Books

'I would urge Health and Wellbeing Boards, Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS memory clinics, social care services and charities, along with the rest of us, to please listen and consider how poetry and other art forms can positively impact the wellbeing and quality of life for those with a dementia and the people who care for them.'

Paul M. Camic, Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health

Bringing The Inside Out 2020

Hear the real lived experience of carers, people experiencing a dementia living in care homes, and relatives about their experience of the pandemic. Book ready to BUY NOW...

 

"Bringing The Inside Out" is a publication which includes the powerful words of people with a dementia, staff in care homes, and relatives. Voices featured are from across the whole of the UK, and the book focusses on the experience of the Covid pandemic in 2020. All of the pieces have been created through our Listen Out Loud method.

This groundbreaking and responsive project, and the book, arose from a light consultancy the charity did during the UK’s first lockdowns earlier this year. Talking about the devastating impact of Covid-19, carers suggested Living Words make a book that features their words, as well as relatives' words, and those residents with later stage dementia, living in their care homes.

The focus of Bringing the Inside Out is to unite the sector and enable the public to really hear how it has been for people. It's the only project of its kind, with a foreword by actor Brian Cox, and endorsements from Meera Syal, Christopher Eccleston, Alison Steadman, Jane Moore and Bidisha. Vic Rayner, Exceutive of the National Care Forum, and Professor Seb Crutch from Dementia Research Centre UK/ Rare Dementia Support also lend their voices in writing forewords for this book. While the lived experiences of caring and living with a dementia endorsements come from Nula Suchet and Keith Oliver.

Bringing The Inside Out is available for £10.99 (inc. p&p) HERE.

As well as... from https://bookshop.canterbury.ac.uk

And on Amazon, HERE.

From late Jan, you can get the book from the fabulous new online book store: https://uk.bookshop.org .

There was an official launch celebration on the 16th of December. Check out our Facebook page for videos from the event, coming soon.

For more info/press enquiries:

Living Words direct on 07967502506 / info@livingwords.org.uk

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The project and this book have been supported by funding from The Arts Council England, National Lottery Community Fund, Kent Community Foundation and FHCLCT.

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It is a privilege for me to write the foreword. I am deeply impressed by the work done in our care homes, by teams of dedicated and inspiring health care professionals, having witnessed first-hand the support my beloved sister Bette has received in the Dalween care home in Aberfeldy.

 

Brian Cox
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With thanks to...

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"It's raw and moving, and one of the most important artworks to come out of this crisis yet.  So many of us are separated from people we love and who need us and that pain runs through each one of these pages. And yet, however hard, it's not grim reading because human love and kindness and hope are there too; you just need to take small doses, regularly. This is, as my late friend Mike White would have said, 'a social tonic', truly a healing art. I'm already making a list of people I want to give this to."

François Matarasso, seminal voice in public arts

BOOK 1

Separate to the individual personalised Living Words books that all participants co-create and receive, we publish the words of people we have worked with in order to change societal understanding and attitudes towards the dementias – to be part of the movement towards cultural change. Our first published anthology ‘The Things Between Us’ is a collection of words and poems from people living with a dementia, with forewords written by Lynda Bellingham OBE and Professor Paul Camic.
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An important collection of witnessings to an important subject, and valuable for what it addresses, as well as the way it addresses.

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Sir Andrew Motion

the-book

King or Queen

It’s called ‘Patient Condition’
You must not just say
‘Good morning’, ‘Goodbye’
It minimizes the relationship
Try and appraise, interest
Tenderness, consciousness, confidence
The fact that you are sharing with them
Uplift the feeling
‘Feel better already’.
Make us feel human
Not just a dummy.
Pretend you have all the time
In the world
We will feel like King or Queen

About us

Living Words is an Arts and Literature charity transforming lives and relationships since 2007.

Call us: +44 (0)7967 502 506
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