Rebellious hope

How do you do it? Said night.

‘How do you wake and shine?’

‘I keep it simple,’ said light.

‘One day at a time’

Lemn Sissay, from Let the light in, a collection of morning poems

May 2024

It was Saturday night, and I was sat next to my Aunty Dee in the Parkhouse Centre in Bude, Cornwall waiting for the poet Lemn Sissay to come on stage. A few months before, my aunty had mentioned his name, that he was coming to the Bude Literary Festival programme and would I like to go.

‘Oh yes please, I haven't heard of him but always up for a night out.’

‘What do you mean you haven’t heard of him?' my aunt said in her stinging manner. 'You work in publishing. Everyone has heard of him. He was on Desert Island Discs recently.’

‘I don’t listen to Radio 4’

‘What do you mean? Everyone listens to Radio 4.’

‘Not everyone, clearly.’

Fluctuating between a fad diet of cabbage soup three times a day to then bingeing on anything with chocolate, played havoc with my aunts' temperament. I’d certainly learnt to develop a thick skin, but other family members didn't react so well to her bite.

I loved to attend anything literary and the fact that the small town where I lived had a book festival brought me so much joy. I was ever hopeful that I would hear that one piece of advice from an experienced novelist or poet that would affirm that my attempts at storytelling were not in vain.

One of the talks from the year before had really stayed with me, mostly due to the humour with which it was delivered. Deborah Moggah who wrote The best exotic marigold hotel was speaking about her new novel ‘The little black dress.’ Deborah was a lady of not a dissimilar age to my aunty but when she mentioned the term ‘dating’ any similarities ended there. She described the premise of her latest book which was that a lady in her seventies just like herself had lost her husband and to find love, had scoured the obituary column in the local paper to find a widower she could fall in love with.

‘You know funerals become quite the social event at my age. When a woman dies leaving her husband bereft and mostly totally incapable of looking after himself, the casserole clan start arriving and that’s the time to strike.’

The audience were in hysterics. Deborah then went on to describe one of her recent dating experiences.

‘It’s all a bit of a shocker really. You get into your seventies, dating scene a shocker, surrounded by smug marrieds and so some close friends of mine decided to set me up with their friend.'

‘He’s perfect for you Deborah.’ They all said to try and convince me.

‘I love the Theatre so suggested we went Dutch: I would buy the tickets and he could arrange dinner. It wasn’t a truly balanced arrangement. I bought West End tickets for a fantastic Noel Coward adaptation of ‘Hay Fever’ with Felicity Kendall, and he took me to a £5 'all you can eat' Chinese buffet. The real low of the evening was when he was sat down facing me at dinner, took his false teeth out and placed them on the table next to his plate. He then took a toothpick to remove the sprouts from the spring roll he’d been scoffing from his decaying gums. It was quite a quick ‘taxi for one moment’. The audience rolled around with laughter.

I absolutely love these occasions.

The lighting in the Parkhouse Centre dimmed and a sprinkling of lights illuminated Lemn as he walked on stage. I kept thinking how handsome he was.

‘Hello I’m Lemn. I need to start by saying I’m sorry if you’ve never been to a poetry reading before.’

The audience giggled and relaxed and then Lemn introduced the first poem explaining that a group of ladies who were having treatment for cancer performed the following poem during summer solstice at Stonehenge. He then asked us all to join him by singing which felt transcendental:

How do you do it? Said night.

‘How do you wake and shine?’

‘I keep it simple,’ said light.

‘One day at a time’

I think about his mantra of one step at a time and it takes me to Deborah…

July 2021

Dear Mrs. Heather James,

I wanted to write to you to express my deep sadness at the loss of your amazing daughter Deborah. I know I'm not the only one in the country that feels this way. I never had the pleasure to meet your beautiful daughter but, in the time, I followed her story and read her latest book ‘How to live when you could be dead’ I feel as if I got to know something of her spirit.

I’m at a loss as how best to put this but I wanted to express how deeply grateful to Deborah: she saved my life.

I first started to follow your daughter’s story in March 2021 when she announced her news that her body wasn’t responding to treatment, and she would move to your home to live her remaining time. I’m so sorry. Being a parent myself, I can't imagine all that you were feeling.

I wanted to learn as much as I could about Deborah at this point, I listened to her podcast ‘You, Me and the Big C’, watched videos on her social accounts of Deborah in hospital. Watching Deborah dance and sing to rock ballads through her treatment, when she was in pain made me ‘wake up’ to my life. Seeing and hearing everything that Deborah had been through and how much she wanted to live made me realise what I had.

It seems very selfish to say this in light of what your family have been through, but I wasn’t enjoying life at this point. Going through and coming out of lockdown had really shaken me to the core. I had initially fretted on the impact it would have on our 7- year- old son and was determined to shield him from any worry. The lack of socializing and the conflict that lockdown had brought had taken its toll. Friends of ours had passed suddenly. A dear friend had committed suicide. Slogans including ‘protect others’ had really torn our family apart. I was at my lowest and then one evening I saw on my phone, the news that Deborah’s treatment hadn’t worked, and she would return to your home for her final weeks. Amongst it all, you must be immensely proud of Deborah and all that she achieved. In her final few weeks, the nation was so impressed that Deborah carried on raising millions for Bowel Cancer by educating, writing a book and creating a clothing line.

I wanted to thank Deborah and all of you for providing such light in dark times and providing such rebellious hope.

Sincerely, Rebecca

Dedicated to Deborah James, also known as ‘Bowel Babe,’ who raised 12.6million for Bowel Cancer UK and left an incredible legacy at the tender age of 40. Her lasting words were: 'Find a life worth enjoying, take risks, love deeply, have no regrets and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo it could just save your life.' For more information about Deborah, please see bowelbabe.org.