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#274 Anne-Marie Mended my Heart

A lovely nurse helped me to sit up and gave me some corn flakes. They were warm!

Anne-Marie

I woke up lying on my front with pain searing through my back.

Wondering where I was and shedding a few tears, I tried to turn over but found it difficult to move. Then I remembered. I was in hospital. A doctor had cut me open and mended my heart! A lovely nurse helped me to sit up and gave me some corn flakes. They were warm! I was 4 years old.

The next few days were regulated by the hospital routines and the chiming of the nearby Town Hall clock, on the hour, every hour as I was a patient in Leeds General Infirmary.

This operation to close a hole in my heart, not long after the inauguration of the National Health Service, saved my life.

Precis

The beauty of being in a company of older performers is the kaleidoscopic range of real-life experiences that they bring to the table. These experiences cover everything from the vivid and strange world of childhood, to the unexpected late awakenings of old age. Take our newest batch of anecdotes, for example. These new stories are delightfully diverse: from the earthly, sensual joy of baking bread, to the cosmic dreams of outer space; from an unnerving encounter with a poltergeist, to the risqué glories of adult pleasure products and burlesque. Running as a rich theme throughout, is the possibility of love, and the simple wonder of human connection. As one writer tells us, in her story of funeral rites and flirting, “Amidst death, life goes on”, and indeed it does, delightfully so.