Christine Van Der Valk, who cares for her husband who is living with dementia, emailed me with this account of her experience with the localDementia Respite Club.
"On Saturday when collecting Willem from his Saturday Dementia Respite club, I asked if the organiser would be interested in a set of the Many Happy Returns 1940s cards.
I was able to put my question to the test; one of the ladies was on her own, waiting for her daughter to collect her after those on 'the bus' had left. The cards helped to start up a conversation, we learnt that this senior citizen had lost her brother during the war, he had been a fighter pilot – this being triggered by the picture of the man in WWII army uniform – leaving her without a sibling. She was obviously still very upset about it. We also learnt that she had been a shorthand typist, information which had not previously been known to the group.
At the end of the conversation, both organiser and member reflected on the fact that this was the longest conversation the two had ever had and how good it had made the elderly lady feel.
Though born in 1952 myself, I found myself educating the organiser, who is a young mother of two small boys. She had come upon the card with the photo of the mother and child which has information on the back about hairstyles etc. Her comment was about how much effort everybody put into looking wonderful as a normal daily event, whereas I felt it demonstrated effort for a special occasion, perhaps a planned photo opportunity. Shaving was another topic of conversation - why, the organiser wanted to know, was it called a 'safety' razor?
There was thought recognition, from the pictures, of the habits of grandparents. The lack of knowledge about rationing is astonishing and as for 'Pea Soup' fogs, nobody knew what I was talking about, nor why they occurred, perhaps my knowledge relates to the fact that my mother was born and brought up in Croydon and was in London during early WWII. I will be buying the group a set of the 1940s cards for Christmas; they have proved their worth.
On a personal note relating to the 1950s cards: my brother and I grew up in a double storey flat at the top of a three story a block of flats/tenement, in Edinburgh. We do not remember sights and sounds of steam trains so much as the smell - very evocative. We had a corgi, a cage of budgies and several tropical fish tanks.
As for Pop-it beads, my memory is of the corgi, as a puppy, deciding to try the taste test with them. My mother spent some considerable time retrieving these from the dog once they had completed the journey through him. Neither dog nor beads appeared the worse for wear.
Whilst my brother and I did have bicycles, my memory is of the sturdy tricycle which was sufficiently robust for one to peddle and for the other to ride pillion, standing on the back bar. This tricycle went everywhere, even on the train to Fife where we went ever year for our summer holiday. Congratulations. An excellent project, both for reminiscence and as a fun form of information."
And here is some carer advice: http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=11123&sID=2149
Christine Van Der Valk, who cares for her husband who is living with dementia, emailed me with this account of her experience with the localDementia Respite Club.
"On Saturday when collecting Willem from his Saturday Dementia Respite club, I asked if the organiser would be interested in a set of the Many Happy Returns 1940s cards.
I was able to put my question to the test; one of the ladies was on her own, waiting for her daughter to collect her after those on 'the bus' had left. The cards helped to start up a conversation, we learnt that this senior citizen had lost her brother during the war, he had been a fighter pilot – this being triggered by the picture of the man in WWII army uniform – leaving her without a sibling. She was obviously still very upset about it. We also learnt that she had been a shorthand typist, information which had not previously been known to the group.
At the end of the conversation, both organiser and member reflected on the fact that this was the longest conversation the two had ever had and how good it had made the elderly lady feel.
Though born in 1952 myself, I found myself educating the organiser, who is a young mother of two small boys. She had come upon the card with the photo of the mother and child which has information on the back about hairstyles etc. Her comment was about how much effort everybody put into looking wonderful as a normal daily event, whereas I felt it demonstrated effort for a special occasion, perhaps a planned photo opportunity. Shaving was another topic of conversation - why, the organiser wanted to know, was it called a 'safety' razor?
There was thought recognition, from the pictures, of the habits of grandparents. The lack of knowledge about rationing is astonishing and as for 'Pea Soup' fogs, nobody knew what I was talking about, nor why they occurred, perhaps my knowledge relates to the fact that my mother was born and brought up in Croydon and was in London during early WWII. I will be buying the group a set of the 1940s cards for Christmas; they have proved their worth.
On a personal note relating to the 1950s cards: my brother and I grew up in a double storey flat at the top of a three story a block of flats/tenement, in Edinburgh. We do not remember sights and sounds of steam trains so much as the smell - very evocative. We had a corgi, a cage of budgies and several tropical fish tanks.
As for Pop-it beads, my memory is of the corgi, as a puppy, deciding to try the taste test with them. My mother spent some considerable time retrieving these from the dog once they had completed the journey through him. Neither dog nor beads appeared the worse for wear.
Whilst my brother and I did have bicycles, my memory is of the sturdy tricycle which was sufficiently robust for one to peddle and for the other to ride pillion, standing on the back bar. This tricycle went everywhere, even on the train to Fife where we went ever year for our summer holiday. Congratulations. An excellent project, both for reminiscence and as a fun form of information."
And here is some carer advice: http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.aspx?lID=11123&sID=2149