Chapter 8

“What gave you the idea for the book?” Clifford Brown was being asked on Radio 4’s Start The Week.

“Well. I felt that it was time to remind people that these senior citizens weren’t always old. They all had lives; some more exciting than others, it was time to share them. I have to admit, I was amazed when we started. I was amazed that one of our residents was brilliant at collecting the stories and editing them into this book.” He was being honest about his amazement, he had no idea it was happening until the first draft.

“And it’s call Autobiography of a Care Home. I can recommend it.” the interviewer said, rounding off that interview and starting the next segment.

It was Christmas, and this was a feel-good story. A care home manager had encouraged the guests to write about themselves. It was proving a best seller. These people were ordinary old people on the surface, but they had stories to tell and, as the introduction explained, the stories were all true, but kept anonymous because they were sometimes admitting to crimes that they could still be charged with.

There was a scientist who discovered a new vaccine, an ex-steelworker who had the molten metal scars to show for it, a shop girl who had worked standing at a till for ten hours a day, forty years of her life. Some had it tough, some were the toughs.

Rocky (not his real name) had been at Brighton in 1964, he described the chains on his jacket and the Mod finger caught in a chain and ripped-off. He also admitted, with a laugh, that every third Rocker had the same story. He had a scar across his stomach, but that had been the handlebars of his BSA as it hit a car and he impaled himself.

There was the ex-IRA man who had confessed in the book to three bombings and to running guns across the border North to South and back for jobs. He said he wasn’t aware of being instrumental in killing anyone, but admitted he had taken pains not to find out because he was sure he probably had been.

There was the ex-soldier who admitted that extra-judicial punishments in Northern Ireland and other places had happened. He described one in detail, leaving the reader to decide if the murdering thug deserved to die with no trial. He had given himself up, but no-one would testify against him, they all knew that. So he was shot resisting arrest. Was he ashamed? Perhaps. Was it justified? Perhaps.

There was the woman who had been on the game “Never had a famous punter, this is no kiss and tell. Just a warts and all.” She had done a lot of things – described in the book with little attempt at coy euphemism. Oh yes, she seemed to say, an old wrinkly had young taut skin and flexible limbs once. Then she had re-invented herself as a teacher. She had to be careful in advising some of the older girls, but she did help where she could, knowing what she did.

There was the woman who had climbed mountains on four continents; had lost a toe to frost bite, and a finger when rope slipped and cut deeply on K2; and described being on a rope and coming face to face with a snow leopard. She swore she had seen a Yeti in Nepal.

Mr A had been aide to a government minister and had helped cover up his numerous affairs with numerous interns – male and female. He had finally been caught in bed by his wife with one of each sex. The papers had had a field day. “Minister for Bonking” was one of the less inventive. The Daily Mail was self-righteously offended that he had a young man in the bed. The Guardian criticised him for not having coming out publicly. The Sun got the girl to pose on Page 3 with ‘Kirsty says she hopes the minister made less boobs than he kissed’. Private Eye ran a short lived set of stories about him. Mr A admitted that he had tipped the wife off because the minister was such a shit as an employer. Ironically, as Mr A admitted, it did the minister’s reputation no end of good – he was randy, liberal and smooth, apparently.