O•S•C•A•R© - Old Ottawa South

Page 34
The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR
Dorothy Reads
The Shooting in the Shop by Simon Brett
A
treat for Simon Brett Fans,
the eleventh instalment in his
Fethering Mysteries series is
now available at the Ottawa Public
Library. While the book is set over
the Christmas holidays, it nonetheless
makes for great summer reading, as
do the other books in this cosy mystery
series.
In the Shooting in the Shop, Carole
Seddon and her friend Jude set off
for a bit of last minute Christmas shopping
at Gallimaufry, Fethering’s newest
novely gift shop (of the sort that
sells diamante costume jewelry, finger
puppets of famous philosophers, and
gold plated Belly Button Fluff Extractors).
A few days later, the shop
burns down, and a body is found in
the ashes. The police suspect foul play
when a bullet is located at the scene
of the crime. But who would want to
harm the victim? Polly le Bonnier, a
young woman from a prominent show
business family, in a steady relationship
and with a book contract in the
works, seems an unlikely candidate
for a corpse. Carole and Jude are nat-
By Tayleigh Armstrong
In a rapidly aging society
frightened of talking about
death, Ottawa South resident
Katherine Arnup says Canadians
have a lot to learn from palliative care
volunteers about facing their fear of
dying.
“It’s something we don’t
talk about, which is odd, because
eventually everyone dies,” says
Arnup, who is also a professor
of Canadian Studies at Carleton
University. “I was guilty of it, too.”
But that all changed over a
decade ago when Arnup’s sister Carol
became terminally ill with cancer.
“Before that, I’d been like many
people, afraid of death,” she says. “I
avoided it at all costs.”
Unable to avoid the subject any
longer, Arnup became her sister’s
primary caregiver over the next six
months, providing both care and
companionship.
And though she says it was very
difficult, she learned lot from the
experience.
“It was hard, but she taught me,”
urally intrigued and discretely begin
investigating the leading suspects:
Polly’s step father, Ricky le Bonnier,
music producer and notorious womanizer;
Anna Carter, shop assistant at
Gallimaufry, Marilyn Monroe look-
alike and lonely dog walker and Old
Garge, boathouse squatter and keeper
of more secrets about the le Bonnier
family than he’s letting on.
The series is set in the fictional
town of Fethering, a self contained
retirement settlement on England’s
south coast. Its two protagonists
and amateur sleuths, Carole Seddon
and Jude (referred to simply as
Jude throughout) are perfect foils
for each other. Carole is in her 50s,
with short hair and a natural inclination
to wear sensible shoes. She is
recently divorced and has retired
prematurely from a job at the Home
Office. Rational, prickly and socially
awkward, she had planned for a quiet
retirement in Fethering with her Golden
Retriever, Gulliver. Jude, her next
door neighbour, is also in her 50s. Her
hair is long and usually piled loosely
says Arnup. “She taught me a lot
about dying.”
Four years after her sister’s death,
Arnup enrolled in the volunteer
training course at the Hospice at May
Court, a former convalescent hometurned-care
facility tucked away
in Old Ottawa South. Established
in 1987, the Hospice at May Court
provides family support, day hospice,
home support and residence programs
to help the terminally ill and their
families find peace at the end of their
lives. More than 500 volunteers are
involved in everything from assisting
nurses and helping with meals to
playing scrabble with patients.
Arnup recently presented a paper
on the experiences of palliative
care volunteers to the International
Council for Canadian Studies at
the Congress of the Humanities
and Social Sciences at Concordia
University.
For the paper, she conducted indepth
interviews with 14 volunteers
at the Hospice at May Court, focusing
on their motivation for volunteering
and the effect it has had on themselves
and the people around them.
on her head. She wears layers of flowing
clothing. She is a natural healer,
is flamboyant and in touch with her
spiritual side. Social by nature, she is
the sort of person people confide in
easily. Unlikely friends, Carole and
Jude are thrown together in the first
of the series, The Body on the Beach.
They develop a taste for sleuthing and
can’t help but get involved in solving
whatever crime pops up in Fethering
or elsewhere along the South Downs.
Immensely fun to read, these
books abound with clues, red herrings
and flights of deductive reasoning on
the part of our amateur sleuthing duo.
While falling into the category of cosy
mysteries, the series avoids becoming
treacly – Brett is far too witty and satirical
a writer to allow for that. He
comments pointedly yet benignly on
modern society, deflating pretention,
probing motives, and exploring hangups
while at the same time showing a
great affection for his main characters,
flawed though they may be. There is
also more than a hint of self parody
in his writing (starting with the rather
“I found that the vast majority of
them had in fact had somebody close
to them die in their lives,” she says.
“For most of them, it had changed
them.”
Volunteering provides insight
into the dying process that open up
essential conversations about the
dying process. And though the job is
not without its difficulties, volunteers
expressed a newfound level of comfort
with death and ongoing reminders of
July 2010
absurd alliterative titles). It seems that
Brett is aware of following the formulas
of the genre, but is having fun with
them.
If you are already a fan of this
series, and are looking for similar
books to read over the summer, I recommend
the following authors and
series: Simon Brett (Charles Paris) ,
(Mrs Pargeter); Susan Wittig Albert
(China Bayles); M.C. Beaton (Agatha
Raisin), ( Hamish Macbeth), Rita
Mae Brown (Mary Minor Harristeen);
Caroline Graham (Inspector Tom
Barnaby); Cleo Coyle (Coffeehouse
Mysteries); Nancy Atherton (Aunt
Dimity ); Donna Andrews (Meg
Langslow); Louise Penny (Inspector
Armand Gamache – set outside Montreal).
Of course, all are available at the
Ottawa Public Library! Have a great
summerJ
Dorothy Jeffreys, Librarian
Alta Vista Library
Ottawa South Resident Aims To Help Canadians Cope With Death
Katherine Arnup
what really matters in life.
Hospice workers not only help
patients and their families cope
during difficult times, but also
provide a service that is becoming
increasingly important as Canada’s
aging population begins to create a
huge need for palliative care services.
Last year, more than 259, 000
people died in Canada. Statistics
Canada predicts that, with the aging
of the baby boomers, that number
will reach 330,000 by 2020.
“That will create a huge demand
on the healthcare system and on longterm
care facilities,” says Arnup. And
while most Canadians say they want
to die at home, Arnup notes that the
vast majority still die in hospitals and
care facilities.
She says it’s important to talk
about death so that people can have
the dying process they want with the
people they want to be with.
“We don’t come to terms with it,
we don’t talk about where we want to
die, we don’t have enough facilities
to help people die,” she says. “These
are things we need to change.”
Tell OSCAR Readers
about interesting people,
your travel
or your interests.
Send text and photos to
oscar@oldottawasouth.ca