Ambitions

When I was little I had grand ambitions. We were living a privileged life in Jamaica but all round were signs of the opposite side of the coin. Going to the beach at the weekend meant driving past a shanty town; elsewhere shacks were abundant. So I figured I’d become a doctor and save the health of the third world. And then we came back to England and I onto to senior school where I realised I was lousy at science. But I still harboured grand plans of doing something useful even if I didn’t know what. Then onto university to study the very useful subject of philosophy. At the end of that I decided to go into law with the idea of helping the downtrodden,but that didn’t work out either. And then I got retired because I was spending more time in hospital than at work. Not to be thwarted I did voluntary work with the CAB until they closed the section down that I was working for and I was so pissed off at this that I wouldn’t transfer to another .Every now and again one has to stand up for ones principles.

All these grand ambitions and I am now working (Voluntary) for the hospital. I am the activities dept. When I started I was working alongside a paid employee. He left and was replaced by a secondment which wasn’t renewed. So that leaves me to entertain the patients. It is a bit of an uphill struggle because most of them don’t want to be entertained. Either they are too ill or too caught up in their boredom to be able to break free. So I organise arts and crafts (at which I am useless), shopping trips, cinema trips, sports days, outings to Blackpool and I find the take up tends to be low.At any one time there are usually only 4 or 5 patients interested. But hey, if I make a difference to one person’s day then I figure I have achieved something.

But it’s all a long way from my childhood ambitions.