That Care Home/Vulcan Thing

Care homes are interesting places. Sometimes you’d wonder who was in more need of care, the residents or the staff.

I worked in one in South Woodford, Essex for a few months. It was a large house with a big garden which catered for the residential needs of people with cerebral palsy and others with a range of behavioural and physical disorders.

I guess it would be in bad taste to do a sit-com about such a place, which is a shame, cos it would be a gas. The cast of characters I witnessed in my time there couldn’t have been bettered by the BBC.

My immediate superior – a chief assistant social worker, whatever that means – was a rather strange female who claimed to be able to speak fluent Vulcan. She was a devout ‘trekkie’ who had reached the same rank as Spock and was obliged, apparently, to learn this ‘language’ which was devised by devotees of Star Trek.

I was peeling the potatoes for the residents’ Sunday dinner when she gave me a demonstration. Another first, I thought, a nutcase speaking Vulcan to me while I’m peeling spuds in a care home.

She herself, had no sense of humour about any of this, or any sense of humour at all as I remember. Myself and my co-worker persuaded her to come to work wearing her Spock uniform. The residents didn’t seem to notice.

It’s as well they didn’t notice either the general wackiness of their carers, it may have made them nervous. There was a fair sprinkling of Doris Stokes fanatics among the work-force, they would hold séances during the night shift when the residents were in bed. Sometimes they would attempt to make contact with dead residents. I used to find this bizarre. Without wishing to dwell over-long in bad taste, most of them were pretty incoherent when they were alive, let alone coming through the ether from the after-life;

“Is anybody there..?”

“Nnn.. Nnnn.. Nnnnugh...!