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#317 Bev Motivational Poster

I’d suffered a brain haemorrhage from an impact and was being encouraged to walk again.

Bev

Today I went on a three mile run, six years after staggering down a corridor in the intensive care unit for brain injured patients. I’d suffered a brain haemorrhage from an impact and was being encouraged to walk again.

As I staggered down the corridor towards the reward of a shower I saw a motivational poster of a man on a bicycle. “Oh fuck off” I thought to myself “I can’t even walk in a straight line, you smug bastard”. I can remember many things about the Intensive Care Treatment Unit but I do remember that poster. Especially when I’m checking the times of my latest 5k run.


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.