Compassion, Autumn 2021

Autumn 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 8 As I write this it’s not only one of the hottest days of the year but it’s also so- called freedom day in England. By the time you read it we’ll all know how that’s turned out but, in the meantime, I can’t see many changes on the horizon in my life and I shall continue to take care when I travel to London to visit the library. I’m getting used to travelling on the train and tube again. I’m beginning to rather enjoy it because I get to read for ages without having to try not to feel guilty while I ignore the housework or the ever-burgeoning garden. I’m getting to the library on a pretty regular basis these days so, if anyone is hanging onto books because you’re not sure about sending them back it’s safe to do so now. One really nice think happening at the library is having a reader who lives locally actually coming in to browse through, and borrow, the books. That’s how I used to use the library, all those years ago, when the library was in Kent, and it always felt like a safe place to visit; somewhere to be able to talk about my grief and my daughter without feeling awkward or embarrassed or being stared at as though I’d suddenly grown two heads. I think we all become very sensitive to the instinctive flinch back you can detect in other people sometimes or, worse, the all too obvious ham-fisted change of subject in case talking about our children makes our grief contagious. That will never happen in the library, or anywhere members of TCF meet. Obviously Kilburn is too far away for most people to visit but we’re primarily a postal library and our books are sent to all four nations of the UK so please do let me know if you think they’d help you. Of course, if you do live in that part of London, and would like to pop in and look at some books, you will be very welcome. I’ve had some new books given to the library in the last few months, two of which are reviewed in this magazine, and I’ve got a couple of rather unusual books in front of me now. They’ve been donated in honour of David Smart, who died when he was six years old, and they are “Dog Mindfulness” and “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” . Both have lots of pictures, colourful cartoon-type pictures in the former and line drawings with pastel colours in the latter. Along with the drawings there are ‘words of wisdom’ and some of them are quite profound. For example, in “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”, about half way through (there are no page numbers), the boy asks the horse, “What is the bravest thing you ever said?” and the horse replies, “Help”. Later the horse says, “Asking for help isn’t giving up. It’s refusing to give up.” We’ve all done that; we’ve all asked for help or we wouldn’t be here reading this, and thank goodness our courage hasn’t been misplaced with TCF. News from the Catharine Pointer Memorial Library