Helpers

While the holiday projects were experimental, recruiting helpers was a problem, but after the first four or five years, we found ourselves in the fortunate position of having enough, and a few years later, being able to pick and choose from among the throng who offered to make themselves available.

 

Sometimes the fascination of the scheme seemed magnetic.  One helper who adopted us was Sam.  He was a member of the Camp staff one year.  I was surprised and a little shocked to have a request relayed to me asking whether Sam could spend his day off accompanying our party on a half-day outing.  It seemed a bit cheeky expecting to be able to ‘gate crash’ on our entertainment but I was hastily reassured Sam wanted to know if he could join the party as a helper, to push wheelchairs, and generally assist with the disabled.  We could not reject such a worthwhile offer, so Sam joined the party for the afternoon.

 

It was a cold, snowy day the following February.  Holidays were just a vague dream in the back of my mind.  The phone rang, and when I answered it, “This is Sam”, said a distant voice.  I had slept and woken numerous times since the previous spring.  “Sam?  Sam?  Sam whom?”  I enquired.  “You won’t know my other name”, said the mysterious voice.  “Don’t you remember Sam at the holiday camp last year?”  “Do I?”  Gradually a slow memory seeped into consciousness.  It appeared that Sam wanted to know where we would be taking our large wheelchair party for the forthcoming season as he would like to try and get employment at the same Camp and spend his day off pushing our wheelchairs, and fraternising with our disabled folk.  Astonished, I gave him the information.

 

A month or so passed, and early in April a letter arrived.  Sam had not been successful in getting a place at the Camp at which we had booked, but thought he might be able to get a week off from work.  He was, he realised, too late to be included.  Probably we had all our arrangements and all our help arranged, but hopefully it might be possible for him to help.  Should we find ourselves short of a helper, just let him know.  Sam came that year and has been every year since.  He doesn’t seem to get any older and his enthusiasm, if anything, increases.

 

Having been on the other side of the Camp personnel, so to speak, Sam recognises when he can make an additional contribution.  He will appear on ‘talent’ night, dressed up as a decrepit old tramp, almost bent double over a thick walking stick, asking for money for a drink.  It is frequently several seconds before he is recognised.  A hush falls on the crowded ballroom until a quiet whisper rustles across the silence.  “It’s Sam”, and within a second the crowd is a sea of merriment.  The pantomime continues sometimes for ten minutes or more.  Sam catches the compare around the neck with the crook of his stick; he digs him in the back; every move constitutes a hazard until the poor intimidated compare is twisting round to face the enemy with ever increasing panic.  This performance usually finishes up with Sam leading an increasing column of jiggers from the ballroom through the bar and out through the door and back again.

 

Several others are regular members of our helpers’ group each year.  We have a useful team of people with nursing experience.  Two young ladies from Rampton, for instance, not State Registered Nurses, but so adept at handling awkward people that they can be classed in the category as our S.R.N’s.  Others have useful personnel skills but limitations.  One air hostess, for instance, with a very soft heart – far too vulnerable for some of our artful guests; easily hoodwinked, but learning fast.  One night she offered to sleep in the spare bed with one of our mentally confused clients who woke every night at about 2 a.m. and refused to go to sleep again for two hours or more.  Not unnaturally, the chalet partner objected.

 

Our air hostess, following her first night with the troublesome charge, arrived somewhat late for breakfast, with her partner in tow.  Both looked as though they had been awake for about ten minutes.  After a heartfelt apology, we heard the story.  Yes, the old lady had woken at 2.15 a.m. and wanted the ‘loo’.  She was put back to bed afterwards, but wriggled and squirmed until the patient helper felt impelled to see what was the matter.  All sorts of suggestions were put forward to try to induce sleep, and eventually it was decided that a cup of tea would probably remedy the problem.  “So”, continued the conscientious custodian, “we had a cup of tea, and then a little chat until at about 4 a.m. she decided that she felt sleepy enough to have the light off and go back to sleep”.  Needless to say, at 8 a.m. both were still asleep, and it was only the ‘bleep’ of the meal hooter which woke them.

 

The next night the spare bed was occupied by another member of staff made of much tougher material.  As usual, the little guest woke and wanted to go to the ‘loo’.  She was hustled out of bed without ceremony and into the bathroom.  The bedclothes were tidied, and she was hurried back and bustled into her bed.  The over-bed light was pulled off, and the old lady was turned over onto her side unceremoniously.  A spare pillow was tucked into her back to prevent her from turning back again.  “Go to sleep”, commanded the stern helper, and she did.

 

Although one of us would have sat up all night to give attention to anyone needing it, it was an unspoken rule that the nights were for sleeping.  It was comparatively easy to re-arrange sleeping accommodation so that a helper could occupy the second bed in a room in which a person who might need help would be sleeping.  This arrangement seemed to work well; both patient and helper went to sleep with easy minds, and it was not unusual to discover that both had slept soundly all night till the tea had arrived the next morning.

 

There were exceptions.

 

Stanley had bronchitis.  We treated him accordingly.  Plenty of pillows; his medicine given regularly, and attention to ensure that he was sitting up in his bed with his blanket across his chest when he was tucked in for the night.  We had him comfortable one evening soon after 9 o’clock.  The two companions in the next room returned from the bar at about 10 p.m.  Stanley was gasping for breath, sitting on the side of his bed, frightened and chilled.  We calmed him, dosed him, and tucked him in again.  The lights in both rooms were switched off, and we left the chalet – we thought, for the night.

 

It was midnight when the second emergency occurred.  Stanley was repeating the pantomime.  The reassurance and the treatment were repeated.  While all this was going on, we noticed inside the top drawer of his bedside cabinet a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.  He was taxed with the suggestion that smoking might be the cause of his attacks.  He denied the idea vehemently but his companions in the next room had no false loyalty.  They both testified to the fact that the first puff of a cigarette had stimulated the distress.  We considered.  In spite of Stanley’s ‘cross-my-heart’ assurance that it would not happen again, we were reasonably sure it would.  It was a damp, chilly night.  Most of the rest of the campers by this time were asleep, and it would have been impracticable to have tried to find a room with two empty beds so that Stanley could have a helper as a chalet companion.

 

Stanley was a wizened little man; he was alone in a large double bed.  The ‘staff’ stood around waiting for inspiration.  It came.  A nightie, a dressing gown and face flannel were sent for, and the rest of the helpers dismissed to their beds.  The two companions in the front room of the chalet had fallen asleep.  Maggie, having tucked her patient into his big woolly blanket, turned off the light and crept into her nightie.  Then, her patient by now asleep and breathing peacefully, she crept in beside him and, turning her face to the window, went to sleep herself.  She was awakened by a rustling and movement beside her.  Immediately she recalled her surroundings and turning herself around, she dug a bony elbow into the back of Stanley fumbling in his beside cabinet drawer for his cigarettes.  “Go to sleep”, she commanded sternly.  Astonished, Stanley turned himself back, and huddled down under his blanket again.  Twice more he woke and, almost automatically, felt for his drawer, but both times he had barely moved over towards the edge of the bed when the sharp elbow stopped him.

 

By 6.45 a.m. the sum was up.  An urgent tapping on the window woke Maggie, who opened her eyes to see Roger’s anxious face gazing at her.  His arm raised itself, and holding an imaginary cup, he poured the supposed liquid down his open mouth.  Then he pointed dramatically towards the half-open door.  For a few seconds Maggie cogitated.  Then she turned back the clothes and stepping out of the bed opened the window.  Roger turned his anxious eyes towards the front of the chalet.  “The tea man is nearly here”, he announced.  “So what?” queried Maggie.  “Don’t you think you ought to be out of that bed when he arrived?” said Roger.  “Gosh, so I had”, was the startled response, and Maggie disappeared into the bathroom.  When the tea trolley arrived at the door a few minutes later, she was swathed demurely in an all-enveloping dark red dressing-gown and leather slippers.  She met the tea man on the concrete path, a pattern of modesty.  “Had an early call today”, she informed him confidentially, which was true enough.  She had, after all, been awakened twice since midnight.