Remember the Fallen but Spare a Thought for the Survivors, for the Ones whose Wounds We Cannot See

I think we all get a bit glum and gloomy around this time of year, don’t we? Our days are truncated, more or less overnight, the very last of autumn’s leaves tumble from the trees and there is no more denying that dull, dank winter is here. Somehow it seems an especially poignant and fitting season to set aside time to remember the fallen.

It is always a particularly sad time of the year for me. Fourteen years ago, on a dark Friday evening in early November, my husband Peter closed his eyes for the final time, at the end of an angry combative, but thankfully brief, battle with cancer.

He had been ill for months but it still came as a shock. We had enjoyed the most marvellous Indian summer and I began to hope against hope that the doctors were wrong. But then the clocks went back. He didn’t even last a week.

Peter died on November 7th and we held his funeral a week later. So, for me, Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday always come at a pensive and rather wistful time. That said, I welcome and even enjoy this season: the solemn ceremonies, the unspoken solidarity between poppy wearers, the stirring, yet heart-breaking, first bars of The Last Post.

Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday have taken on rather more resonance over the last few years. The unending stream of caskets containing the mortal remains of British troops paying the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan has kept the role of the armed forces, their dedication and their courage, in the public eye, if not always in the headlines of the news.

A total of 375 British servicemen have lost their lives since the Afghan operation started in 2001. The latest casualty, Pte Matthew Thornton of 4th Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment, was killed by an IED in Helmand only two days ago. He was 28. In the prime of his life.

A few years ago, to be honest, Afghanistan barely crossed my mind. I certainly did not condone our involvement but I didn’t even know how to find it on a map. But then three members of my extended family were posted to the country and what went on in Kabul and in Camp Bastion suddenly took on an entirely new, and deeper, significance for me.

Since then, I have made it my business to find out a bit more about what is happening on the ground out there, about how dangerous it is for our boys, about whether or not our presence is making any difference whatsoever. I am not sure I am any the wiser but for me, the planned withdrawal cannot come a moment too soon.

My feelings were crystallised when we lived, for a few years, in the heart of rural Oxfordshire. Our old barn was a mile or two from the A420, the main Oxford-Swindon trunk road, the route taken from RAF Lyneham and Wootton Bassett by the military cortèges transporting the bodies of fallen soldiers to the John Radcliffe Hospital.

I will never forget pulling over, one day in July 2009, getting out of the car, to stand, head-bowed in sorrow and disbelief , as eight hearses, bearing eight Union Flag-covered coffins rolled slowly by.

Sadly, there is very little else we can do for those eight men and boys, nor for Private Thornton nor for the hundreds of others who gave their lives for their country. We can support their families and we can honour their sacrifice.

In their memory, however, we need to uphold a duty of care to the British troops who have seen combat, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, over the past decade. Of these estimated 200,000 servicemen and women, it is thought that around one in four will return from the theatre of war with mental health problems, ranging from alcohol dependency to full-blown post-traumatic stress. Unsurprisingly, ex-servicemen make up around 20 per cent of the homeless population.

Unlike those returning with physical injuries, those with hidden wounds are often too proud to get help, suffering years of psychological torment before seeking treatment. Since 2005, charity Combat Stress has seen a 72 per cent increase in demand for their specialist services, caring for the mental health of veterans. Last year, they had more than 1,400 new referrals, giving a current caseload of nearly 5,000 individuals.

Not every injury sustained in battle is a visible one. Yet psychological wounds can be just as painful, devastating, life-changing and difficult to treat as physical ones, requiring months and years of careful rehabilitation.

As long as our troops are still risking their lives in remote and distant foreign fields, we need to ensure that they receive as much support as they need, whether social, financial or emotional. not only while they are on the front line but perhaps more importantly, when they return home, to families and friends who have scant comprehension of the horrors they have seen.

So let us take time, in this sombre season, to think of the fallen and to give thanks. But spare a thought too, for the survivors, for the ones who did come home and for those whose sacrifice may be well be rather more significant than we suspect.

In Praise of Unexpected Friends - In Memoriam: Charles Chevalier Kirkman

Charles & my father, Fred, at our Wedding - 1998

Awkward. Well, it can be, can't it? The first time you ever tell the other person that you love them? Especially when you've been wanting to tell them for ages, but never had the opportunity, or the courage?

Anyhow, last weekend, I finally managed to whisper the three words in question. I gave him a little kiss, just on the cheek, as well. I'm pretty certain I saw him smile back at me. Then again, it could well have been a trick of the sunlight, which was pouring in through the window of the room in the hospice.

My father-in-law, Charles, passed away on Tuesday, 12 months after we were told that nothing more could be done to cure the cancer that first reared its head the year he and I first met, in 1998. The last weeks were particularly rough, with the myriad indignities cancer will inflict. Charles bore it all with his usual dignity and patience, with his overriding concern for everyone else, everyone but himself.

Relationships with in-laws can be a mixed blessing. I should know: I've been twice blessed. But my relationship with Charles was most definitely a blessing. Charles was not just my father-in-law; he was my friend.

During his first brush with prostate cancer, Charles stayed with us in London where he was being zapped daily at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea. He and I walked Chippie and Cara on Clapham Common and had long chats where we discovered we had far more in common than our love for (and occasional exasperation with...) Tim, whom I was about to marry.

Charles and I bonded over many shared enthusiasms: for Second World War history, for the quirkier pieces which appeared on the Telegraph obituaries page and for properly chilled Provençal Rosé. I was very proud when he agreed to read my favourite passage from the Bible - Romans 12:9-18 - at our wedding. It was the beginning of a fulfilling, mutually affectionate, utterly uncomplicated relationship, sadly truncated this week. I will miss him immeasurably.

I'm hugely comforted by the knowledge that Charles had a wonderful life, well-lived, evident in the tributes flooding in this week from family and from his many other friends. He, like my own Dad, was one of those proper 20th century chaps who lived by an unspoken but, in its own way rather rigid, moral code. You could never imagine Charles even telling the whitest of lies, let alone hacking a phone.

In the last few months, he and I have had great fun, digging through boxes of family photographs and archives, where I learned more about Charles' quite extraordinary childhood. His father was General Sir Sydney Chevalier Kirkman GCB, KBE, MC (1895–1982), Montgomery's right-hand man at El Alamein and one of the towering military figures of his generation.

Chev, as he was known in the family, cannot have been the easiest of fathers, but Charles always spoke of him with due respect. His mother, Lady Erskine was clearly an extraordinary woman too - one of the first women to study medicine at Oxford and practice as a doctor.

Charles followed his father into the army and rose to the rank of Major in the Royal Artillery. However, I suspect that for Charles, life really did begin at 40, when he left the army behind, moved to Lymington on the Solent, where he was able to combine his passion for sailing with a job in a specialist yacht engineering company. He was the navigator and technician on a series of famous ocean racing yachts and took part in scores of international regattas, competing in nine classic Fastnet races across the Irish Sea.

One of the best things about my relationship with Charles was how rather unexpected our great friendship was? Somebody you might, ordinarily, never have met, or with whom you initially appear to have little in common? Someone with whom you may be rather thrown together, out of necessity, rather than choice?

You may not have that many, but I bet you've got a couple of unexpected friends. I know I've got a fair few and I have been thinking lately a lot about Patrick, my late brother Rory's partner, now sadly also passed on. Against all possible odds, we, too, became very close and when he died in 2009, I was quite heartbroken.

So, if the universe has thrown you an unexpected friend or two, don't forget to be thankful for them, to cherish them and to find quality time to spend with each other. And don't forget to tell them that you love them - before it is too late.

Charles Chevalier Kirkman 1933-2011 requiescat in pace +

When Buster bumped into Baroness Thatcher. A few Thoughts on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Photograph: copyright PA
Some Senior Citizens receive the care and respect they deserve. Baroness Thatcher meets a group of Chelsea Pensioners at the Royal Hospital in London

I saw Mrs Thatcher last week. I didn’t ask for an appointment so didn’t experience the ignominy of being turned down, like Sarah Palin. It was an utterly unexpected encounter and to be honest, it took me a full few minutes before I realised who she was. If it hadn’t been for the heavy-booted security detail, complete with ear piece, walking a few paces behind, I might not have recognised her at all.

It was one of those glorious early summer afternoons we’ve been enjoying so often lately. The psycho-spaniels and I were just enjoying the last few yards of our daily constitutional in a central London park when our elderly American Cocker, Buster, cantered blindly into the ankles of a smartly dressed, middle-aged lady, who was slowly accompanying a rather older one, along the path leading to the bandstand.

“I’m so sorry,” I garbled. “I’m afraid, he is getting on now and he’s losing his sight”. No harm had been done and both ladies bent down, to pat the offending hound and declare what a lovely looking dog he was. The older lady had a particularly beatific smile. I put him back on the lead and wished them both good afternoon. As I turned to go, the policewoman – I could now see the radio attached to her belt – shot me a knowing look, as if letting me into some huge secret. No wonder the old lady had looked so familiar.

I’m not quite sure why, but the whole four minutes left me strangely moved. I like to think that I am too young to have strong views on what Mrs T. achieved – or not – as prime minister (1979-1990), but I was touched to see that the former Iron Lady, who suffers from dementia, was immaculately turned out for her 85 years and was patently cherished and being extremely well-cared for in the autumn of her years.

Sadly, this is far from the case for so many other elderly and vulnerable adults, as we in the UK saw earlier this week with a truly shocking piece of investigative journalism for the BBC’s Panorama current affairs programme. An undercover reporter filmed scenes of physical and verbal abuse of patients with autism and learning difficulties at a private hospital near Bristol.

I didn’t watch the entire programme. I’m afraid I just couldn’t. It was all too familiar. On more than one occasion, I had to rescue my late father from an unfamiliar care home, where he had been temporarily dumped and where, invariably, most of the staff were simply too over-worked or too unfamiliar with the specifics of Dad’s condition to care for him properly. This meant that all too frequently he was left horribly upset, in pain and discomfort and without a vestige of his once considerable dignity.

I complained, of course, but in my own distress and outrage, my best journalistic instincts went out of the window. I quite forgot to switch on the secret video, as Panorama reporter Joe Casey did at Winterbourne View. I was too preoccupied with changing Dad’s faeces-full trousers, calming him down and cleaning him up, to whip out my smart phone camera and document the damning evidence. When Wakefield Social Services called me a liar, I had nothing - on film - to prove that, sadly, my allegations were all too true.

In the noisy aftermath of the Panorama show, many people asked why it took a covert investigation to bring this abuse to the attention of a suitably horrified public. A former senior nurse at the unit, Terry Bryan, had reported his fears to the regulator, the Care Quality Commission, three times before he went, in desperation, to the BBC. Read a thoughtful response by Action on Elder Abuse CEO Gary FitzGerald here.

There has also been the predictably hollow cacophony of stable doors slamming, with Care Minister Paul Burstow pledging to strengthen existing safeguards for vulnerable adults. Here I quote from Mr Burstow himself, who told the BBC: "It comes as a surprise to people that the statutory basis for the safeguarding of vulnerable adults in this country is much weaker than that which exists for children”.

That’s right. The elderly and other vulnerable adults in this country have far, far fewer legal safeguards against abuse than children, than most domestic pets. The innocent cat dumped into a wheelie bin by YouTube villainess Mary Bale had more statutory protection than the patients at Winterbourne View. A goldfish or a budgie enjoys more legal redress than my father had in his final years, ravaged by dementia, living in terror of people who claimed to be caring for him, individuals he should have been able to trust.

It’s a bit late for Dad now but I am still leading a rousing three cheers for Panorama, for doing what it is that good journalism is supposed to do: shining a bright light into a very dark corner indeed.

Why is it that the abuse of our senior citizens and other vulnerable adults should be so ignored, so swept under the carpet, that we need to see it, with our own eyes, on the television, on the i-Player, on YouTube, to believe, to be convinced, that it goes on?

Why was everyone so surprised, as the minister himself acknowledged, that so many of our most defenceless citizens still have no legally enshrined protection? Even our closest neighbours, the French have a law against the “abuse of the weakness of elderly people ” (abus de faiblesse sur personnes agées).

It may also be a surprise to you that this Wednesday, 15th June, is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. I’m not usually a big fan of singling out particular days to promote individual causes but in this case, as I hope I’ve shown above, we desperately need to raise awareness. Elder abuse is already widespread and it is rising fast, in tandem with the ageing population, increased rates of dementia and burgeoning prosperity.

If you were shocked by the Panorama broadcast or, more pertinently, if you have a much-loved, frail or otherwise vulnerable family member or friend, why not do your own small bit to help raise awareness? After all, if you do nothing, then nothing gets done.

It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. Perhaps you might mention the day to a friend or a colleague? Maybe you could wear something purple and, if anyone asks you why, explain. It would be absolutely brilliant if you could sign up here or even share an appropriate link or two, via Facebook or Twitter. Just google “elder abuse” - but do beware: many of the results which pop up can be shocking.

As Baroness Thatcher and her companions sat down on a south-facing bench by the cricket nets, to enjoy the last few rays of the afternoon sun, she gave us the tiniest of waves and another slightly expectant, utterly radiant smile. She reminded me for all the world of my own Nana Jackson, who wasn’t entirely sure who I was, on the last few occasions that I saw her. Yet both these little old ladies somehow knew that I was friend and not foe; they knew that they had nothing whatsoever to fear. If only it were so for every single one of our senior citizens, all of whom deserve our respect and our protection.

My Dangerous Dog Dilemma & How I Resolved It (I think…)

Buster & Harley - many moons before they became the victims of a dangerous dog attack

I am sure you will be relieved to hear that I did my little bit of civic duty this week. I spent much of Thursday afternoon in Southwark Police Station in south London, where I had been summoned to an ID parade, in the hope I could recognize the owner of the two dogs who attacked Buster & Harley – and me - a couple of weeks ago.

The man arrested denied all knowledge of the attack; ergo, it was down to me to pick him out from a line-up. The story of the attack and my response is here. Do feel free to scroll down, past the mushy bit, to get to the meat of the story – so to speak.

I have clearly been watching far too many glamorous American cop shows on the telly. Southwark nick was about as far from Miami Dade PD HQ as you can imagine. No dappled sunbeams shooting through glass doors, no hunky CSIs striding down corridors, urgently taking samples to trace, not even Horatio to reassure me, with that oh-so-familiar, swift whip-off of his shades.

I did, though, have a charming young PC from our local Safer Neighbourhoods Team, to chaperone me through a maze of double doors and corridors to the portakabin temporarily serving as the ID suite. I didn’t even get the excitement of the two-way mirror and a live parade of usual suspects. I sat nervously in front of a tiny monitor, as a gruff sergeant tapped on a laptop and asked me a series of fairly inane questions.

Nine images are played, twice through on a loop, before you get the chance to see them together on a grid, or to pick out an individual frame to freeze. It was even trickier than I had been anticipating. The nine men on the video all looked very similar; I have not been told whether my superficially confident spot was correct. I signed my declaration and escaped as quickly as I could, relieved it was over but with my conscience still slightly uneasy.

Why? Well, it turns out that the dogs’ owner is not some big Eastern European mafia gang boss, using his scary animals to help mark out his turf as he battles for control of the drug trade in southwest London. He is actually quite a mousy type, a skinny guy in his mid-20s, who does not seem to have a job to go to and who may or may not have his own addiction problems. He lives in a small Housing Association property with his dogs, who are healthy, well-groomed and magnificently turned out, in their studded leather harnesses.

He walks them daily on the little patch of the Common where we fell foul of them. He is still there most days now, with the dogs rarely muzzled and not always on the lead. Another spaniel, Romeo, remarkably similar in size and colouring to Buster, was set upon by them last week. Perhaps mindful that he was out on bail for an identical attack, he readily identified himself to Romeo’s owner and willingly gave his details. That is about the sum of what I know about this guy; that and the fact that he clearly loves his dogs.


Cara, the blind American Cocker Spaniel who saved my life (1993-2009)

I love my dogs. Don’t we all? I too well understand how a dog can feel like your one, true friend and comfort. During the months after I was, not unexpectedly but horribly prematurely, widowed, there were days upon days when I did not even feel like getting out of bed, let alone leaving the house.

However, I shared the house with two lively spaniels who needed to pee and were rather more interested in their breakfast than in the tiresome details of my depression and grief. Chippie and Cara needed me – the latter all the more so, given she had recently gone blind. There was no way I was to be allowed to wallow – or god forbid, do anything more drastic. Hand on heart, I can honestly say that Chip & Cara saved my life.

Lately when I have expressed this kind of reservation about the dogs which attacked us being destroyed, I have been roundly shouted down. What if the next target is a child? The dogs do live right next to a large primary school and there are scores and scores of babies and toddlers in our particular warren of roads.

Google “fatal dog attack” and in every single story, you will read that the police had already been alerted to the dangerous dog in question.

What if Buster and Romeo had been killed? Another excellent point and one with a very sobering coda: there is as yet no effective dog-on-dog legislation in England and Wales. Both spaniels could have been ripped to shreds in front of our eyes and the police would have been powerless to prosecute. If the second dog had not taken a huge chunk out of my ankle, there would no statutory grounds on which to pursue this owner and, as the young PC dealing with our case wearily explained, nothing whatsoever they could do.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve become a bit of an expert on dog legislation since the attack in February and it is clear that, as a broad coalition of animal and veterinary charities has been flagging for some time, the existing Dangerous Dogs Act is simply not fit for current purpose. There has actually been some good news lately in that the Dog Control Bill, a Private Members Bill introduced by Lord Redesdale, passed the committee stage in the Lords on Friday 4th March and will now hopefully make it to the Commons.

There is still time to sign a petition to repeal and replace the inadequate legislation – check it out here.

Meantime, I’ll keep you posted as to what happens with our case. Uneasy as I am about any dogs being destroyed – or even about a clearly needy individual losing his best friends – I simply do not want anyone, man, woman, child or dog – to go through what we have endured.

The Big Society, The Good Samaritan & The Dangerous Dogs

It was the card that did it. Until then, I hadn’t shed a single tear, despite the often excruciating pain and the sheer, life-flashing-before-your-eyes, terror of the memories.

At first, I presumed it was yet another pizza-kebab-curry flyer when it came through the letter box. In fact, I almost missed it, in the growing pile of junk mail. But then I saw it was addressed to “Dominique & Family”. The illustration above barely does it justice. It is hand made and the pattern on the Scottie Dog is an intricate, inlaid collage. One of the neighbours, Carole, whom I know just a bit from walking our dogs, made it, especially for me, and when I read the message she had written, the tears started and they didn’t stop.

On Tuesday morning, coming back from our regular morning stroll on Wandsworth Common, Harley and Buster were set upon by two huge “Staffie”-type dogs wearing studded leather harnesses. I had seen both dogs a few times before. They had snarled more than once in our direction but were then firmly on the lead.

This time, we had no chance. One dog picked Buster up in his jaws, worrying him as if he were a rat or a squeaky toy. The other set about Harley who was nimble enough to escape and shoot back to our rented house. The owner stood by & watched as I – possibly foolishly – tried to extricate Buster. The second dog then joined in, snapping at my flapping elbows & then seizing my ankle. The neighbours, alerted by my screams, later told me the dog did not let go until I was struggling across the road with Buster in my arms.

In the parable, the Good Samaritan does not walk past the man set upon by thieves. He tends to his wounds, gets him to the inn and leaves two silver pieces for his care. If you have a Bible handy, I’ll remind you that it is from Luke’s Gospel (10: 25-37) and that the epithet is now shorthand for anyone who helps a stranger.

In the next 72 hours, I was repeatedly rendered speechless by the kindness of strangers and not only that of the neighbours who called the ambulance & the police as I stood gibbering. There was the lady jogging past who located Harley, calmed her and made sure she was safe. There was the chatty, tactile girl in the waiting room of the hospital who gave me a much-needed hug. There was the young vet who operated all afternoon to reattach skin to muscle around Buster’s neck and ears. There was the steady stream of emails from local residents, none of whom I knew, but all of whom took time to express their sympathy, outrage and support. And of course, there was Carole, Bob and their dog, Ash, who made a card for me and came to drop it off.

Via the magic of the worldwide intrawebs, I have also been the recipient of cyber-support from not quite so strange friends and acquaintances, doggy and otherwise, from New Zealand to Nova Scotia, quite literally. If you are reading this, you probably already know where I stand on the authenticity and utility of online communities. I can absolutely assure you that every single Facebook comment, Twitter DM or simple click of the “Like” button under uploaded pictures of the brave but heavily bandaged Buster helped.




It helped me to realise that for every insecure young man who stands by while his patently dangerous dogs attack much-loved pets and innocent passers-by, there are scores and scores of fundamentally good people who will not stand by but rather stand up, with compassion, for their neighbour, whether known to them or not, and for the common good.

The “Big Society” doesn’t necessarily need a Westminster campaign and a huge chunk of taxpayers’ money to get it off the ground. As far as I can tell, and this whole experience has reinforced my conviction: the “Big Society” is alive and well; at least it is in my small corner of South London.

On a more prosaic note, my new local friends and I are now hoping to identify the owner of the dogs. Obviously, being the sad, mad dog woman that you all know I am, I would far rather that they were not destroyed. It is not the dogs themselves who are at fault here. It is their owner who cannot control them and who may even be encouraging their aggression.

However, as yet another of my new e-mail pals pointed out, what if their next victim were a child?

Your Father smelled of Elderberries. When Name Calling turns Nasty

Apologies. There are no prizes for identifying the source of the quote in the post title above. Any super-annuated school boy of a certain age knows that it is from the justly notorious French taunting scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail, the 1975 film triumphantly transferred to the stage as Spamalot. If your mother was a hamster, click here to watch the full clip.

I feared the scene might have aged but it remains stubbornly hilarious. Yet as a rule, I abhor this kind of puerile name-calling. It tends to be the last desperate weapon at the bottom of a depleted arsenal and it carries more than a whiff of the playground. I don’t suppose I have been subjected to any sustained name-calling since I left school myself. But that was until I started to engage with Wakefield Family Services; last week I was shocked and saddened to find out quite how rampant their verbal abuse of me has been.

It is quite one thing to be labelled as “posh” or “Southern” – although I am not sure either adjective is especially accurate in my case. I took particular umbrage when I was branded a liar after one shocking episode with my father. I was also referred to as “that deranged woman” (I paraphrase, but you get the gist) in yet another inadvertently forwarded e-mail. The incompetence would have amused if the insult had not been so appalling.

Last week, via an official data protection request, I saw another e-mail exchange – coincidentally between the same matey pair of WFS colleagues – which implied that I was a violent individual, who habitually went round physically attacking the frail and elderly. This is not just name-calling. It is malicious defamation and, by any criteria, libel of the most serious nature.

Not long after Dad’s dementia symptoms first began to cause real problems and I had serious concerns about his welfare, I did manage to have a face-to-face meeting with a member of the relevant Social Work team and with the authority’s Adult Protection Officer himself. They openly acknowledged to me that I was seen as “posh” and “Southern”.

At the time, I was living near Oxford which is certainly south of Yorkshire; so I suppose that sort of made me “Southern” – it’s certainly not an epithet to which you can seriously object. However, the very idea that I was “posh” was hilarious. We concluded that my use of the Queen’s English/received pronunciation might not have done me any favours. Again, only an overly sensitive individual would construe “posh” as particularly defamatory.

I did, however, object vociferously, and in writing, to being labelled a liar. Lying is simply not in my nature. If anything, I have often sacrificed tact for the truth. WFS accused me of falsifying an account of finding Dad alone in his room in a respite home outside Doncaster on a steaming hot July afternoon the summer before he died.

I rushed up north after Dad called one night, in huge distress: he did not know where the hell he was, he was having embarrassing problems with his bowels. Could I come and get him? WFS would not tell me where he was; I was not considered next of kin. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to locate him – via a helpful uncle and Google Earth.

I smelled him before I saw him and the scent was not of elderberries. I found Dad sitting in an airless room, up to his waist in his own faeces. He had been suffering from the vivid hallucinations which came with his Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis and he didn’t feel he knew any of the care home staff well enough to ask for help getting to the loo in time.

The staff at the care home “disputed […my] version of events”. I didn’t press my case too hard. I knew myself full well how long it had taken me to clean Dad up and change his pyjama trousers and his incontinence pants. The sights and smells of that afternoon stayed with me for months. However, someone at the care home might well have lost their job over the incident and that is the last thing I would have wanted.

The latest developments are in another league however. As I write, I am awaiting a response from Wakefield to this latest piece of evidence that I was regularly and casually libelled in written communications between very senior Wakefield personnel. I have also submitted another Data Subject Access Request. Sincere thanks to all of you who have so warmly supported and encouraged me not to give up. You know who you are.

As I wrote to Wakefield’s Head of Legal and Democratic Services last week: “The saddest element of this entire saga is that, rather than use my father’s experiences as a real opportunity to examine its adult protection policies, Wakefield chose instead to “shoot the messenger”. Vulnerable adult abuse is rising as the population ages and dementia rates soar. What a pity Wakefield has no interest in improving the protection of the many frail and elderly council tax payers to whom it owes a duty of care”.

A Few New Year Thoughts. My Main Hope for 2011? Fair Treatment - finally - from Wakefield Council

The Psycho Spaniels, Harley & Buster, on Wandworth Common in the snow, December 2010

It’s that time of year again, isn’t it? When we think about our hopes and dreams for the coming 12 months and make some resolutions and set ourselves some goals?

For 2011, I have one single hope: that I will finally get justice, or at the very least fair treatment, from Wakefield City Council. Or, if that is just too much to ask, maybe they could start by spelling my name correctly? After all, we have been corresponding for nearly five years now...

To cut an extremely long and tedious story short, here are the headlines:
In April 2009, five months after his undignified and unnecessarily protracted death, I was asked by Wakefield Family Services to cooperate with an investigation into their dealings with my late father, Fred. Naturally, I did so, willingly and courteously, even travelling to Yorkshire at my own expense.

In October 2009, I received a copy of the investigators’ report, which, sadly and inexplicably, contained several material errors concerning key events and more seriously, several highly defamatory references to my own probity and good name. I am an independent freelancer and my entire livelihood naturally depends upon my reputation and upon perceptions of my character.

In November 2009, on the advice of my solicitors, I sent a detailed response to the report, asking, respectfully, for the corrections and clarifications contained therein to be made to the report forthwith. The following e-mail is typical of the responses I subsequently received from Wakefield:






I was finally informed that the two retired social workers who conducted the “independent” investigation refused outright to amend the report to reflect any of our concerns, thus leaving a shockingly defamatory and materially erroneous document in the public domain.

Since then, a series of polite approaches to Wakefield, attempting to resolve matters amicably, have also failed. Wakefield Chief Executive Joanne Roney OBE (annual salary £222,172.00) refuses to meet me. Yvette Cooper, my late father’s MP and regular correspondent, has also elegantly side-stepped all attempts to attract her support for our cause.

I have now been advised that my only recourse is a bound-to-be costly legal action against Wakefield. However, my solicitors will – quite sensibly- not allow me to proceed until I have proved to them that I have amassed a fighting fund of several thousand pounds - which I should also be prepared to lose.

After all, Wakefield is a publicly funded local authority, with its own in-house legal team, all underwritten by the tax payer. I am simply a private individual; one who has been libelled and maliciously defamed in a report which was clearly designed to exonerate Wakefield Family Services from any hint of negligence or complicity in the sustained abuse of my father, a frail and only intermittently lucid, extraordinarily vulnerable old man.

Perhaps I was naïve? When Wakefield told me they were commissioning this report, I sincerely believed that they were taking a real interest in this clear instance of sad and cruel vulnerable adult abuse, that they intended to examine their approach to Dad’s case, in an effort to see whether they might amend their protocols – if only to protect future victims – and there is bound to be thousands of them – from undergoing the trials Dad endured.

With glorious 20-20 hindsight, I now see how naïve I was. The odds were stacked against me, from the start of my Dad’s ordeal in September 2006. As early as 2007, when I finally managed to arrange a face-to-face meeting with one of Dad’s key social workers and Wakefield’s Adult Protection Officer, they openly acknowledged that my intervention was considered “problematic”. That I was seen as “posh” and “Southern”.

Neither of these adjectives is particularly defamatory, I suppose, although I did take exception when an e-mail (between the “Corporate Director, Family Services” and the Customer Services Manager which was inadvertently forwarded to my in-box), described me - more or less - as “that deranged woman”. As I hope you will appreciate, I have to be a bit circumspect in what I disclose now, should I eventually be obliged to take my case to court.

To add insult to injury, a simple query for clarification on Wakefield’s Adult Protection Policy prompted the “Press & PR Manager” to contact the national newspaper for which I was writing an Elder Abuse Awareness day piece. She proceeded to roundly discredit me and my intentions. Sadly, the piece did not get published. Thus, not content with libelling me in a report which was supposed to focus on Wakefield’s interactions with my father, the Council’s employees continue to wage a sustained and underhand campaign of malicious defamation against me. As we say #Twitter: *sighs*

Perhaps I should just give up? The report itself is, by any criteria, a curious document, based entirely on the extraordinary premise that my father retained full mental capacity until his death in December 2008. He didn’t seem particularly lucid to me during his last few weeks, which he spent barely conscious in Monument House Care Unit in Pontefract, tube up both ends, being turned every four hours by the palliative team.

I am not sure either that I would say that someone who was often chased by talking fire engines and who chatted almost daily to my dead brother was entirely compos mentis? Dad’s vivid hallucinations, the distinguishing symptom of Dementia with Lewy Bodies, started in 2006, more than two years before his death and continued throughout the entire period of Wakefield Family Services’ dealings with him. The WFS report seems to think that he suffered from Lewes Bodies, which would be almost charming, if it weren’t a perfect example of the myriad careless errors of fact, syntax, orthography and punctuation which litter the investigators’ report. Clearly, nobody felt it was a significant enough document to bother to proof read?

As I write, I am awaiting the response to a series of requests I have made under the 1998 Data Protection Act and 2000 Freedom of Information Act before proceeding any further. I’ll keep you posted. Meantime, comments – and any advice – more than welcome as ever. Thanks for reading.