16 September 2024

Shared Reading Group draws people out in conversation

4 minute read

Earlier this year, Julia, an Activity Coordinator at Norley Hall completed an eight-week course run by The Reader, to become a Reader Leader.

Since then, Julia has hosted a Shared Reading Group twice a month, offering residents the opportunity to communicate with one another over a shared interest in reading.

Recently, The Reader visited the home to speak with some of the residents for a case study about the impact the group has had on them. Resident Roger Driver was eager to share his experiences of the group.

‘I’m a retired Methodist minister, and I’m 90 years old, I’ve been retired for 27 years! I moved here in December – not because of dementia but because of heart trouble. I’m originally from London, was evacuated to Morecombe during the Blitz, and went on to study at Cambridge and Manchester Universities.

‘It is a new experience for me living in a care home. I found it a big change. I never married and have always lived alone. I want to help people, bring something to this community. I am an ordained minister and that is a role I will have my whole life.

‘It was hard moving into a care home – I sometimes thought ‘I should have coped living alone’ – my only relatives are in Inverness; a sister and a nephew. In low moments I can think ‘I’m here til I die’ – but I have got to find a reason for living and reading helps with that. I’m 90 and I hope I am still growing.

‘I want to carry on learning – there is always things to learn. I watch the Parliament Channel on TV and keep up with events. It’s hard to find people here to have a good conversation with, because some find it hard to communicate. I want to help people, and at the beginning I did find it hard to get on their wavelength.

‘It’s hard to have conversations around the meal table – often it’s no more than ‘pass the salt’! The poetry group gives us the chance to communicate with one another – it draws people out in conversation. Julia [Activities Coordinator and Reader Leader] does a good job at helping people to do this. Lots of the activities we do aren’t at this level, they are very practical – but this is different as it is focussed on our conversation.

‘We live in a community and we are called not to be nice, but to be real. We have different needs, and people can fall out with each other. But the poetry gives us a chance to grow the conversation and our communication.’

'I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree'

"I love the poem by WB Yeats – the Lake Isle of Innisfree. We have read it in the group. We read it through twice and it helps us to ask: why am I here? What’s happening to me? In the poem he wants to get away – and we know that feeling. We can’t get away – we want to get home but we can’t. In the poem, he wants to escape the city: “While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, / I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

Roger Driver, Resident at Norley Hall Care Home

‘We talked about ‘can you go back?’ ‘is it the same?’ – people shared places on holiday where we have been happy, people who have helped us.

‘We have also read ‘Memory Sack’ by Joy Harjo – and we talked about how we are all part of a community as soon as we are born. Some of us say ‘I want to be alone’ but we can’t live like that! Poetry helps you look at the destructive side of life as well as the positive. Friction is part of life and it brings change.

‘We read the poetry and it’s at a level which means that people can grasp things. As people we are all connected – different backgrounds, different levels of communication. Not all of our communication is verbal – we communicate with kindness to each other.’

For more information on Norley Hall, please click here.