67. VE Day Special - Dulcie Matthews and Dorothy Hall - Hope, Resilience, and the Spirit of Coventry

🎙 Episode 67: Dulcie Matthews and Dorothy Hall – Hope, Resilience, and the Spirit of Coventry

This very special VE Day episode of Wild Card – Whose Shoes? is a real treat. 🕊️

Join me, Gill Phillips, as I welcome two extraordinary women: Dorothy Hall, familiar to listeners from Episode 64, and her equally inspirational friend Dulcie Matthews, aged 88.

Dulcie grew up in wartime Coventry, and shares her moving memories of a city scarred by bombs but brimming with resilience. Her evocative memoir From Paradise to Eden brings the 1940s vividly to life — and today, she brings that world to us through her words, wit, and warmth. 🌸

In a beautifully candid conversation, Dulcie and Dorothy reflect on ageing, creativity, and retaining a sense of identity and purpose when society would often rather render older people invisible. 

✨ From Dulcie’s lockdown poems and fairy tales for her great-granddaughter to their joyful adventures searching for "fairy doors," this episode is packed with wisdom, hope, and humour.

We talk about social prescribing, the healing power of music and nature, grief and resilience — and dreaming up a bold new vision for compassionate care in later life. 

🍋💡🍋 Lemon lightbulbs

🍋 You are still you
Despite how society treats older people, identity, creativity, and inner fire do not fade with age

🍋 Stay curious and always say yes
Dulcie has stayed open to life’s opportunities, even through deep grief and loss

🍋 Creativity is an escape — and a lifeline
Nature, writing, fairy stories, and music offer not just escape, but deep healing.

🍋 Invisible no more
Calling out the way healthcare systems often marginalize older people — and fighting to be seen and heard.

🍋 Rediscover your roots
Dulcie rekindling her love for Coventry reminds us that reconnecting with our past can offer hope for the future

🍋 The world changes — and we adapt
From wartime Coventry to lockdown Britain, Dulcie’s reflections show resilience as a constant thread through life

🍋 Music unlocks memory, joy, and connection
The powerful role of music in both healthcare and daily life — lifting spirits and bridging generations

🍋 Imagination is ageless
Whether it's fairy tales or reimagining community care, creativity thrives at every age, so support people to use their skills and feel they can contribute

🍋 Challenge stereotypes by living fully
Wearing jeans, playing piano, creating stories — refusing to be boxed in by other people’s ideas of ‘old age.’

🍋 Reimagine care: people first, not conditions
A visionary idea: flexible, creative care communities inspired by the hospice model but open to all

_______________________________________________________

Dorothy's key message? "Be more imaginative about how care is offered "

Dulcie’s key message? "Stay curious. Always say yes!"

____________________________________________________

This is a celebration of courage, creativity, and connection — the spirit that saw Coventry rise again after WWII, and the same spirit that Dulcie and Dorothy embody today ❤️

🌟 A heartfelt thank you to Dulcie and Dorothy for sharing their stories so openly. A perfect listen to inspire you this VE Day.

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Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Chapters

• 0:00 00:00 – Welcome and Introduction - Gill sets the scene for a very special VE Day conversation with Dorothy and Dulcie
• 1:30 Dorothy’s story continues from Episode 64: Reflections on ageing, purpose, and the long-term friendship between Dorothy and Dulcie
• 2:50 Meet Dulcie Matthews Dulcie’s Coventry childhood, wartime memories, and her book 'From Paradise to Eden'
• 5:25 Finding Purpose Through Creativity - Dulcie’s love of nature, writing, and how creativity became her escape
• 8:00 Scraps of Paper and Snippets of Life - the joy and poignancy of Dulcie’s little collected thoughts and observations
• 10:30 Wartime Memories Echo in Lockdown - Dulcie shares a moving poem comparing the Blitz to COVID-19 lockdown
• 14:00 Invisible in the Healthcare System - powerful stories of age discrimination and fighting to stay seen and heard
• 18:30 Rebuilding Life After Loss - Dulcie speaks honestly about grief, resilience, and trying to find new purpose
• 22:00 The Fairy Nan and the Power of Escapism - the magical world of Fairy Nan – creating fairy stories to stay hopeful and connected
• 26:00 The Importance of Saying Yes - Dulcie’s life philosophy: staying open to new opportunities, even after heartbreak
• 30:00 Music, Memory, and Healing - how playing the piano – even with challenges – keeps Dulcie connected and joyful
• 34:00 Creativity and Kindness in Healthcare - big dreams: how art, music, and imagination could transform hospitals and care homes
• 40:00 The Singing Towns Initiative - Dorothy’s experiences with community choirs and the joy of singing for health
• 44:00 Rediscovering Coventry - Dulcie’s love of her home city rekindled, and curiosity as a way to keep moving forward
• 48:00 Building Better Care for Older People - a passionate discussion about reimagining care based on flexibility, kindness, and community
• 53:00 Final Reflections – Stay Curious, Always Say Yes Gill, Dorothy, and Dulcie sum up their conversation with messages of hope and resilience.

Transcript

Dulcie Matthews and Dorothy Hall - FINAL

Mon, May 05, 2025 8:07PM • 55:04

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Age discrimination, healthcare, coproduction, Whose Shoes, Dorothy Hall, Dulcie Matthews, memoir, creativity, nature, fairy stories, social prescribing, hospice model, community engagement, mental health, resilience.

SPEAKERS

Dulcie Matthews, Dorothy Hall, Speaker 2, Gill Phillips, Speaker 1

 Gill Phillips  00:00

My name is Gill Phillips and I'm the creator of Whose Shoes a popular approach to coproduction. I was named as an HSJ 100 Wild Card, and want to help give a voice to others talking about their experiences and ideas. I love chatting with people from all sorts of different perspectives, walking in their shoes. If you are interested in the future of healthcare, and like to hear what other people think, or perhaps even contribute at some point, Wild Card Whose Shoes is for you.

 Gill Phillips  00:46

So today's podcast is very different. I'm excited to see where it leads. Regular listeners will recall that I recently had an amazing conversation with my good friend Dorothy Hall about age discrimination in the NHS and how one of her life saving treatments stopped arbitrarily when she reached the age of 80. This would have been highly detrimental if Dorothy had not taken matters into her own hands.

 Gill Phillips  01:31

Dorothy is my role model for aging. She has fingers in pies. She makes things happen. She always needs to have real purpose in her life, Dorothy has many friends. I think you always do when you stay active and connected. Perhaps setting up a coffee shop, a sewing group and a book club have helped to keep Dorothy connected in this way anyway. Recently, she introduced me to her friend, Dulcie. Dulcie Matthews. Dulcie is 88 So Dorothy is the youngster at a mere 82 and a half. Dulcie is also as feisty as hell, so I can see why they are such good friends.

 Gill Phillips  02:15

I obviously don't know Dulcie so well, but I'm busy reading one of her published books that she kindly gave to me, from Paradise to Eden. The book is fascinating, her evocative memoir, which chronicles her experiences growing up in Coventry during the 1940s

 Gill Phillips  02:35

witnessing first hand the challenges and resilience of her community during the war years. So what an honor it is today, they have driven over to my house and are joining me live in my recording studio, otherwise known as my dining room table

 Gill Phillips  02:53

they gain to tell us a bit about their lives. What is it like to be in your 80s, and perhaps how the perception of self changes or stays the same as you get older. How do you have purpose when society is so often telling you that you're past it too old to be useful on the scrap heap? So I'm basically planning to let Dorothy and Dulcie chat, and I'm sure it will be a fascinating conversation.

 Dorothy Hall  03:22

Thanks for the opportunity. Gill doing the podcast I did on inequalities in health was a bit of a revelation to me in thinking through what motivates you at 80, and one of the things that motivates me at 80 is I've got so many friends who are 80 plus, and they are a huge support to me, because we, none of us, see each other as society sees us, but we're able to talk about how society sees us. And one of the things that I really value Dulcie for is she's got such insight herself. I've known Dulcie a very, very long time. We have a history going back to when we were both young mums and I lived near to her sister, and then we had a period in our lives where we lived separate lives in different parts of the country and did different things, and we developed careers in different ways. I became a member of the bureaucracies of England in being a social worker, and Dulcie developed her creative side and wrote books and did all sorts of things that I would have never dreamt of doing. And at the end of our lives, due to circumstances, we've come back together because Dulcie moved back to country from the Lake District, and I started a book group of friends who were like minded. And from that, we've had lots of discussions about what it is to be 80, and suddenly have to I.

Dulcie Matthews  05:01

rethink yourself because, not because you feel different, but because you see people see you as different.

Dorothy Hall  05:08

So what I admire in Dulcie is her creativity and the book she's written. So I just wonder if Dulcie can talk about how it feels for her now she she went through a period in her life which stopped her writing.

 Dulcie Matthews  05:27

I've had a lot of time in my life, a lot of problems. I've gone from one problem to another - bankruptcy, the lot, and I think probably my escape has always been I love nature. I like to be out in the woods with nobody else there, just with the trees and the plants. I lived in a cottage for a while on the borders of Lancashire and Cumbria, and I wrote a book there. I used to write for the AONB, an article every month, which is the area of natural beauty. Oh, wow, yeah. So I wrote down the walks that I did and the things that I saw, and that's my way I think of it's me anyway, but it was my way of getting away from the reality of my life, which was difficult. So it's been an escape, in a way. I'm now in the process of going through boxes and boxes of scraps of paper, because I write on the back of a Kit Kat wrapper or a receipt or whatever's handy, I write maybe just one sentence. They like little scraps of thoughts, bodies without heads, that I'm trying to gather together and use before my family throw them on the scrap heat when I've gone because I'm sure they won't go through it all. It's been an escape, I think, from reality. I don't like reality. 

 Gill Phillips  07:17

Well, what kind of things do you write down? What are you hoping to do with them? 

 Dulcie Matthews  07:23

Should have brought some scrap. One I found the other day. What did I say to you?

 Gill Phillips  07:29

I can relate to this Dulcie, because I collect now. Obviously I've got a more modern method now, but I used to be the scraps of paper person, but now I use notes on my phone, but I've got all sorts, like, just little snippets that come to mind at the time. They don't want to let go of they're important, aren't they? There are one or two on my phone, actually, other Yeah, and I sit in cafes and listen,

 Gill Phillips  07:58

  and you're like, I can recognize myself here. 

 Dulcie Matthews  08:03

I've got some wonderful little Yeah, because it's everywhere, isn't it like lies? And yeah, it is. I'll have to find I'm I'm in the process of getting them all together. So this is a tremor I've got, by the way, I'm not nervous. It's, is it? Yeah? So they call it an essential tremor. And it's not essential. She's not essential, which is one of the things that you found really difficult, isn't and, yeah, there's bound to be one in there. White convolvulus lacing the green hedgerows, tiny pink convolvulus edging the path. It was just little, yeah. Oh, and then there's the headline, what's happening to my city. Where has the beauty gone? And they like to call it progress. That's a good one, isn't that? Whether there's any more, and that's just just a title with nobody again, stillness of an autumn wood, little observations, things that, yeah, are significant to you. Isn't that and we are ships that passed in the night and you left lasting memories in your wake. Yeah, odd things standing still quietly so as not to wake the bluebells. It's too early for them, yet listening to the leaves gently letting go, falling to the ground like golden rain, nothing but silence, birds and falling leaves.

 Gill Phillips  09:35

I love that.

 Dulcie Matthews  09:36

Ah, this was a poem that I wrote, it was the lockdown. There is silence. The world has stopped. There is fear. The enemy is unseen. This minute virus, beautiful in appearance, has halted the whole. Heard a long time ago, when I was small. Then there was noise. The world trembled. There was fear, and sirens wailed. People ran and hid. Planes droned overhead, sounding like angry bees. Bombs dropped, people huddled in claustrophobic shelters, there was confusion, there was death. The world survived and became different. The world carried on now there is silence and fear and confusion, but the world will carry on. It will change. But change is a part of life. Change for the better. We can hope. There is always hope.

 Gill Phillips  10:48

Wow, I'm glad you got your phone, Dulcie, I never know what I've put in it.

 Dorothy Hall  10:55

Actually, one of the conversations that you and I have had quite recently, Dulcie, is how we keep that hope, how we move beyond what's happened to both of us with your self issues and you lost your husband and your son, down a son, and how you actually get past all of that and carry on having something that really kind of motivates and gives you a purpose. And one of the nice things I've done with Dulcie is we visited certain places round about which would fit into your fairy books. DORS written a series of books on where fairies live. I'm known as fairy nun,

Dulcie Matthews  11:40

my daughter's none, and they say I'm away with the fairies, so I'm fairy nun. But you also write books about fairies. I used to tell stories to my great grand daughter when she was small, over the phone because I was in Cumbria. Oh, that's nice. And it was suggested that I maybe wrote them down. So I started to write them down. And when she was having problems at school or whatever, then I would make a story up, and then I read them in classrooms in Coventry, and little boys said, Why haven't you got any boy fairies? So I promised him I would write a story about boy fairies. So I created the the elves, and then also the fairy. What was it called? The goblin catcher, the fairy goblin catcher. And read those so, you know, they're, they're in one of the books. Fantastic. Yeah, that was wonderful. You know, the children were very responsive, and I've got a folder full of all the letters that they wrote. I've kept them,

 Dorothy Hall  12:50

and we've done a few outings where we've gone round different places to identify where the fairies all live. And it's really kind of not about writing books about fairies. It's about re establishing a purpose in your head that takes you out of the unpleasantness that you encounter in other areas of your life, where you come up against issues to do with your age, issues to do with not having the same mobility that you used to have.

 Dorothy Hall  13:23

It's all about re establishing how you can live with enjoyment in today's age and ignore some of the negatives. It is, like I said, it's an escape. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that you found really difficult was your trap, this tremor that England horrible, the kind of reaction t  o it that you got when you went with your daughter to see a doctor. 

 Dulcie Matthews  13:45

Yes, yes, because my daughter was able. She was a nurse, so she supervised it, and she's brilliant. She really is. She's wonderful. But she took me to the doctor, and doctor was asking questions, which I was answering, but he was looking at my daughter. He was actually making eye contact with my daughter, but not me as classic, isn't it? It's really bad, because you become invisible here, and you want to say to people, I've got all this in here. You know?

 Gill Phillips  14:24

It's frustrating. You are still you

 Dulcie Matthews  14:27

Yeah, we went to ... they wanted me to go to a gym. through the NHS, which I didn't go because I didn't want to be I was helping everybody else. And I thought, this is silly, but the girl who spoke to us when we went in, she was talking to my daughter, and that was fine. And then she spoke t o me, but she didn't look at me, and she started to shout, and enunciate ...

Gill Phillips  15:00

Oh my goodness!

 Dulcie Matthews  15:01

And I just said, I'm old, but I'm not deaf.

 Dorothy Hall  15:08

It's as if they stop seeing you as a person. You just another old, wooly head. Well, we've had lots and lots of conversation about this, about how it is that you you not only fight back, but how you preserve your own identity through all of this, and how you look for things that make your life purposeful, regardless of what attitudes you meet. And I think that's that's ended up the sort of essence of our book group, yes, or in house, definitely. We we're in the book group is a group of people with interesting lives who are all of a love, similar age to us, but we're all kind of experiencing the same some of them are only just starting to experience this, but some of us have been experiencing it for a while, but they're all very creative people. And I just think what Dulcie achievements in the past in writing all these books, it would be a real achievement if you got back to doing that. So it took you out of this kind of grief, yes, grief loss thing, where you had to move back to Coventry because of being widowed and being near your family, and how you re established a life for yourself,

 Dulcie Matthews  16:30

which I've managed to do, but I'm still in the I'm still finding a barrier in that I'm I want to walk and the woods there, but I just started to go to one wood, and then I was told you shouldn't go on your own. You're not in Cumbria now you're in Coventry.

 Gill Phillips  16:53

That's sad. 

 Dulcie Matthews  16:56

I've always walked on my own. And of course, I'm struggling to walk now, which is more difficult. I'm having to use a stick when I walk. Which I hate, really hate. You know, it's problem, and it is this. It's like, How can I explain it? It's like, I'm walking through mud, and I can see where I'm trying to get and I want to start writing again, but I can't motivate myself. Because how, how do you when things go wrong in your life, when you'll start to lose the bits of your lives, your life, which has been essential to you, how do you work through that? And I can see that your stage is on from me in that you've had all these losses, but you're struggling through it. And I'm interested, because I want to know how do you move on from Yes, how do you move on from this? You've still got to get up every morning. Yeah, you know, you've still got to and the way I'm trying to do it now is because when I moved I came here and went into hospital straight away. So my daughter and my granddaughter, who were absolutely amazing and packed up my home in Cumbria and managed to move me. And so I don't know where anything is. And after four years, I'm just starting now to get a grip with my study. I've been going through piles of stuff. Hence the bits of paper, the heads and the bits of paper, yeah, yeah. And it's hard. And are you starting to feel that you want to write again? Well, I'm starting to feel because I'm starting to cry, and I haven't cried since Brett died. My son was Brett, and he died in 2015

 Gill Phillips  18:59

I'm sorry, 

 Dulcie Matthews  19:00

And I haven't really worked through that. And then my husband died three years after and then I moved two years after that. So it's been constant almost 10 years of loss and change, yeah, and and then, how do you have another life after that. How do you have another life? I go for a walk in a wood and in the spring, but I've got to be able to do it, yeah, so I'm fighting through the mud to do it. Yeah? And you've helped enormously, because you've taken me to places. I actually wrote a story. I did. We had a lovely outing. We did to was Maxstoke Castle, Maxstoke is open one day a year, and we went around with an eye to where the Fairy Doors are. Yeah. And one thing they got, one door labeled the secret door. 

 Gill Phillips  19:59

But it was really labeled the secret door. 

 Dulcie Matthews  20:01

It really was so I, I went back home and just wrote a story, inspired by something, but I haven't written more on since. I just cannot break through. What I'm hoping now is that by going through all these bits of paper in these folders now, believe you, me, lots of folders.

 Dulcie Matthews  20:25

I'm going to start doing something, even if it isn't stories. I'm hoping to put together all the one liners. Yeah,

 Dorothy Hall  20:35

just a thought. You started off writing by actually writing biographically about your life as a child in God. And I did. Is there any Would it be too painful to write about what happened to you? Yeah? Yeah, I still can't. I've started it, yeah, years ago, the sequel, but I just can't go there. It's like looking into a pit of snakes, yeah? And perhaps,

 Gill Phillips  21:01

you know, from what I'm hearing, the snippets that you've got and nature and so on, something more uplifting, the fairies and so on,

 Dorothy Hall  21:09

it takes you into a different dimension, doesn't it? Yeah, I felt a bit of that when we were doing this, because we had lots of laughs going round. We do Maxstoke castle and and some, a couple of other places, looking for the Fairy Doors and the entrances and saying, you know, all these people whose the other tourists, they they won't have a clue about the fairy I was living in, no, not true, and the good fairies and the bad fairies. And we actually got as far as thinking, how far can a fairy travel? And you came up with the birds. You know, Fairy Nan does that.

 Dulcie Matthews  21:45

That's what's so lovely about Fairy Nan, because all the things that I've wanted to do and I haven't been able to do, like ballet dancing, like going to see Petra, which has been the dream of my life, Fairy Nan's been, yeah, she, she learned to fly. It's good, yeah. So yeah, she's so maybe it's that escapism that that's kept me, that's kept me going, even in a really bad experience, I can look down and see a leaf that the Frost has edged and in that moment, that's okay, being in the moment, yeah, it's such a gift in life. Yeah, whatever's happening around you or the soul or something that Yeah. And animals, of course, I'm passionate in front of animals as doctors, yeah? And ever since I left home at 18, I've had animals. My mum couldn't cope with animals, so the first thing I did when I left home was have a dog and a cat. And I'm now to the point this is another part of aging that's awful. We had eight. My husband and I main coon cats, and he built a garden for them. So it was a cat garden so they weren't out or a nuisance. When I moved, I'd got five, and I wouldn't move without the cats. So my family, amazing again, built a cat room and a cat garden for me before I would move. And I'm now down to two because my cats are old. And the awful thing is, the awful knowledge is that once these two have gone. I can't have any more, and I can't imagine living without an animal.

 Dulcie Matthews  23:47

Yeah, and that's another part of ageing, it is, isn't it? And it gets another part of loss, isn't it? Yeah, it's actually, if you know that you can't, yeah, you're too old to take on another animal.

Gill Phillips  24:00

I'd find that hard, and we grew up in a cat. Yeah, with us at the podcast, we have

 Dulcie Matthews  24:05

Lola, and she's beautiful. She's sleeping away

 Dorothy Hall  24:07

And those are the kind of conversations we have about, how do you continually motivate yourself and keep positive about life when all your experiences are loss, but they're actually they're not all your experiences. They are the key, the big experiences, but lots of other experiences around which have been, I mean, you've got to a lovely home since you moved down here. It's but it's just seeing whether that is enough to replace the loss of of a kind of idealized existence in a very beautiful part of the country that was, yeah, it I've discovered, I've rediscovered Coventry.

 Dulcie Matthews  24:53

Um, I bought lots of books on Coventry, yeah, have you? Yeah? And found some more as well. While I was going through my things. Yeah, so yes, I've rediscovered that. I'm curious. So I always think, well, if I'm having this fell and I think, oh, I want to be here anymore. And what's the point? And I've lost this. I've lost that. I can't cope. And then I look at the family, and I think, well, I won't know what they're doing. If I go, Yeah, yeah, I'll lose so curiosity is a thing that that tends to keep me going, Yeah,

 Dorothy Hall  25:33

curiosity and actually still reaching out to be creative, because I know from the conversations that we've had that you would really like to get into the particularly the fairy books. Again, I would, I like the fairy books, because fairy now can do anything, go anywhere, be all the things she wanted to be. It's almost on the virtual reality. It is, yeah, it is, you know

 Gill Phillips  25:59

t's got somuch potential. But, yeah, one thing that I like to think that the podcast does is, and I think a big part of what I stand for, and obviously Dorothy, very similar, is making connections. And, you know, I'm thinking people come up with different examples, different problems on the podcast. Who can help them, who can help them, who would they like to connect with? Yeah, and, I mean, Dorothy is obviously amazing, yeah? And you do it, so naturally do a leader. But I'm also thinking, I think when we met, met up the first time, Dulcie in Coventry, I can't help mentioning this guy, so to mention him live on the podcast, but one of the great connections that I did make through our shared time. Dorothy at Coventry City Council was Aaron Ashmore. Now he's now writing books with his son on Coventry, what it's like to be in Coventry, the child growing up in Coventry, and basically to promote the city. And he does quite a lot of work in schools now, I can't help thinking that could be an exciting link, but I'm also in danger of overstepping the mark and taking you into something that you might not want to go into, or perhaps it's not the right stage. But have a think about that opportunity. I'm very open to opportunities,

 Dulcie Matthews  27:23

Anything that's another avenue that opens up, and I think that's another way of coping with being old 

 Dorothy Hall  27:32

And staying positive about life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree. I meet just by kind of chatting to anybody that comes across. I'm open to any kind of invitation or that's right opening. And several groups I'm involved with, there are always people that introduce you to another aspect of life 

 Dulcie Matthews  27:54

It is, it's like a necklace that the message is, don't say no to anything. Yeah, I got, I had a notice pinned on my board. Once, never say no, always say yes, yes. And I can remember saying that could get you into trouble (Laughter)

 Gill Phillips  28:13

But it's a great philosophy for life, isn't it, because the chances are something good and exciting will come from it, rather than, that's right, not doing it. You know? I mean, how lucky can I be? I came here and left all that. But Jean is a friend that I've known well. We met in social services all those years ago,

 Dulcie Matthews  28:37

And the book that I'd written, Paradise to Eden, had already made its way to the book group, hadn't it? Yeah, yeah. So it was natural for me to go to the book group where I reconnected with DOT, right, yeah. And if you hadn't gone, you wouldn't have that's really so one thing leads to another, and that, I think, is what keeps you going. And I have to confess to being a born organizer. Yeah, organize me.

 Dorothy Hall  29:06

I could see instantly that as a group of older people, the book group was partly about discussing books, but it was also about expanding your experiences as much as we could, or keeping the experiences that we've all had in our lives and trying to build on them so that you still maintained a purpose in life. And the older we get, that is more and more important, isn't it? It is very important. So yeah, we now this book. We now do many outings. We and lot of them, you'll think, we need a retitle. I think you should talk about your music. 

 Dulcie Matthews  29:44

I've got a grand, a baby grand, have you? I've always played the piano. Always. It used to get locked when I played up.

 Gill Phillips  29:54

That was your punishment?

 Dulcie Matthews  29:54

That was my punishment. And one of the things I remember about knowing about you was how you. Used to play the piano in some fancy, big house in the late to create the ambiance. Yes, I played in a few concerts at Leighton Hall. Did you? And again, age comes into it, because I've had operations on my thumbs, and I've got arthritis and I've got a tremor. It's as if everything sets out when you're old to beat you. I used to make cakes with intricate little roses and things on, and I just couldn't now, right? So, yeah, age keeps throwing these things up you, and then you just have to find a way around it, and I'm still playing, but not not the way I did. But I've got this lovely great grandson who is now nearly 18, and he has suddenly developed this love in music he played on his phone. He said, What's this music? Nan and I said, That's Beethoven. Beethoven, which is wonderful. So he will come and he'll fiddle about it on the piano, and he's picking things up from his phone, so I can't help him with that. But then you'll say right before I come next time play that. So I'm having to pull out music that are not managed, and I'm supposed to be practicing every day. I don't because I never did. I'm very bad at discipline. That is another reason. You seen something that is helping me, yes, as well as Ollie

 Gill Phillips  31:40

And encouragement from others, isn't it?

Dulcie Matthews  31:46

 It is, yeah. And perhaps it's been a very challenging, you know, practice every day, Right, you know. And when he comes in, he says, Have you done it? 

 Dorothy Hall  31:51

I've just have this lovely thought. You know how, some of the very big stations, like, oh, the one that's got the Euro star in it, and Glasgow Edinburgh station, they've got pianos. And people go, I know coffee station. They will ...

 Gill Phillips  32:06

We can get a piano at Coventry station. There's one at Euston, yeah, 

 Dorothy Hall  32:12

When you actually start and kind of ditch some of the constraints that stopped you expanding what you could do, there are all sorts of opportunities that people don't think about that could just make life pleasant to all around. Yeah, and actually having music a lot, a live music experience in stations. I've heard it in Edinburgh station, I've heard it, but someone that goes to Europe, dar station, Kings craft, yeah, yeah, they've got one there, and it just lightens the atmosphere. And then the most amazing people go and sit and play, oh, people that you just wouldn't expect. Yeah, exactly. And likewise, where they have people who are painting and drawing and doing kind of things that attract people just to stand and stare.

Dulcie Matthews  33:00

That is so part of adding the tears starting the color to life. Yeah, exactly.

 Gill Phillips  33:06

I love this strand on creativity. And I think what's really striking me is I've just published the episode with Dr Goody Singh, and we're talking about creativity in the arts with young people. It doesn't change, does it? And your love of using no and perhaps you can't be a concert pianist, but you can still play exactly the grandson's doing well. To encourage you, it strikes

 Dorothy Hall  33:31

me having worked in social services and traipsed in and out of umpteen institutions all my working life, if they only had, I'm thinking of even now. I'm visiting people in old people's homes in and around country, some of them very posh. If they had the facility of somebody to go and play the piano, be live painting in their four years, that would make it as much more as like, yeah, yeah. I used to play the piano in a couple of old people's homes,

Dulcie Matthews  34:05

again, in Penrith, yeah, yeah. And that was wonderful, because although a lot of them can't remember a lot of things, they can remember the music. Yeah. And I played some Christmas music, carols and things. And when the carers came to wheel people back to their rooms, one old lady left in a chair waiting, and she was very quietly singing, Silent Night, yeah, and she'd remembered it all. And they said, you know, she hardly talks, but she could remember Silent Night

 Dorothy Hall  34:40

Music, analogues? Yeah, definitely. What do you think about it? It's something so basic. And there aren't many institutions that I go into now that have anything like that in their entrances. No, no, they don't do they. I mean, even when you think about it, takes a. Set further even the hospitals,

 Gill Phillips  35:02

barking, Havering and Redbridge, I seem to remember, had a piano as as I came in, I think then got some kind of area outside some shops. It's a long time ago, but it's the sort of thing that sticks with you, isn't it? Yeah, each animal is playing, and instead of worry about your hospital appointment, you're distracted. In fact, music therapy has been quite a theme of the podcast, and I did what I think is a wonderful episode with Professor Cath crock from Melbourne in Australia. And Kath is a pediatrician who basically was disturbed, really, by some of the procedures they had to do with children and how to make it as manageable as it could be, and through music. So it is probably not the best summary, but she's set up something called the gathering of kindness, and she's coming to Cork in Ireland in May, and I'm hoping to be there. So some of that's connection directly through music Yeah. And I know with our maternity work, there was a lovely, lovely story of, I think it was Claire flower, who's a music therapist at Chelsea and Westminster hospital, playing in the antenatal clinic, which is unusual because music therapy is more associated with children, obviously. Yeah, resources and so on. And then one of the women who was waiting, and again, if I've got this story right, turned out to be a sort of grade eight violinist, and came and played with her the next time. And you know, the people waiting would have that wonderful, lovely experience. And

 Dorothy Hall  36:36

it just Taylor taking that one step further. Are you think, how many volunteers there are? Yeah, big hospital. I bet you a lot of those volunteers are musical. I bet you if there was an opportunity where they could have people who were violin players, piano players, whatever

 Dulcie Matthews  36:54

they saw, these are the facets to people yeah that you don't know, unless people start to talk, yes, and then you find out what people do. 

 Dorothy Hall  37:04

And it takes the bureaucracy out of being institutions into pleasant places to go, exactly, and takes people's mind away from something unpleasant, yeah, and gives them that little bubble, yeah, little bubble of joy. Joy, yeah,

 Gill Phillips  37:21

and the NHS will have a way of putting a name on it that perhaps takes some of the joy out of it, yeah, social prescribing. So I got very into social prescribing at one point, because social prescribing is basically taking the stuff that people have done for years. I can see, don't they getting exciting? No, it

Dorothy Hall  37:41

just reminded me. I've just remembered I joined a singing group that

 Gill Phillips  37:46

were you socially prescribed to your CEchoir?

 Dorothy Hall  37:48

No! But it is so ... and what two things occur to me. One is I was invited because I'm in a singing group which runs locally in the area I'm in with a load of people who actually, like me, can't sing, but the teacher's brilliant, so she helps us to sing. On the back of that, we got some information about a local authority funded sing for health in bedworth, okay, and we went along to the community introduction to this, um, in a community center, and the guy who's running it said we were his third session. First time he got three people, and the second time, I don't know how he got but when we went, there were 18 of us, and we've already, I've invited half my book, and His plan is starting off going around different community centers, all around bed worth. And we were very enthusiastic. So I can't imagine other people aren't. And then he's going to establish this as a big choir in bed with civic Hall for Christmas. And I've now looked into it, and it's actually funded by Warwickshire county council, and they've got Warri because a singing town already, and they're hoping to make bed with into this singing town. It was an hour of just joining in joyfully into making rhythmic sounds. It's wonderful. Yeah, I know you really love them, because I went to the choir the Coventry Philharmonic when I came here, but I've had to opt out because I can't hold the music. I kept dropping it and stuff like this. And the transport in the evenings becomes very difficult when you get again, the fear of losing your license, fear of losing your driving license, but also not wanting to be driving in dark places where you don't know, and just just being able to go out easily and and I know that's one of the big conversation points in our group. We all talk about, how do we keep going to all this stuff which is interesting and enlightening and. Be purposeful, because the transport systems don't work properly.

 Gill Phillips  40:04

Yeah, and stopped early evening, yes, yeah, you can't rely on getting back. Yeah.

 Dorothy Hall  40:10

And we've all talked about joining ...  having Uber, an Uber app on our phone, and not used it, not used it

 Gill Phillips  40:19

Which is great, but then again, you're going to be able to able to afford it, haven't you, and they perhaps have the technical noise to be able to an Uber Yeah. 

 Dorothy Hall  40:28

Well, actually, one of the things that I've found that we've done in our book group is from being people who went distances to actually take part in concerts and art exhibitions or theater things we've all kind of started to shrink, and we have a locality based on arts is a good place. Yeah? I was amazed at this initiative by watching county council to start this singing towns thing, which we're going to link you to. Yeah, they go. 

 Gill Phillips  41:00

You feel that one coming on, yes, to hear that they're doing that, and you hear about all the cuts, and there's no money for anything, and that's, you know, what terrifies me is those are exactly the sort of things. They disappear, but they're the things that really, really make the difference.

 Dorothy Hall  41:13

They're what make people not having anything to do and anything to go for, makes people house bound. It does only depress, and then they switch off, and then they lose their mental capacity for doing anything. Because they're not, yeah, it's mental, I'm physical. It is definitely. People aren't going out and about at least a bit. You know, you're not using your body. Yeah, exactly. It's

 Dulcie Matthews  41:41

losing your independence, isn't it, and losing your identity.

 Dorothy Hall  41:47

Yeah, it is absolutely, absolutely, and I think,

 Gill Phillips  41:52

an important theme that we've touched upon several times, which again, has been, I haven't done it as much as I'd like to, but when I have it's been brilliant, like a bit of a theme of my work, and thinking about it, I think I'm sure you were involved, Dorothy, when we did that project with I think it was East Midlands Housing Association, and it was an intergenerational project, and they got older people to come into schools and just chat and do some artworks. It was an art Phase project with perhaps 10 year olds that, you know, yeah, then end of primary school, and I remember there was one little boy who bonded so much with the guy who came in. And basically, as I remember it, the older person didn't have any grandchildren, and the boy didn't have grandparents, or if you did, they weren't near. And you know, some of those links. And I think when I heard you talking about sending not just stories, but really practical stories and personal stories, creative stories, to your granddaughter to help her through certain Yes, things tell us a little bit more about that, because I'm fascinated. I'd love to think I'd do the same for my granddaughter.

 Dulcie Matthews  43:03

It's, it's my my great grand daughter is a she's now 22 but she used to talk to me on the telephone, ring me open and I asked her what was going on. And she was, she was having trouble at one time, and something I identified with because she didn't like being told what to do. And just like I was, she let them know she didn't, you know. And I thought about it afterwards, and we talked, they call me fairy Nan, as I say, Oh, they did. They don't. They don't say it neither grown up. It's

 Gill Phillips  43:42

a shame, though it's a lovely, lovely concept, isn't there?

 Dulcie Matthews  43:48

I sat and wrote a story about this fairy who was in the fairy school, and I and it helped, it helped Darcy a lot at the time, to do, to conform.

you know, think that one thing and do another. Learn how to fit in with the sisters, right?

 Dulcie Matthews  44:10

Yeah, you recognize these problems that they're getting because I was dreadful at school, yeah, yeah, and didn't like me later. I still don't like being told what to do. I've learned now to

 Dorothy Hall  44:22

not easily, just said a phrase which I I kind of rebel against, learn how to fit in. Yes, we're we're having to go through that again. Well, we are. No, you go. You learn how to fit in as a child, and then you learn how to fit in as an old lady. That's

 Dulcie Matthews  44:39

exactly it. Then it's this, well, I'm not going to do this, yeah, that's a very, very nice knit skirt. It's filled and it's just the sort of thing I love. And I said to my great grand daughter the other day, I'm going to wear that. Yeah, and afterwards, no. You shouldn't. You know, you push in 90, you shouldn't.

 Gill Phillips  45:02

Is it purple as well? Do you see it? It's a lovely pale denim. Is it? Yeah,

 45:10

with frills. It doesn't. It sound

 Dulcie Matthews  45:12

it's all the way down. And it's net. It sounds horrific. It's beautiful. It's, I feel like a fairy in it. Oh, yeah.

 Gill Phillips  45:21

You have to wear that to visit your castles.

Dulcie Mathhews 45:26

That, really, that is a kind of summing up, really, yeah, then you have to learn all over again to fit in. You do. And by doing that, they still say to me, you shouldn't be wearing jeans,

 Gill Phillips  45:39

which you're wearing today.

 Speaker 1  45:42

I love jeans, and I'm comfortable in jeans. So who tells you you can't wear jeans? I've got a certain friend who is very critical about the trips. We've known each other since we were at school, and she's a very, very dear friend, but she does

 Dulcie Matthews  46:00

not approved goodness and the family, don't they upset me, but they're very similar. You see, my daughter, my granddaughter, my great grand daughter, we're all sort of rather rebellious, I think.

 46:15

Yeah, so they upset. Actually,

 Dorothy Hall  46:16

one of the things I find nice about today is you can wear anything you like. My daughter keeps saying, Yeah, you wear what you want to wear, absolutely. And I just I think clothes are so comfortable these days. When I think what my parents grandparents wore, clothes are so comfortable, I'm going to take advantage of everything that's Oh yeah, comfort devil to wear, because you can get such lovely Carol posing, can't you now? Yeah, yeah.

 Gill Phillips  46:45

So okay, I think we need to pull it together. But Dorothy, I think we need to give a shout out, don't we, too, when I get old, and I've hooked you into that really through the episode I recorded with Angela Catley, and they're an interesting bunch.

 Dorothy Hall  46:59

Very much. So yes, I was really taken with the Zoom meeting that I listened to, yeah, and

 Gill Phillips  47:04

somehow, by accident, I seem to have got myself on the advisory group. And I thought, well, I don't want to be on the advisory group without Dorothy, because she knows a lot more than I do. So we rocked up together, didn't we double act until we did. And you've got some good ideas, I think. So this is serious, isn't it? Yeah,

 Dorothy Hall  47:21

Absolutely. Doing that. Zoom meeting coincided with me listening to a talk the day before by a local hospice for babies. And when this group were talking about models of care for the future, it just seemed to me to shout, really, that the hospice model, not you would have to call it something else, but a hospice, this hospice caters for 50 people from really, really sick to supporting the family, to not being quite so sick and having a whole load of therapists that can go out into the community, and it's flexible enough to actually have people in for respite care from anything from a morning to a week or whatever's needed. And I just thought how much nicer it would be if your local old people's homes, which are generally institutions, where you go in and sit had a facility where they could adapt themselves to this hospice model. They could call it whatever you like, where you're linked into it for what you need, because a lot of people don't need it all the time. Yeah, a lot of people end up in old people's homes because they're not functioning at the time yeah ball or something, some yeah ball. And it could be so much more flexible if there were no restrictions on how long you once you were linked into them, you could continue to have links and help and even volunteer yourself to help but take part in the opportunities. I mean, I just think there's so much that could be developed around that model. I mean, no doubt you'd end up with some kind of permanent residential care side attached to it, but it could be minimized by having a facility that took people in for short periods. People went out into the community, a combination of voluntary groups, professional carers, professional nurses, whatever therapists. I just think that could be so much better than the kind of static institutionalized

 Gill Phillips  49:40

You're either at home struggling, or you're moved and you're in a care home. 

 Dorothy Hall  49:45

I just think there's such opportunities to consider a model like that,

 Gill Phillips  49:49

And it's got me thinking, as you always do, and like Myton hospice, local to us here, it's fantastic, but it's for people with cancer. It was a amazing. In that end of life for mum, for my mum, but I found out far more about it than I knew. So people have got very stereotyped views of hospices, and I found out they did day activities, and they did different therapies, and they did things that really helped people, far beyond just Yeah, residential, yeah, end of life care, you've just made me think there are organizations around that do just this for specific issues. Like there was a place out at lenington That was very specifically around people with multiple sclerosis that did. I just think that that model could be adapted for people in general, not condition specific? Yes, it's all conditions, places, the conditions specific and what are should be adapted people. Okay, people specific

 Dorothy Hall  50:49

is people specific? And actually, when you start to think about it, there's actually no limits to how it could encompass it would just take a bit of imagination in who you employed and how you use the space within it to accommodate all sorts of, you know, people with conditions that need that kind of care, but just people who are aging, who need care. If it was much more flexible in its approach, that could actually be a really good model for future care much more creative, that's right thinking in the place of the budget holder, a bit of what we were talking about earlier on. People who who donate to specific conditions, there could be opportunities for fundraising around specific condition. And people now already contribute to cancer care, don't they? Yeah, they contribute to care for people with multiple sclerosis. They contribute to people with all sorts of other syndromes. If you had a non specific facility that catered for all of those people, there could be access to that kind of fundraising, and that the money that's donated, if it was set up with imagination in the first place.

 Gill Phillips  52:02

So we've got lemon like mums flying around the room now over these exciting ladies in their 80s telling us the future.

 Dorothy Hall  52:11

You and I in our 80s. You're 88 , I'm 83 this year. We're we're the kind of recipients of what's going to happen to us, aren't we? There's going to be an old people saying that somebody shouldn't just integrate now, if there was already something that was set up that we could feel happy to go to now, where you might go and play the piano in the foyer. And yeah, yeah, I could. I don't know what I would do. But anyway, former book group started COVID Club, right? You know, where you actually are part and parcel, a community that ultimately, in other words, pour life into it, yeah, yeah. And not, not one of these village communities where everybody goes and lives together, who are all kind of Oh no, declining, which we don't want to go into no

 Gill Phillips  53:07

so one lemon like bowl beach. What's your sort of final message to whoever's listening to our slightly off pieced podcast, what were we going to

 Dorothy Hall  53:16

then? Mine is be more imaginative about how care is offered and and I can see how it could actually appeal to the people who are unique for profit. Yes, the people who set up these chains, they could actually be more imaginative and put their money into it as well,

 Gill Phillips  53:32

And pulling volunteers that they Yes Only it needs value. Yeah.

 Gill Phillips  53:37

What about you, Dulcie? 

 Dulcie Matthews  53:39

What's mine? Be more curious and keep your mind open for opportunities.

 Gill Phillips  53:46

Yeah, that's that's fantastic. And that applies to everyone, doesn't it? Everyone? It does. It's the older people themselves, isn't it? You've got to be looking out. And what was it you said? I think, before we started that, if you get asked, if you get offered an opportunity, what do you say Dulcie, yes, you say yes. Always say yes, yeah, brilliant. Okay, well, thank you so much. I think it's been a really interesting conversation. We're gonna go and get a bit of lunch now, Aren't we? 

 Dorothy Hall  54:12

Yeah, thank you Gill. 

 Dulcie Matthews  54:14

Thank you Gill.

 Gill Phillips  54:16

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would be fantastic if you would leave a review and a rating, as well as recommending the Wild Card Whose Shoes podcast series to anyone who you think might find it interesting, and please subscribe that way you get to hear when new episodes were available. I have lots more wonderful podcast guests in the pipeline, and don't forget to explore and share previous episodes, so many conversations with amazing people who are courageously sharing their stories and experiences across a very wide range of topics. I tweet as Whose Shoes thank you for being on this journey with me, and let's hope that together we can make a difference. See you next. Time you.