Mother's Pride
On this day in June 2006 (18 years ago) I had just come home from 9 days in hospital after a 12 hour operation for mouth cancer. All I remember from that weekend was eating a roast dinner in my mum’s garden with my plate of food blended (on the strict instructions from the hospital that all meals blended for at least 6 weeks). Mum was having none of that and encouraged me to eat some kind of hard brittle biscuit with coffee after (not a biscotti but that kind of thing).
I thought she was crazy to suggest I try something like that so soon after the operation. Many years later, I wrote a poem about that day and at the start of this year, read it during an interview with Kairen Kemp for Brighton’s Radio Reverb.
Anyway, here’s a clip of me talking to Kairen about that day and a reading of the poem. I hope you enjoy it.