The very deserving winner of our October poetry competition is Faye House and her residents at The Laleham, Herne Bay in Kent.
Their wonderful entry included a poem written by a group, as well as two poems written by individual residents. Faye wrote about her surprise at how popular the poetry activity was, and the moments of laughter and joy as residents recalled special moments from their own childhood which were then incorporated into the final poem. “I was surprised by the hugely positive response to this activity, and will be adding a weekly poem to our activity timetable. My residents enjoyed reminiscing and talking about their childhood. There was talk of hardship, but also plenty of moments of joy, as they talked about playing in the streets. Thomas Waters’ face lit up with joy when remembering learning to swim at the local baths. Frances Hynes remembered, as the eldest, having to look after her siblings and not feeling like a child for very long. She also remembers shrimping by the pier and selling their catch to the soldiers. The activity also worked as a one-to-one activity with the residents who prefer to stay in their rooms, one of whom has written his own poem and has been very keen to make sure the poem got entered on time, he says: “It’s definitely a winner!”” You can read all the winning poems here.
Because of the high standard of entries, we also decided to choose eight runners up who will all be receiving something special in the post in the coming days. Congratulations to Barty House, Maidstone, Cavendish Residential Home, Clacton, Britten Court, Lowestoft, Elburton Heights, Plymouth, St Marks Court, Swansea, Blair House, Northern Ireland, Coxhill Manor, Chobham, and Tewkesbury Day Centre.
We were so impressed with both the variety and creativity of your residents’ work, and hope you all enjoyed writing them as much as we enjoyed reading them.
