To begin at the beginning ...

Hello folks. 

My name is Cheryl Beer. My friend with me in the photograph is Louise Davies. You'll find out about our friendship as you read on.

I am a musician, story teller, a qualified Sound therapist and also I am a practice based researcher with a wide range of digital skills. I think this combination sits well together and as I come to blog about the Sound Memories journey, I hope you'll see clearly how and why.

I am also a songwriter, a poet and author of stories with over 20 years experience of Community Arts. I like making things from seemingly nothing and have a passion for creativity that runs through my work at all levels.

Sound Memories Presentation at Llanstephan History Society

I didn't actively choose to work in the field of dementia.  It was  the choice of Louise Davies, a rather canny, now 94 year old woman, living in a Dementia friendly home with Gwalia Housing.

You see, this is the way of the world. I was called ... 

First I was called by Rachel Murphy from Artscare Gofal Celf. She asked me to help out for 8 weeks at a dementia friendly home as part of a Story session funded by The Baring Foundation, bringing music to the work of a storyteller.

I'll be honest, to my mind, it didn't really work. Yes, the older people sat in the circle were entertained, they were engaged sometimes, but the level of support needed to totally respond to individual need, was almost impossible. We re-structured so that everyone had some one- to- one time during the session because this is what created magic in terms of igniting the sparkle in the eye of the people we were working with.

I believe it is because we were honest enough to sit down and discuss why things were difficult, that I was able to move on and devise a new way of applying music and story, even though I had no idea at this point that it would be my destiny.

It was the end of the 7th morning. I was with Louie. As she was being pushed from the room at the end of the session, she turned to me and she said,

'Cheryl, will you save my story for me?'

I knew the funding would be ended the following week. But in spending even this small amount of quality time listening to the stories of Louie, writing poems with her about her life, I knew that she had been an amazing woman, quietly making a difference to her community, perhaps without no- one even knowing, never expecting anything in return. Why should whether or not I got funded make any difference to my ability to save her story?

Louie had planted snowdrops every year in the Sticks woods and propagated them so that when you go into the woods at a certain time of year, there is a carpet of snow drops. She did this because when she was a child, the children would knock and ask if they could pick snowdrops from her farm. She wanted children to walk through snowdrops so ... she planted them when no-one was looking. How very lovely.

 'Yes, off course I will save your story. Louie,' I instantly replied because it is a very great honour indeed when someone of 92 (as she was then) asks you to preserve their life history, and it is this that began my first artistically and deeply considered collaboration with an individual older person, living with dementia. 

It is being chosen by Louie that enlightened me to the joy of being in the now with people who are living with dementia. She taught me so much. Louie and her family, Alun (her son) and Jill (her daughter in law) kindly agreed to allow me to integrate our work into my MA Drama at The Atrium, University of South Wales.

Louie as a child

The outcomes from our work together were so far reaching. With her stories and my creative skills, with her commitment to sharing and my ability to connect with those people she saw fit, the book and CD that we published together through my community publishing company, Parlor Press, became part of the People's Collection Wales, was distributed to the talking library for Wales, hard copies went onto all Carmarthenshire libraries, and the mobile library service, it was then accepted by the RNIB in London and held in their national resource.

We devised a story trail of Louie's life in her village. her son and daughter in law were back stage crew to my Story Trail with local children who then visited Louie and her friends for a tea party and carried on in school, creating their own story books from the life memories of their loved ones.

Louie sent me her memories as if they were postcards from wonderful places that had stayed with her and every time she told me the story, it was slightly different. From this I could collage together a whole picture. I was able to do this by being completely present with Louie and responding artistically to her brief. Each deeply considered aspect being part of her memory.

For instance, the front cover of the book is taken from the design of her 21st Birthday card. A year she describes as becoming an adult. So apt given that the book is designed for children and adults, to adapt this design. The back cover is a montage of the postcards she has kept all her life that were her Grandfather's and then her father's, and now our Postcards's from Louie.

In my next blog I will discuss how my work with Louie began to contribute to strategic change fopr older people with dementia through my subsequent partnership working with Nick Andrews for Joseph Rowntree Foundation.