Compassion, Spring 2021

Spring 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 8 I’m writing this in mid-January and am once again unable to get to the library because of the lockdown. Voluntary services are exempt from the travel ban so, as soon as travelling into London feels safer, I’ll be there. I am doing the best I can from home but I know some people will have had to wait for books and I’m so sorry about that. On a brighter note though things should have improved by the time you read this magazine and hopefully normal services will have resumed. In the meantime I’m at home watching Netflix, eating too much chocolate and reading for hours at a time. It’s funny how, during this whole crisis, I’ve found I’ve wanted to read old favourites as much as, or even more than, new books; authors like PD James, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters are like comfort food for the brain; Somehow they wrap me up and carry me through the days. It’s the same with the TV and I’ve been watching old films and series like Taggart and Wycliffe. I’m finding that theme is extending into our library and I’m thinking about books we’ve had for a long time; the books that helped me 17 years ago, when I was broken and bleeding and in desperate need of help and support. I still send quite a lot of those books out to readers and I thought it would be good to mention some of them here. The first title that comes to mind has to be ‘The Bereaved Parent’ by Harriet Sarnoff Schiff, which was in the first parcel Catharine sent to me when I found TCF and the library. (In fact it was the only parcel she sent to me because, after that, I used to go to her house to take my books back and collect new books). ‘The Bereaved Parent’ was ground-breaking for its time because it was written by a bereaved parent, rather than an ‘expert’, and its sole purpose was to help other bereaved parents to survive without their beloved children. The author is American but she was living in the UK for a couple of years, because her husband was working here, and she spent the time working on her book. It’s a little bit dated now but is still full of very good advice and it was like water in the desert to me because she was writing what I was thinking and feeling. Another book which I read in those first few months was Betty Madill’s ‘One Step at a Time’, again written by a bereaved parent and also full of good advice. Since then Betty has written ‘A Mother’s Grief: thirty years on’, and both are well worth reading; it’s so important, especially when you’re newly bereaved, to know the person whose words you’re reading really does understand. In that first parcel was also a book called ‘Dear Parents’ which is a collection of letters written by bereaved parents, siblings and some other very caring people. A very nice little book to dip into and one that’s rarely in the library because all the copies are usually out on loan. Over the years we’ve acquired many more books written by bereaved parents offering support and advice and three of them have been reviewed for this magazine. As well as books of advice like these some brave parents shared, and continue to share, their children’s stories with us. My daughter died after a short and sudden illness and, at that time, there were no books by parents who’d had that same experience News from the Catharine Pointer Memorial Library