Confusion

[Silence]
FIRST VOICE (_Very softly_)
To begin at the beginning:
It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless
and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched,
courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the
sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea.
The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night
in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat
there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock,
the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds.
And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are
sleeping
now.
Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers,
the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher,
postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman,
drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot
cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft
or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux,
bridesmaided by glowworms down the aisles of the
organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the
bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And
the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields,
and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed
yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly,
streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.
You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.
Only _your_ eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded
town fast, and slow, asleep. And you alone can hear the
invisible starfall, the darkest-beforedawn minutely dewgrazed
stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the _Arethusa_, the
_Curlew_ and the _Skylark_, _Zanzibar_, _Rhiannon_, the _Rover_,
the _Cormorant_, and the _Star of Wales_ tilt and ride.

Dickie

This is Richard Davies, or Dickie as he is better known
to his family and friends. He was born on the 25th
January 1926 in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydvil, in South
Wales. Whilst essentially a coal mining area, his
father was a railway guard and only his elder brother
Ron, actually ‘worked down the pit’. He spent his
childhood roaring about the hills riding bareback
on his pony, playing chicken on the ‘cwbs’ (coal
trucks that run to the end of a line to tip coal), and
sliding down the main road in winter on a tin tray,
which earned him a beating from his dad. From a
young age Dickie was set on breaking the rules and
his most hair raising stunt involved setting fire to
brush wood which he and his chums used to encircle
their local youth club when the adults took it over
for the evening. They then sat on the roof watching
the panic ensue. He moved on to bigger things again
after getting involved in drama at his local youth
club. He eventually moved up to London where he
began his acting career. The same local youth club,
whilst hardly a formal drama school, produced some
of the greatest British male acting talents of the 20
century; Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Roger
Moore all started in the same youth club. He took his
stage name from his first radio performance as Dicky
bach dwll’.

His first job was with the Pilgrim Players during the war,
and he married the daughter of his landlady, Beryl and
had a son, Colin, before the army caught up with him,
and he was sent to train for the military police, riding a
motorbike, and destined for Burma. The captain of the
CSEU, Combined Services Entertainment Unit, who
Dickie had met earlier in the war, pulled him out, and he
spent the rest of the war entertaining the troops with
plays. Shakespeare wasn’t popular, and they would hear
the squaddies stamping out, loudly half way through.
He came back to London, and appeared on stage in
‘Carrington VC.’ He made a film, later, ‘The Night my
Number came up’ with Michael Redgrave. In 1952, he
toured South Africa with the Old Vic, and met his 2nd wife
on a one week engagement on the Isle of Man, in 1955.
They have two children and four grand children.

Dickie is probably best known for his performance as
the exasperated schoolmaster, Mr Price, in the popular
London Weekend Television sit com - Please Sir! The
show ran for 4 series and a total of 55 episodes between
1968 and 1972. He also appeared in the spin-off series
The Fenn Street Gang. He used a broad Welsh accent for
much of his work, and often played Welsh stereotypes.
Dickie played Idris Hopkins in Coronation Street
between 1974 and 1975, and appeared in several
science-fiction series, among them Robert’s Robots,
Out of the Unknown and a well-received performance
as Burton in the 1987 Doctor Who story Delta and the
Bannermen. He played Mr White in Fawlty Towers,
in the epic episode “The Kipper and the Corpse”, and
also appeared in Yes Minister. He impersonated Clive
Jenkins in a spoof edition of Question Time in a sketch
on Not the Nine O’clock News and also appeared in
One Foot in the Grave.
He has appeared in films such as Zulu (1964), the
musical film Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), the film
adaptation of Please Sir! (1971), and Under Milk Wood
(1972). His last film appearance was in 1988 where he
played the schoolteacher in Queen Sacrifice.
Apart from occasional appearances on radio and
TV adverts, and ‘bit parts’ in TV light comedy,
Dickie started to wind down his career during the
1990’s largely retiring from acting by the turn of the
millennium. He moved from London to Hampshire in
2001 to live closer to his family.

Dickie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2004 and
is now looked after in a care home local to his home
in Liphook, Hampshire. His diagnosis came about
following cognitive tests after a series of car accidents,
which resulted in him surrendering his driving licence.
They found that Dickie was experiencing the early
symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. From this point on
he became progressively more dependent on his wife
Jill. Dickie, scared of the prospect of being ill, stopped
drinking and became a vegetarian in a bid to stave off
the disease although he could still be caught eating
sausages and bacon which he insisted, ‘didn’t count’.
The disease began to become more prevalent from this
point, characterising its self in noticeable symptoms
such as wandering, memory troubles and, in particular,
sleepless nights. His trouble sleeping had the most
impact on those around him and took the biggest toll
on his wife Jill. For Dickie, the disease manifested
its self in some of his frustrations and insecurities.
Having never been one to use a credit card, Dickie
always had cash in his pocket, but the sudden prospect
of not having money in his pocket, due to his illness
and his tendency to lose things, caused him to worry
constantly whether he had money to pay for his room
and his food. He also has trouble walking, due to
Arthritis, which fuels fears of falling, resulting in loud
shouting matches as he accuses various relatives and
care givers of ‘trying to kill him’.

Caring for Dickie at home began to take its toll on
his wife Jill, who is not in the best of health herself.
The endless fetching of cups of coffee along with
difficulties getting him out of bed became too much
and reluctantly she was forced to admit him into a
local care home which specialises in care for dementia
patients.
Dickie is now 88 and a popular resident of the Silver
Birches care home where he lives. His disease is not
progressing fast and he still remembers much although
these tend to be distant memories like his childhood,
and he often mistakes children and grand children for
his brothers and sisters. Remarkably, he can still recite
word for word, much of the narrator’s part (although he
never played it) from Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
Aside from these small surprises he only remembers
select members of his family. Tragically Dickie’s
confusion continues as he has mistaken one of
his fellow residents for his wife Jill which at times
causes him and her some distress. Despite the
confusion he is still a character, lager than life, and
still a bit of a tearaway often getting away with a
‘shouting and hollering’ session with a cheeky smile,
and the line, ‘I was only joking…’

“No knowledge of who’s good, who’s bad,
who’s here to help you or who’s here to hurt you.”
“Thats a scary world to live in.”

I’m not

A huge challenge faced when caring for people with
Alzheimer’s is the unpredictability brought about by this
lack of consistency in a person’s life. If a person cannot
recollect what they did or how they felt earlier on in
the day they don’t have a constant mood. As a result
sufferers can have drastic mood swings.
Many patients with more advanced symptoms
aren’t aware that there is anything wrong with
them. This makes reasoning and consoling them
very difficult. The confusion faced on a daily basis
can leave patients stressed and they can become
aggressive in some cases.
Although it feels wrong, the telling of white lies
(redirection) has become a useful tool in dealing with
Alzheimer’s sufferers. They are used to distract and overt
a patient’s attention to calm them. It’s a hard practice
for some people but deception isn’t the intent. It is a
topic open to debate and something people caring for
Alzheimer’s sufferers face every day; whether you deceive
a person to keep them happy or whether you’re honest
with them and face causing them potential distress.

The social impact of not knowing who the people
around you are, can affect a person’s personality
greatly. Many patients suffering with Alzheimer’s
become very introvert and removed from their
surroundings. The frustration and sometimes
embarrassment of not knowing names and faces you
should know, is difficult to deal with and some people
become depressed as a result.

On the outside many Alzheimer’s sufferers,
particularly in the early stages of the disease, appear
normal; they can converse normally and very often
lose very little of their basic skills like reading,
writing and numeracy skills. It is what is happening
on the inside that is the problem.
It is in conversation when the discussion moves to
recounting past experiences where the Alzheimer’s
sufferer is often left out because their recollection is
scant or maybe there is no recollection at all – you can’t
join in if you cant remember. Places, names and dates
all become more and more difficult to recall, and then
eventually not at all. As a result the Alzheimer’s sufferer
can feel more and more isolated, embarrassed and alone
whilst struggling to come to terms with their disease.
Once diagnosed sufferers pick up a label that leads
to more humiliation “its ok he forgets things”,
“He’s not the same man I married”, “it’s ok he
won’t understand”. All innocent comments but with
a wounding and degrading effect on the person.
Sufferers are often treated as if they can’t understand
any thing at all, when they actually understand nearly
all of what is being said – they just don’t remember.
When Alzheimer’s becomes more severe, patients
often lose track of time and place. Not knowing
where you are often creates the greatest frustration in
patients “where is this?”, “when are we going home?”,
“do you live here as well?”

With thanks to
Jill Davies
The staff of Silver Birtches residential care home
The Alzheimer’s Society
And of course
Dickie

_Curlew_ and the _Skylark_, _Zanzibar_, _Rhiannon_, the _Rover_,
the _Cormorant_, and the _Star of Wales_ tilt and ride.
Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional
salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row,
it is the grass growing on Llaregyb Hill, dewfall, starfall,
the sleep of birds in Milk Wood.
Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in
bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and
bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes,
fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a
domino; in Ocky Milkman’s lofts like a mouse with gloves;
in Dai Bread’s bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night
in Donkey Street, trotting silent, With seaweed on its
hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot,
text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours
done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night
neddying among the snuggeries of babies.
Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the
Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of
Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed;
tumbling by the Sailors Arms.
Time passes. Listen. Time passes.
Come closer now.
Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the
slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you
can see, in the blinded bedrooms, the coms. and petticoats
over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth,
Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dickybird-watching
pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the
eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes
and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes
and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.