Have You Ever Tried Your Mother On Complan?!

Have You Ever Tried Your Mother On Complan?!

Ever since I can remember, Mum has been a finicky eater; she has always had a pretty good appetite, but likes everything placed on her plate separately - the fish or meat on one side, the potatoes on another, and veg set apart from the rest of the food - and no gravy. She likes to see what she's getting for dinner.

She has also always been a slow eater - just like me, she cannot rush her food, but takes time to chew every mouthful properly. (My Grandma used to say, "Chew each mouthful 32 times - once for each tooth!")

After she broke her ankle in November 2011, which was the start of a 4 1/2 month stay in hospital, I took all Mum's food in to her every day; she had more teeth in her head then, and I didn't need to mash things up - she was certainly quicker in those days.

Fast forward to 2018: six years on, and Mum has slowed down considerably; with the dementia, she doesn't really concentrate on eating, and is easily distracted. Of course, there are times when she will feed herself, but at most mealtimes, she needs a lot of help.

Feeding Mum with her dinner can take over two hours; breakfast takes longer than that. Mum loves cornflakes and I do not stint on the amount I put in the bowl, along with a pint of full cream milk - she can still taste the difference between full cream and semi-skimmed - and she has to take her pills.  Supper is also quite lengthy, even if it is only tea and cake. At every meal time, apart from making sure Mum eats the food, we have to make sure she drinks her tea. She will pick up the cup, but then may only take a sip, or wet her lips in the tea; this means she usually needs feeding with that, too.

If all this sounds gloomy and time-consuming - we spend on average about 7 1/2 hours a day concentrating on Mum's nutrition - I try to view mealtimes not so much as tiresome tasks (although they certainly can be!), but more like social occasions. We watch t.v., talk about the cats, and I often ring up friends both here and overseas. Mum likes to talk to these friends as well - if she has known them for a long time, she remembers things from their shared past and experiences, and it all helps to stimulate her, and make the time pass pleasantly. If she is not rushed, Mum will eat every morsel of the food on her plate - and there is a lot of it!

When they found out how much time I spend (for example) on giving Mum her dinner, some carers could hardly believe Mum would take that long over it, and made comments like, "When we feed clients, it only takes half an hour....!"

My reaction was, "Well, then, please come and try to give Mum her dinner in that time."  I also reminded them that when we go with Mum for Tea at the Ritz, we get 2 hours to enjoy it - perfect timing for Mum.

One carer asked me, "Have you ever tried your mother on Complan?"

Mum has never liked any sort of milkshake. Although putting all the elements of her dinner separately on her plate no longer works, and I do have to mash everything up, it is not blended or pureed; it is a proper dinner. In addition to whatever meat or fish we may be having, every day Mum has peas, carrots, swede, parsnips, turnips, cauliflower and spinach, as well as some boiled potato.   I think we satisfy the "Five a Day" criterion, and if Mum is eating and enjoying proper food, why on earth would I want to take that away from her, and put her on meal supplements?

One day, just after I had dished up Mum's dinner on a 10" plate, complete with a good seasoning of pepper and butter, I took a photo of it. The picture will never make the pages of a cookery magazine, but when I showed it to the carer, she was very surprised.

"Can Phyllis eat all that?" She sounded amazed.

"She certainly can," I said. "If you allow her the time, and have the patience to feed her, slowly and steadily, she will eat the lot!"

Mum's delicious dinner

Uncle John Makes The News

Uncle John Makes The News

It was Uncle John's first visit back to England in 40 years, and I thought the local press might be interested in hearing how he felt about what he was seeing in modern Britain.  I got in touch with Suzi, a dear friend and journalist I have known for some years, and she was very keen to meet and interview him for her paper.

We arranged a date, and she came along with Roy, a photographer - it was a beautifully warm day and Uncle John sat in the garden in his shirtsleeves for the photo.

Uncle John's "pic in the paper"

He was thrilled that someone would take such an interest in his life, and what he had been doing whilst he was in Australia; equally, my friend found him fascinating to talk to, and felt she had a really good human-interest story for the paper. This is part of the article she wrote about him, under a big "Welcome Back John" headline:

"I am absolutely staggered by the changing face and pace of this country. When I left Britain, you never saw both sides of the road used for parking; it seems every household has a least one car now."  He added, "I'm also amazed at how supermarkets have changed so much in the UK, compared to the 1960s. The choice and range of fruit, vegetables and other produce is phenomenal. I suppose when you are living here you take it for granted, but the supermarkets certainly aren't as vast in Australia. The aisles are so beautifully wide - they certainly weren't like that when I left England."

Uncle John also talked about the weather, saying he was very appreciative of Britain's ever-changing weather. He said, "Sunshine all the time actually gets a bit boring, month after month."

In Brisbane, Uncle John admitted that he rarely goes out until after 4.00 p.m. - it is simply too hot, but everyone has air conditioning. He also said he was enjoying being able to take a shower for more than just a few minutes: "In Australia, no-one is allowed to take a shower for more than four minutes, because of water shortages."

One of the most striking differences, apart from the pace of life, was the layout of the two countries. "In England, most of the land is occupied, and there aren't really any no-go areas. In Australia, most of the towns and cities are dotted along the coastline; there are very few in the middle of the country, it's simply too hot being that far away from the sea."

During the month that Uncle John stayed with us, my point was proved time and time again; yes, England isn't as warm (or as very hot!) as Brisbane, but with modern central heating systems, it is easy to keep nice and warm here, even if the weather outside isn't!

Another positive aspect that impressed Uncle John, was the friendliness of all our neighbours.

I think because Australia is a young country (in more than one sense), the culture is more in favour of arranging to meet up with people for a "Barbie on the Beach," rather than throwing a party in your home. I suppose because houses in England are generally built rather more closely together than they are in Australia, and we live in closer proximity to "the folk next door," we have a chance to get to know them more easily. It is certainly true in our area, and Uncle John loved meeting everyone and enjoying their company; some of our neighbours are as well-travelled as he is, and they had many interesting experiences to share with him.

Uncle John's first trip home in 40 years was proving to be a great success.

Uncle John Settles In

Uncle John Settles In

It's surprising how quickly you can get used to having someone staying with you; Uncle John proved to be a very easy-going guest, and just as I remembered him to be in East Africa. Within a few days, we had settled into a really nice routine. It was a bonus that he really liked my cooking.

Right at the start, he said, "I will eat pretty much anything, but I'm not very keen on spaghetti. I will eat it if I have to, but I don't like it much."

I assured him he wouldn't get spaghetti from me; and for the whole month he was with us, he ate everything I put in front of him. Having some good home cooking meant he filled out, and looked 10 years younger.

Happily, he was also completely unfazed by being on what we (still) laughingly call "Alex Time."

I've worked on stage for so many years, and the cardinal sin of the theatre is to be late for a show, so I am always punctual for performances and appointments, but some things - like deciding when to go shopping - can be called "flexible," and end up on "Alex Time."

Being on "Alex Time" often means I have been distracted by something - maybe writing a piece to deadline, that perhaps I had truly believed would only take me 10 minutes to do, but by becoming so engrossed, meant thirty minutes passed by in what felt were only as many seconds!

I know "Alex Time" is a very annoying habit. It starts off with me saying something along the lines of, "O.k., I'll just get the vegetables prepared for dinner, and then we'll go shopping. We'll go in half an hour."  (Uncle John loved coming shopping with me; he would push the trolley round Tesco, racing up and down the aisles like a rocket, and generally being a marvellous help in getting everything done).

Whilst he waited for me, he would read the paper until the half hour was up, and then start wondering: where is Alex?

In the meantime, until the moment I had finished was I was doing, I had probably become blissfully oblivious of the time. I would then realise I was adrift by over an hour and tear back downstairs, feeling awful for keeping Uncle John waiting. In contrast, he was completely sanguine about it. He kept saying it was just so nice to be with us, and be part of the family, and he was happy to sit in the lounge or the garden and read, or fuss the cats.

He loves cats, but wasn't allowed a pet in the unit where he lived, so it was a treat to have an affectionate cat or two around the place. That was one really good subject that both he and Mum agreed on.

There were lots of other issues on which they clashed. When they got talking, and started to reminisce about the past, there were many things about which Mum was at loggerheads with Uncle John. It was a relief when he steered conversation back to the cats.

Uncle John Comes For A Holiday

Uncle John Comes For A Holiday

Mum's brother - my Uncle John - left England in 1969 with his wife Marguerite and son Johnny, to start a new life in Australia.

Bearing in mind that central heating in the 1960s wasn't as efficient as it is today, and that before they returned to England in 1961, Uncle John and his family had spent many years in East Africa, life in the UK must have felt pretty chilly.

My grandma, Alice Woods, and Uncle John
Dar-es-Salaam, 1950

The thought of going back to somewhere straddling the Tropic of Capricorn was probably an attractive proposition, and so in December 1969, they set sail from England, and landed in Australia in January, 1970.

In all the time they had lived in Australia, neither Uncle John, his wife Marguerite, nor their son Johnny, had ever made a return trip to see family in the UK, and it was clear they never would make the journey back home; so in 2001, we all went out on a holiday in Queensland - including Mum, who was nearly 82 at the time, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself. It was the first (and probably the only) time Mum visited Australia, but she can still remember aspects of the trip, that made a really good impression on her, like the day we went up to Kuranda by cable car, and down again by train!

In 2009, Mum was still fairly mobile - she had pain with her hip, and then with her knee, but she was still getting around, still using the low stool, (instead of a Zimmer frame), to help her. However, it was already 8 years since our holiday in Brisbane, and Mum was now nearly 90.

Apart from that one occasion, when a GP on a house call had chanced to see Mum getting out of the car and stomping off down the road, and had asked me, "How long has your mother been suffering from dementia?" nothing had ever been mentioned about any form of mental problem. However, Mum was beginning to display mood swings and unreasonable behaviour and arguments; if you were having a discussion, you couldn't disagree with something she said, without incurring her wrath.

On our weekly calls to Uncle John, and without going into too many details on the phone, I tried to give him some indication of Mum's health. We were very aware of time ticking on. Also, by then Uncle John had been widowed for 6 years; every time we spoke, we always said how much we would love to see him again, and how welcome he would be, if he ever decided to come back "home" for a holiday.

Something we said must have clicked for Uncle John, because he began to talk about how he "wouldn't mind" coming back to England again, to see how things had changed. We kept explaining, we had plenty of room for him to stay with us for as long as he liked; he would always be welcome, and we would love to have him with us.

At last, he made up his mind to make the long journey; we had many conversations on the phone, and he said, he would come in the summer.  I hoped he would stay for the whole of the summer season, but he said, "I'll come for a month - if that will be o.k?"

That was very o.k.  I understood he was a bit worried that perhaps our enthusiasm to have him visit might wane if he outstayed his welcome; but what Uncle John didn't remember, was that I remembered how good and kind he had been to Mum and me when we lived in East Africa, and what a terrific father figure he had always been for me. I was sure he hadn't changed over the years, and I was really looking forward to having him stay with us.

First, we had to sort the problem of Uncle John's passport having expired. It was quicker for me to obtain a copy of his birth certificate, and send it out to him, so that he could apply for a new passport; once he had that safely, the time flew and, before we knew it, Uncle John was in the air and on his way.

We drove to Heathrow to meet him, and I remember it seemed an interminable wait for him to emerge at the arrivals gate. I got quite concerned, and checked with the airline that his name was actually on the passenger list!

He must have been one of the last passengers off the plane but at last he came into view, pushing a trolley with his luggage on it; the eagle had landed!

He looked very spry, and as we all had a great hug, the years fell away; I was just so happy to see him. Back in the car, on the way home we talked non-stop. It was going to be a good month.

Mum's Second Foray into Print - A Liverpool Lass (Published in This England magazine).

A Liverpool Lass

This is Mum's second published article, which appeared in This England in 2008.

A LIVERPOOL LASS

by

PHYLLIS WHITWELL

When I was born in 1919, I already had an older brother, Austin, who was born in 1917. I was born on 28 October, which was my parents’ 3rd Wedding Anniversary - my dad always said I was a good anniversary present! and my younger brother, John, came along 3 and a half years later.

My brother John and I were very close and sometimes the two of us went to visit our mother’s father, whom we called (very formally!) “Grandad Thompson.” My mother’s family was quite well off;  her father was an engineer, and he rose to become Superintendent of distribution and supplies in the Water Department for Liverpool Corporation.  At the end of his career, he was responsible for the water supply for the whole of the city.   

Grandfather Wilson Silver Thompson

He had a large house in Mossley Hill in Liverpool; on one memorable occasion, when I was about eight years old, John and I went to visit him, and he gave us 2d - not tuppence each, but to share between us. 

I said to John, "Isn't it wonderful! We can buy some chocolate!" I still love chocolate to this day, and 2d in those days bought enough chocolate for the two of us. 

My younger brother was a dreadful worry to my mother, because food never bothered him.  Sometimes it seemed he could live on fresh air! After seeing his impatience to be off somewhere more exciting, having hardly touched his dinner, my mother would try using bribery as a last resort: “John, will you eat it for tuppence?”  Of course, John would say, “No!” My mum would try again. “Will you eat it for fourpence?”  “No,” said John, “but I’ll eat it for sixpence!” Of course, he knew it was all a game and soon he was off on some adventure.

He loved to go rowing on Sefton Park Lake, and I would go with him - because he was younger than I was, I think I was meant to look after him and make sure he did things properly! However, he was good at sports and we would often go out in a boat on the lake for hours.  One day, he made a mis-stroke with the oars, and one of the blades came up out of the water and hit me under the chin!   My mother had a lot to say about the bruise I went home with, but was a pure accident and he was soon forgiven.

John was also a great skater; one of my best memories of him as a lad is of him coming home, his skates tied at the laces and hanging round his neck, and whistling as he came up the road.

On one occasion, he was meant to go to Grandfather Thompson’s house in Mossley Hill and, as usual, John had become engrossed in what he was doing, and arrived back home over 2 hours late!  Our Grandfather was extremely cross, having imagined all sorts of terrible things that could have befallen him in the meantime. Although we had a lot more freedom in those days than most children have today, our parents and grandparents still worried about us.

My elder brother, Austin, was a very gifted musician.  He had started to play the violin when he was only four years old, and it was obvious he would go far.  He began learning with a quarter-sized violin, and then, as he got bigger, my dad got him a larger, half-sized instrument, and eventually he graduated to a full-sized violin.  I remember Austin tucking the violin under his chin, and practicing the “shake” which made the notes resonate and vibrate as he played them, sweeping up and down the strings with the bow. 

Austin practiced all the hours he could, sometimes 7 or 8 hours a day.  He was very determined, and it pleased my mother a great deal, as she had dreams of him becoming a concert violinist.  He certainly had all the promise of being able to achieve his ambition, but sadly fate had other ideas.  

When he was only 20, he fell ill whilst he was away from home in London; he developed pneumonia, and died.  There were not the effective medicines then, that are available today and it was a terrible time; somehow my younger brother, mum and dad and I all clung together and tried to make sense of the loss of such a wonderful young man.  In those days there was no suggestion of therapists coming along with advice or counselling; you just had to get on with things, and get over the sad times as best you could.    

My mother was always kept very busy; apart from the daily cooking and baking, she also had a regular schedule of washing, ironing and mending. In the scullery, there was a large “dolly tub,” and mum would heat the water for the washing every Monday, get all the clothes into the tub and whirl them around using the “dolly” - a large wooden paddle, that I think must have provided the inspiration for the central paddle in the old twin-tub washing machines!  It was hard work, doing it all by hand, and when all the clothes and linen had been rinsed, it had to go out on the line to dry - not easy if it was a rainy Washday Monday!  We also had a mangle, a device with two rollers that squeezed the water out of the clothes as you pushed them through, turning a handle on the side at the same time.  Mum was always saying, “Be careful, don’t get your fingers trapped in the mangle!” Then the clothes had to be ironed and folded neatly before they could be put away in the airing cupboard.  

When my brothers and I used to complain about having to go to bed early - especially on long summer evenings, when it was still light at 9.00 o’clock - my mum would send us off upstairs with the words, “When you’re all in bed, that’s when the mending basket comes out, and I have to get on with that!” She was also very good at knitting socks and had learned how to “turn the heel” as a young child.  When my grand-daughter, Wendy, was born in 1973, my mum was 79 years old. She was still knitting and provided a plentiful supply of tiny socks for her great-grand-daughter!

When we were young children, every January, my brothers and I would go with our dad to our local toy shop, to pick out the present each of us would like for the following Christmas.  It seemed such a long time to wait until December!  and of course, you always knew what you would get. However, it helped to balance the budget for my parents, because the toys would be put away for us, and then my dad would pay a penny, or tuppence a week, for each toy, until everything was paid for; and it meant no-one got into debt buying Christmas presents that they couldn’t afford.

My mother was also very lucky with the local shop raffle for a Christmas turkey; for two years running, she picked No. 26 as the ticket she wanted, and both years, that was the number that came up!  The dinner tasted all the nicer for having come as an extra bonus in that way.   With no television, we enjoyed reading, and conversations round the fire; we used to listen to the radio, and enjoyed the Light Programme and the Home Programme - far better entertainment than non-stop t.v., for encouraging the imagination! 

My mother, Alice, in 1914

My father, John Woods, in 1914