you were eight years old.

How much is a poem worth? Well, that’s a big question, as Hamlet would say…

The Way

I talked with me today
and we agree: the way
we say that we must be
must be the way to be.

Linda Goulden

A Necklace of Stars, working with older people in Derbyshire, is supported by Arts Council England, Arts Derbyshire, DCC Public Health and Derbyshire County Council Home Library Service. This project is particularly aimed at countering isolation; during the pandemic we’ve been working using distance methods – phone conversations and post.