26.3.24
So, rehearsals started yesterday…
It’s a massive deal. I bounce between sadness, incredulity and awe (I mean what the actual fuck?) and a strange, unformed somethingness I can’t pin down. Maybe there are no words.
What would Connor say?
Mum, mum… is there a play, mum? Is it in London, mum? Does it have buses in it, mum?
Yes. And yes, it does. And so much more…
Stephen Unwin and the wider team are deeply committed to the production in ways that are moving and reassuring. He’s also welcomed repeated comment on the script which is comforting. It feels like a collective endeavour, as it should be.
I’ve loved gaining insights into stage production, the mechanics, expertise and magic. Contributions from the casting director, set designer, video designer, sound composer, timings, processes including the daily rehearsal call document which lays out the timetable and attendees. The Rehearsal Room is a space I never considered… And there’s a daily show report.
Who knew?
#JusticeforLB magic has reawakened from a light slumber/cat nap. The chaotic and brilliant archive of campaign artwork, screen-grabbed Tweets and outlandish ‘comms’ is being curated and shared by George Julian. Tickets are being bought and other support offered by J4LB campaigners who stepped up a decade ago.
I spoke with John Harris from the Guardian. We talked about similarities between his son, Connor and our experiences of services. Keep an eye out, I said, when he described the odd turbulent time.
An eye out for what?
Not losing sense.
We didn’t bring Connor home from the unit because we were waiting for The Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting. An ‘important’ meeting with people we naively thought central to Connor’s future in terms of support. It was finally arranged on July 8. Four days after Connor died. This now seems absurd. Though we didn’t know the half of it back then.
The play with its breathtaking pace, humour and searing satire captures the unthinkable, the then, now and in between, with love at the centre.
As it should be.
Tickets are available from Jermyn Street Theatre and Theatre Royal Bath.
mydaftlife 
I am delighted to learn you are working with Stephen Unwin. Very best wishes
This has so brightened my week. You, your family and LB are amazing people and you highlight so well, the utter nonsense and painful reality of “care”, social and otherwise. My son is now 23. He has been so very ill with his catastrophic OCD (makes his ASD look like a walk in the park). He (and I) were in crisis from Oct ‘23. No help. No beds. No appointments. No therapy. No funding for the specialist services only available via a postcode lottery. I tried to end my own life because I felt I could do no more for him; I felt useless and worthless as his mother.
I have followed you for many years. I love your upfront approach to all of the shite and nonsense spouted at team meetings/reviews/care assessments that result in bugger all. Thank you.
Bravo.
‘….the utter nonsense and painful reality of ‘care’, social and other wise’.
My son is Down, 58 and his frail little LD – wife is 54. They have been married for 25 years. They live together and have been harmed – hurt – broken physically by the so called Social Care system. Without me they would both be dead.
Families navigate – somehow – in an – ‘Alice in Wonder Like’ context that is called Social Work. It is populated by a paid army of people of good intention (mainly?) who see families as obstacles to be overcome.
I remember a SW conference in ’80’s where a facilitator jeered at elderly parents of Down adults describing sons and daughters fostered into life long dependency - ‘wearing ankle socks and all clutching teddy bears’.
In same week I met a lovely man in his 80’s who told me he had the day before walked his 60 year old Down son – with suitcase – to a care home. He wanted me to know where his son was so that his son would not to be forgotten. His son had been loved cared for at home with no formal education and no external involvement with his parents until his mother had died a few weeks earlier. Part of the nonsense of………
In 2024 – experience informed parents are learning that they must keep their adult LD (post 18 years) sons and daughters at home for life if are to ensure they are not neglected or worse by the Social Care system. In In 2024 LD adults must stay at home to ensure they live a life span.
And will be walked to a care home with suitcase age 60 plus?
It is a deadly paradox that binds our shared ‘ utter nonsense reality’,