Marilyn Slightly
The Flirtinis
Honour Mission
Miss Brazen
Bella De Jac
British Heart
Honey Moon
The Flirtinis
Therese La Tease
Bea DeVile and Bella De Jac
British Heart
Bea DeVile
Miss Rose Thorne
Bea DeVile, Marilyn Slightly and Bella De Jac
Showing posts with label Honour Mission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honour Mission. Show all posts
Monday, 2 November 2009
Official Burlesque Against Breast Cancer Brighton Portraits Oct 2009 by Stan Keetley
Marilyn Slightly The Flirtinis Honour MissionMiss Brazen
Bella De Jac
British Heart
Honey MoonThe Flirtinis
Therese La Tease
Bea DeVile and Bella De Jac
British Heart
Bea DeVile
Miss Rose ThorneBea DeVile, Marilyn Slightly and Bella De Jac
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Friday, 23 October 2009
Saturday, 10 October 2009
The day I helped an old lady escape from a nursing home (a very dark humoured true story)
I was 15 and living in a small town for a while. I was rebelling against something, not quite sure what and needed money to get to Brighton's bright lights and party as much as I possibly could.
Nothing else mattered. Babysitting jobs took up too many evenings and there were no other jobs going in this limited town. A fellow rebellious schoolmate, a punk called Susan, got a part-time job in a local nursing home. She said there was a cleaning job going. That'll do me, I thought. Even though I couldn't stand old people, they were alien to me. They stank of moth balls and lavender and had no teeth and moaned all the time. Never mind, I thought. My job won't be 'involved' with them, I'm just going there to clean...
The nursing home was a large old detached converted house with a little drive up to the main entrance with hedges and trees along the front wall. On my first day I was told to go around the back and never to use the front door again. It didn't have a doorbell anyway because it might 'disturb' the residents. On entering through the back door, I found myself having to walk through the residents dining area, where the first thing that hit me was the smell. An overpowering stench of decaying humans and the weak watery boiled food that was being served to them. Then I noticed heavy drawn curtains, all windows were shut. There was a dark damp ominous feel to the room, even though it was a beautiful warm spring day outside. The residents looked pale, like ghosts with expressions showing they'd lost the will to live a long time ago...
Suddenly, a woman, the Matron who owned and ran this 'House of Fun' appeared! She had steel blue eyes and the most piercing stare I have ever seen. She must have been in her late 60's, thin with sharp features and very long silver hair swept up into a bun. She was from a different era and there seemed something...dare I say it ..Nazi about her.
She thrust a dirty old dustpan and brush into my hands and told me to clean the carpets throughout the house. I asked her where the hoover was, she looked at me like I had just shot someone,
"We do NOT have a hoover or any machinery in this house, the noise disturbs the residents!"
After a good 2 hrs on my knees and another 2hrs wiping old furniture with a damp old ripped up tea towel from the 1970s (she didn't believe in cleaning products), my back and my knees were killing me and I felt quite sick from the dust and the stagnant air. This little cash in hand job wasn't going to be as simple as I thought.
As the weeks wore on, I began to despise this woman. I was only 15 and I didn't really know what a sadist was, until now. One day, I was on my knees dustpan and brushing one of the bedrooms. All of the bedrooms had men and women sharing with no privacy. Right in the middle of the room was a woman crying. She was naked from the waist down sat on a commode,
"Help, help!"
I stood up to help her, then the Matron apeared and shouted,
"Leave her THERE! She HAS to learn!"
Three hrs later I could still hear,
"Help, help..." coming from that room. I peeked in and sure enough she was still sat there on the commode....
Alice, the one with severe dementia, would wander around in her nightie whimpering and cuddling a little rag doll close to her face like a scared child. She wandered into the kitchen one time when two fed-up auxillery nurses were propped up against the sink, arms crossed, sharing a fag. One of them said,
"Oh for christ sake Alice, SHUT-UP!"
The other said,
"We need to wash that doll"
They prized her fingers away from the doll and when her grasp slipped she screamed and screamed. They cracked up laughing, threw it on the floor and said,
"Oh have it then, FETCH!"
Now, when I took the mickey out of old people it was harmless. A generational thing. Just as one or two would take the rise out of my clothes, hairstyle, music etc. But this was something else! I did tell people about it but I'm sure they thought I was making it up. Well, I was a bit hormonal at the time and hardly ever at home, living a life of escapism.
Another character in the 'House of Fun' was The Major. He was quick off the draw, funny as hell and a randy old bugger! I would try to avoid dust pan and brushing with my bottom facing any door because he would come creeping in and 'THWACK!'
He would skip off laughing and I would be left with a smarting buttock, as well as what was now turning into the common victorian condition 'housemaids knee'.
My favourite resident was a lady called April. The reason why all the doors and windows were locked shut at all times was because of this minx. She constantly tried to escape and to be quite honest with you, I couldn't blame her. Now and again, day and night, a distant rattling could be heard. Well, that was April trying all the doors and the windows. Sometimes, she would put her coat on over her nightie and tell you she had to go and meet her husband. She would say (whilst pulling at a locked door to no avail)
"I have to meet my husband now. I'm late, he's waiting. Unlock the door please..."
Her husband died 20 yrs before. My loathing for old people was diminishing.
One day, the home was short staffed so we were all roped in to help serve lunch, which was some grey slush with a pink watery liquid running through it. Someone had burnt something in the kitchen, so for once they had to open a window. This was ground floor, front facing. I was told to go back and lock the kitchen window. When I walked in, there was April, trying to climb out but just too old and frail to succeed.
Something clicked inside my head. This suddenly felt like 'The Great Escape' or 'Papillion' or 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', when a treasured moment of freedom is better than no freedom at all. I said,
"Do you need to see your husband, April?"
"Yes, please"
So, I lifted her gently out of the window and placed her on the front entrance outside. I was a big strong girl, so it didn't take much physical effort. I heard myself saying,
"Run April.... Run like the wind!"
As she shuffled off slowly down the drive, I saw her doing tiny baby steps in her nightie. I then locked the window and returned to the dining area. I felt exhilarated and I knew for sure (wherever distant land she would visit), she did too.
An hour later, she was found at the corner of the road sat on a wall admiring a garden. The next day, back inside, she quietly whispered to me,
"Thank you..." as she toddled off to go and try all the doors and the windows yet again. I left soon after, well walked out in fact after telling the Matron,
"Stick your dustpan and brush where the sun doesn't shine, you old cow!!"
A while later, I discovered that before I'd worked there, the home had been on a BBC complaints programme. There had been many bad reports about the place. The matron had defiantly carried on running it for a few years until she died there. Finally it closed. About bloody time too!
Strange how that job gave me a lesson in life, where my lifes adventures were just beginning.....
Honour Mission is a Brighton based burlesque performer and will be performing for BABC at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. Honour lives at: http://www.myspace.com/honourmission
Photo by Stan Keetley
Nothing else mattered. Babysitting jobs took up too many evenings and there were no other jobs going in this limited town. A fellow rebellious schoolmate, a punk called Susan, got a part-time job in a local nursing home. She said there was a cleaning job going. That'll do me, I thought. Even though I couldn't stand old people, they were alien to me. They stank of moth balls and lavender and had no teeth and moaned all the time. Never mind, I thought. My job won't be 'involved' with them, I'm just going there to clean...
The nursing home was a large old detached converted house with a little drive up to the main entrance with hedges and trees along the front wall. On my first day I was told to go around the back and never to use the front door again. It didn't have a doorbell anyway because it might 'disturb' the residents. On entering through the back door, I found myself having to walk through the residents dining area, where the first thing that hit me was the smell. An overpowering stench of decaying humans and the weak watery boiled food that was being served to them. Then I noticed heavy drawn curtains, all windows were shut. There was a dark damp ominous feel to the room, even though it was a beautiful warm spring day outside. The residents looked pale, like ghosts with expressions showing they'd lost the will to live a long time ago...
Suddenly, a woman, the Matron who owned and ran this 'House of Fun' appeared! She had steel blue eyes and the most piercing stare I have ever seen. She must have been in her late 60's, thin with sharp features and very long silver hair swept up into a bun. She was from a different era and there seemed something...dare I say it ..Nazi about her.
She thrust a dirty old dustpan and brush into my hands and told me to clean the carpets throughout the house. I asked her where the hoover was, she looked at me like I had just shot someone,
"We do NOT have a hoover or any machinery in this house, the noise disturbs the residents!"
After a good 2 hrs on my knees and another 2hrs wiping old furniture with a damp old ripped up tea towel from the 1970s (she didn't believe in cleaning products), my back and my knees were killing me and I felt quite sick from the dust and the stagnant air. This little cash in hand job wasn't going to be as simple as I thought.
As the weeks wore on, I began to despise this woman. I was only 15 and I didn't really know what a sadist was, until now. One day, I was on my knees dustpan and brushing one of the bedrooms. All of the bedrooms had men and women sharing with no privacy. Right in the middle of the room was a woman crying. She was naked from the waist down sat on a commode,
"Help, help!"
I stood up to help her, then the Matron apeared and shouted,
"Leave her THERE! She HAS to learn!"
Three hrs later I could still hear,
"Help, help..." coming from that room. I peeked in and sure enough she was still sat there on the commode....
Alice, the one with severe dementia, would wander around in her nightie whimpering and cuddling a little rag doll close to her face like a scared child. She wandered into the kitchen one time when two fed-up auxillery nurses were propped up against the sink, arms crossed, sharing a fag. One of them said,
"Oh for christ sake Alice, SHUT-UP!"
The other said,
"We need to wash that doll"
They prized her fingers away from the doll and when her grasp slipped she screamed and screamed. They cracked up laughing, threw it on the floor and said,
"Oh have it then, FETCH!"
Now, when I took the mickey out of old people it was harmless. A generational thing. Just as one or two would take the rise out of my clothes, hairstyle, music etc. But this was something else! I did tell people about it but I'm sure they thought I was making it up. Well, I was a bit hormonal at the time and hardly ever at home, living a life of escapism.
Another character in the 'House of Fun' was The Major. He was quick off the draw, funny as hell and a randy old bugger! I would try to avoid dust pan and brushing with my bottom facing any door because he would come creeping in and 'THWACK!'
He would skip off laughing and I would be left with a smarting buttock, as well as what was now turning into the common victorian condition 'housemaids knee'.
My favourite resident was a lady called April. The reason why all the doors and windows were locked shut at all times was because of this minx. She constantly tried to escape and to be quite honest with you, I couldn't blame her. Now and again, day and night, a distant rattling could be heard. Well, that was April trying all the doors and the windows. Sometimes, she would put her coat on over her nightie and tell you she had to go and meet her husband. She would say (whilst pulling at a locked door to no avail)
"I have to meet my husband now. I'm late, he's waiting. Unlock the door please..."
Her husband died 20 yrs before. My loathing for old people was diminishing.
One day, the home was short staffed so we were all roped in to help serve lunch, which was some grey slush with a pink watery liquid running through it. Someone had burnt something in the kitchen, so for once they had to open a window. This was ground floor, front facing. I was told to go back and lock the kitchen window. When I walked in, there was April, trying to climb out but just too old and frail to succeed.
Something clicked inside my head. This suddenly felt like 'The Great Escape' or 'Papillion' or 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', when a treasured moment of freedom is better than no freedom at all. I said,
"Do you need to see your husband, April?"
"Yes, please"
So, I lifted her gently out of the window and placed her on the front entrance outside. I was a big strong girl, so it didn't take much physical effort. I heard myself saying,
"Run April.... Run like the wind!"
As she shuffled off slowly down the drive, I saw her doing tiny baby steps in her nightie. I then locked the window and returned to the dining area. I felt exhilarated and I knew for sure (wherever distant land she would visit), she did too.
An hour later, she was found at the corner of the road sat on a wall admiring a garden. The next day, back inside, she quietly whispered to me,
"Thank you..." as she toddled off to go and try all the doors and the windows yet again. I left soon after, well walked out in fact after telling the Matron,
"Stick your dustpan and brush where the sun doesn't shine, you old cow!!"
A while later, I discovered that before I'd worked there, the home had been on a BBC complaints programme. There had been many bad reports about the place. The matron had defiantly carried on running it for a few years until she died there. Finally it closed. About bloody time too!
Strange how that job gave me a lesson in life, where my lifes adventures were just beginning.....
Honour Mission is a Brighton based burlesque performer and will be performing for BABC at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. Honour lives at: http://www.myspace.com/honourmission
Photo by Stan Keetley
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Guest Blogger: Honour Mission
My Mum, Honor Mary, died of Oesophageal Cancer on Febuary 23rd 2008. My Dad took care of her up until that day. The Macmillan nurse, who would visit once a week, was quite often, the only other company my Mum and Dad had, apart from each other. My Sister and I would try and visit as often as we could but they lived so far away...
My Mum was so weak, she would sleep most of the time. She couldn't eat so we watched her starve, which broke our hearts.
There wasn’t really a lot the nurse could do with this sort of cancer but she tried to make Mum as comfortable as possible and she was always only a phone call away to reassure and advise my Dad.
Mum had always been the kindest, most glamorous and mischievous lady you ever could meet! Everybody loved her. Including all the medical staff.
At the same time my Mum was terminally ill, My older Sister 'Jacks' discovered that she had breast cancer. I recently sent Jacks a few question's concerning this traumatic time and the reply was a very positive one.....
Honour: So 'big sis', tell me about your 'bout' with breast cancer. I know Mum insisted on calling you and having a good talk about it. What were some of the words of wisdom that she passed on to you? Because it suddenly gave you an incredible strength.
Jaqueline: Even when she was suffering massive pain with her own cancer, she found the strength to call me and was always telling me to stay strong, not to crumble, be brave and keep going. I have reccurring dreams of when Mum taught me to swim at Woodall Spa, I was about 3 years old, she was at the far end of the swimming pool, calling me and telling me not to be afraid to swim and to keep going. So that’s what I am still doing………!
Honour: You were in hospital for the mastectomy op within days, how did you feel to have two boobs one week and one boob the next?
Jaqueline: After the op I felt like Cyclops, but a good bra fitter at Debenhams sorted me out with my first mastectomy bra and I didn’t look too different in my usual clothes. My breast care nurse gave me a ‘softie’ for my bra after the op and I brought my breast prosthesis from Amoena and later a swimming suit and swimming prosthesis from Nicola Jane. No one can tell the difference.
Honour: Then came the dreaded chemo... You tried the ice cap but unfortunately it didn't work and your gorgeous thick wavy hair (which has come back since even more lustrous) all fell out. I remember our phone conversations and you would sound very poorly sometimes. Although, when I came to visit, you looked a picture of health with a full head of hair!!! How the hell did you manage that?!
Jaqueline: I took my wonderful hairdresser with me to choose a wig at the hospital. I was determined not to have the NHS ‘shiny bob’ sort and so she chose a really funky choppy mid length wig, in a colour called Cappuccino, in fact it was better than my own hair and so easy to manage. SHAKE AND GO. In May, my hair finally grew back and it was too hot to wear my wig, (thicker and more curly than before), so people who didn’t know I’d had cancer thought I’d gone a bit bonkers and had a boyish haircut!
My Mum was so weak, she would sleep most of the time. She couldn't eat so we watched her starve, which broke our hearts.
There wasn’t really a lot the nurse could do with this sort of cancer but she tried to make Mum as comfortable as possible and she was always only a phone call away to reassure and advise my Dad.
Mum had always been the kindest, most glamorous and mischievous lady you ever could meet! Everybody loved her. Including all the medical staff.
At the same time my Mum was terminally ill, My older Sister 'Jacks' discovered that she had breast cancer. I recently sent Jacks a few question's concerning this traumatic time and the reply was a very positive one.....
Honour: So 'big sis', tell me about your 'bout' with breast cancer. I know Mum insisted on calling you and having a good talk about it. What were some of the words of wisdom that she passed on to you? Because it suddenly gave you an incredible strength.
Jaqueline: Even when she was suffering massive pain with her own cancer, she found the strength to call me and was always telling me to stay strong, not to crumble, be brave and keep going. I have reccurring dreams of when Mum taught me to swim at Woodall Spa, I was about 3 years old, she was at the far end of the swimming pool, calling me and telling me not to be afraid to swim and to keep going. So that’s what I am still doing………!
Honour: You were in hospital for the mastectomy op within days, how did you feel to have two boobs one week and one boob the next?
Jaqueline: After the op I felt like Cyclops, but a good bra fitter at Debenhams sorted me out with my first mastectomy bra and I didn’t look too different in my usual clothes. My breast care nurse gave me a ‘softie’ for my bra after the op and I brought my breast prosthesis from Amoena and later a swimming suit and swimming prosthesis from Nicola Jane. No one can tell the difference.
Honour: Then came the dreaded chemo... You tried the ice cap but unfortunately it didn't work and your gorgeous thick wavy hair (which has come back since even more lustrous) all fell out. I remember our phone conversations and you would sound very poorly sometimes. Although, when I came to visit, you looked a picture of health with a full head of hair!!! How the hell did you manage that?!
Jaqueline: I took my wonderful hairdresser with me to choose a wig at the hospital. I was determined not to have the NHS ‘shiny bob’ sort and so she chose a really funky choppy mid length wig, in a colour called Cappuccino, in fact it was better than my own hair and so easy to manage. SHAKE AND GO. In May, my hair finally grew back and it was too hot to wear my wig, (thicker and more curly than before), so people who didn’t know I’d had cancer thought I’d gone a bit bonkers and had a boyish haircut!
Like Mum, I always try and put a brave face on even when I am feeling low and, because I was in the beauty business, I always put my make up on regardless of how ill I’m feeling. I hope to write a 'Look Good Feel Better' beauty handy hints (for breast cancer patients) book with lots of tips and tricks I’ve learnt that I want to share with other cancer patients.
Honour: Now a year later, you have had your first reconstruction operation. Tell me about your 'stack' as you like to call it. I must say, the shape of your boobs make you look even younger Jacks!
Jaqueline: When I saw my surgeon and we discussed breast reconstruction, I said I wanted to go as large as possible and that I would be holding on to this dream through my dark days of Chemo. When I saw him again I said, I’ve had my Chemo and I’ve come for me bosoms – only the very largest will do please! Here’s what my surgeon did.
Op 1. my flat right boob (mastectomy) was given an inflatable implant that was injected weekly (8 weeks) until maximum size. Two months later, Op 2. my left bosom was given a ‘nip and tuck’ and raised slightly with a small implant. Op3. my right boob (full mastectomy) was given the largest implant he could use. Next stage – nipple reconstruction or tattoo? I can’t decide on what tattoo to have – Geryln Lucas (Author of 'Why I Wore Red Lipstick to my Mastectomy') had angel wings and a heart, but I think I might go with the nipple tattoo….. I’ll keep you posted.
Honour: I understand it's not over yet. You recently had an allergic reaction to Tamoxifen...
Jaqueline: After my ops in June, I had to restart taking Tamoxifen, and unfortunately had a major allergic reaction, in the form of urticaria (red skin hives), followed by massive anaphylactic shock. I was rushed to A&E twice over two days. The NHS staff were fantastic at looking after me. At 5.30am, I had to wait for the drunks and druggies to leave before I could get a bed and I was feeling sorry for myself in the heat covered head to toe with an itchy rash, swollen face, hands and unable to breath. Mum used to say whatever your troubles there is always someone worse off than you, and in the A&E ward was a woman my age who had been brought into A&E by the police, she had been found wandering the town in the nude apart from her high heels. She was an alcoholic had cirrhosis of the liver. I kept thinking of something Bette Midler once said “Please God, don’t let me be found wondering the streets with a fried egg on my head” Somehow I felt better.
I am now taking Arimidex – I am hoping to stay well on this. Although I only took Tamoxifen for one year it has given me Osteopina (Osteoporosis), Arimidex also has the same side effect.
So there you have it folk's. Up until two year's ago, cancer was always something that happened to someone else, now I realise just how common it is and how ongoing support is needed....It really does make the world of difference to peoples lives. Including me.
Honour Mission is a Brighton based burlesque performer and will be performing for BABC at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. Honour lives at: http://www.myspace.com/honourmission
Honour: Now a year later, you have had your first reconstruction operation. Tell me about your 'stack' as you like to call it. I must say, the shape of your boobs make you look even younger Jacks!
Jaqueline: When I saw my surgeon and we discussed breast reconstruction, I said I wanted to go as large as possible and that I would be holding on to this dream through my dark days of Chemo. When I saw him again I said, I’ve had my Chemo and I’ve come for me bosoms – only the very largest will do please! Here’s what my surgeon did.
Op 1. my flat right boob (mastectomy) was given an inflatable implant that was injected weekly (8 weeks) until maximum size. Two months later, Op 2. my left bosom was given a ‘nip and tuck’ and raised slightly with a small implant. Op3. my right boob (full mastectomy) was given the largest implant he could use. Next stage – nipple reconstruction or tattoo? I can’t decide on what tattoo to have – Geryln Lucas (Author of 'Why I Wore Red Lipstick to my Mastectomy') had angel wings and a heart, but I think I might go with the nipple tattoo….. I’ll keep you posted.
Honour: I understand it's not over yet. You recently had an allergic reaction to Tamoxifen...
Jaqueline: After my ops in June, I had to restart taking Tamoxifen, and unfortunately had a major allergic reaction, in the form of urticaria (red skin hives), followed by massive anaphylactic shock. I was rushed to A&E twice over two days. The NHS staff were fantastic at looking after me. At 5.30am, I had to wait for the drunks and druggies to leave before I could get a bed and I was feeling sorry for myself in the heat covered head to toe with an itchy rash, swollen face, hands and unable to breath. Mum used to say whatever your troubles there is always someone worse off than you, and in the A&E ward was a woman my age who had been brought into A&E by the police, she had been found wandering the town in the nude apart from her high heels. She was an alcoholic had cirrhosis of the liver. I kept thinking of something Bette Midler once said “Please God, don’t let me be found wondering the streets with a fried egg on my head” Somehow I felt better.
I am now taking Arimidex – I am hoping to stay well on this. Although I only took Tamoxifen for one year it has given me Osteopina (Osteoporosis), Arimidex also has the same side effect.
So there you have it folk's. Up until two year's ago, cancer was always something that happened to someone else, now I realise just how common it is and how ongoing support is needed....It really does make the world of difference to peoples lives. Including me.
Honour Mission is a Brighton based burlesque performer and will be performing for BABC at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. Honour lives at: http://www.myspace.com/honourmission
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