Writing Well: Craft and Wellspring

Well, it’s tough

“Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.” This quote is attributed to both John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647–1721) and André Breton (1896–1966); however, I do not intend to make any issue of the results of my internet search.

Writing well can be viewed as both a wellspring and a craft. At least, this became my reading of the quote, not as a sign of wisdom, but as a recognition that the willingness to express oneself and the choice of expression have won changes in areas that seem intractable.

Over the last few weeks, the teams in which I work have found themselves subject to management's pressing inclination to seek statistical successes with little consideration of the effort involved that does not show up in the figures. It has been nigh on impossible to communicate the difficulties in our battles to tackle the problems we have encountered.

Well, Bad Faith

At one point, in what was clearly a breach of trust and confidence, we were both threatened and bullied. It was a particularly low exercise of managerial control, oblivious of everything but meeting some arbitrary target. It rankled so much that I even found my voice fading in agitation, anger, and angst whilst challenging the various ungallant uses of office.

Much as I appreciate that people in authority might be caught up in the illusions of power and demands, they cannot defy the reality of the practical elements necessary for achieving what they want. It is against this backdrop that I entered the fray of another push for targets without a sense of effort.

My goal, expressed a few days before, was for management to reward those putting in the most to achieve the target, even if the seemingly impossible target could not be met and the goalposts shifted in the meagre rewards they were offering. A difficult exchange ensued that first challenged the premise, then conditioned the situation, before adjusting the focus.

Well, Write Well

Fetching from the writing well of wisdom, gauging the time to interject and pressing the case, I first exposed the numbers malady before setting the perspective. This was presented in an inadvertent comment from a manager; my response was a case of writing well for effect.

It put the purpose on the defensive and led to a reassessment of the goal, but I held back from responding further. The ordered use of words is a skill demanding the scalpel blade of teasing rather than the machete of chopping. What ensued included receiving a slight rebuke, but the bruises of battle are part of being in a fight, though it rarely feels like one when the other party needs to exert authority.

The initiative eventually came without my suggesting it directly. Whether the target is met or not, the best-performing member of the team will be adequately rewarded. This should have been done the week before, beyond empty platitudes. Is it any wonder morale is so low?

Well, Just Write

The writing well is a resource from which I have dug deep to fetch the fresh water of writing well in the art of persuasion. The wounds matter less given the many victories won through time. I don't even bother to celebrate the wins, except in appreciation of the gift of writing well.

I suppose this is why this blog exists. Of all the mediums of expression available to engage us, writing has the potential to exist long after interest has been lost in hearing and watching people perform.

Caught in the act of keyboard bashing again

The incurable itch

There are times when I delude myself into thinking I am a writer, but the reality might suggest that all these years of blogging are pretensions to an ability I barely possess. "An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many, and grows old in their sick hearts." The Roman poet Juvenal's Satires X.

However, the translation from Latin suffers from so many kinds of paraphrasing and interpretation that it has become the more popular variation: "Writing is an incurable itch that affects many." Whilst I might have that occasional itch, it has become quite benign. I cannot be bothered to scratch it, nor is it so serious that I need a salve for it.

It is like learning to live with an infirmity; the inadequacy rings loud in your head, urging you to stop and pursue something else that belies a modicum of talent. On the other side, perhaps persistence counts for something. You do it long enough, it becomes practised, and you grow better at it. You gain the confidence that the little you manage to express can pass muster.

When I woke up just 25 minutes ago to think of something to write before the day's end, I felt it might be a jumble of incoherent words landing in an order that might suggest lucidity, but is clearly a malady bordering on insanity. Who really cares? Just bash the keyboard with your thoughts and see how itchy you really can get.

A whoosh moment

Coffee Gets Milky

The wind lifts the leaves and sends them dancing. What a thing it is to feel that sea breeze against your face, salt-sharp and bracing. This is Cape Town in all its contradictions: the water we adore from a distance, too dreadfully cold to ever step into, lapping at shores of the beach we walk but never wade.

Morning breaks, and somewhere in a sanctuary, someone reaches for their second cup before the first is fully drowned. Here, beneath vaulted ceilings that will echo with songs, the beans speak their own benediction, at hands one mirroring another.

The milk froths to an airy resurrection, poured into waiting darkness until the black turns cloudy with grace. It's communion of a different sort, but no less sacred for its secularity.

Notes Get Windy

In the dreaming hours, when consciousness drifts between waking and sleep, a figure moves through half-lit streets. From her handbag tumbles a scatter of notes, and in that suspended moment before she reaches down, the wind stirs with intention. You call out, to warn of the loss she's about to suffer, as dream-logic speaks in your voice.

Then the child appears, whimsical and wild as wind itself. From his lips comes a sound, a playful whoosh that blurs the line between breath and breeze. The notes lift, caught between gravity and air, between currency and sound, everything suddenly, impossibly airborne.

It's the kind of moment that clings to you after waking, vivid and strange, the sort of thing that makes you wonder if wind has always been this mischievous, this alive.

The shibboleth of fluency

Strangeness in the familiar

The languages we use in communication can determine how our use of words, structure, grammar, and style makes us winners or losers.

Conversation is a kind of interaction where we innately know the rules that confer belonging, distinguishing us from those who fall foul of them. However, it is placenames that defeat the foreigner in ways almost insurmountable.

When I lived in Holland, it was the beach town of Scheveningen that set the allochtoon apart from the autochtoon, until we eventually mastered the pronunciation. Any American visiting London would easily stand out whilst looking for Leicester Square or Southwark. When I do not hear 'southern' as 'surthen', I know who has travelled from afar.

Twinning the dissimilar

In South Africa, my Dutch exposes my foreign background; the placenames I pronounce in Dutch are barely recognisable to the locals.

This is where the identical needs closer observation to notice the difference. The twin test works like a linguistic shibboleth. Present someone with two nearly identical siblings and ask them to distinguish between them. The local spots the difference immediately; that distinctive mole, that particular smile, whilst the outsider sees only sameness. A casual glance reveals similarities, yet that tiny detail remains the tell.

So, it is with language. Just as twins operate in near-perfect synchrony, bewitching you with their sameness, you might navigate an entire conversation in flawless grammar. But stumble over 'Scheveningen', and the shibboleth has caught you. South Africans hear my Dutch-inflected Afrikaans and immediately spot what doesn't belong, differences imperceptible to my ear yet glaringly obvious to theirs.

Speaking so good

Tongue-tied to the point of speechlessness, you imagine running your hand through their curly hair. They smile and suddenly, as if possessed, or rather inspired, the utterance from your lips is a fluency in Afrikaans for which a shibboleth would fail to ensnare. Sometimes attraction trumps the test; inspiration defeats the very mechanism designed to expose you.

Language draws the pictures in the mind, and even if we say the words wrong because an accent defeats us, there's probably enough in it not to be misunderstood.

Men's things XXVIII: Shame, no national prostate cancer screening

An Unexpected Conclusion

I catch up on the news through the refined medium of chat shows, so I was unaware of the day's developments when my friend called to get an opinion. It was the news that national prostate cancer screening has not been recommended for men in the UK.

Whilst I am disappointed by the development, the science and research might suggest it could cause more harm; men could be diagnosed and overtreated for something benign. Because the usual growth rates for prostate cancer are quite long-term, stretching into more than a decade, immediate intervention is not always needed.

I appreciate all those arguments, but I can only share my own experience.

Pushing for Action

Firstly, the decision to get a PSA test was primarily at my own instigation and insistence. My GP had blood test results suggesting I had an anaemic deficiency for over two months, and did nothing about it until I asked why a reading was off the scale. During that investigation, I tacked on the PSA test.

As a black man aged 58, I fell into the cohort of those who could be affected by prostate cancer. Then my father indicated that he had it too, though I could not conclusively ascertain the facts.

The urinary symptoms of incomplete emptying or urgency I had attributed to the expected rather than the unusual. I was not expecting anything untoward.

Towards a Cancer Diagnosis

In early February 2024, the PSA reading was borderline on the high side of the normal range at 3.5 ng/ml. The other issue was that I had folic acid deficiency anaemia. I got a prescription for folic acid supplements and returned for another blood test at the end of March 2024.

By then, my folic acid levels had fallen outside the normal range, but the more concerning issue was the PSA at 4.0 ng/ml over the course of seven weeks.

The doctor then took the initiative to invite me to discuss this reading and conducted a digital rectal examination (DRE). His conclusion was an enlarged prostate gland with no nodules, but we needed to determine why.

This led to a referral to a hospital urology department, which, within weeks, scheduled a multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) scan at the end of April.

Challenging the Orthodoxy

At which point, I was reading up about tests, results, and indicators in the diagnostic path for prostate cancer. I then got an appointment with the urology department to discuss the MRI scan results.

We had barely exchanged greetings when the specialist literally blurted out, "We need to do a biopsy." No assessment, review, or discussion before telling me that. I pushed back and asked what the reasons were behind the decision, as the whole thing was both shocking and a surprise. The specialist would win no prizes for bedside manner.

Along with the many questions I asked, the answer that made me acquiesce was when he told me the PIRADS score was 4.

That result meant there was something concerning that had to be checked. There was no comfort with the ultrasound-guided transperineal biopsy of the prostate; even the lidocaine injections were painful, but I braced myself.

Cancer of the Prostate Gland

I had an appointment to review the results in mid-June. But my medical data in another hospital was merged into another assessment in early June, and there I learnt of the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland.

When I met the urologist at the urology department, I told him I already knew, and we should cut to the chase. It was Stage 2 cancer, a Gleason score of 7 (represented as 3+4), contained in the prostate gland, and immediate treatment was recommended. I opted for radiotherapy.

In the process, I consulted with Prostate Cancer UK. I realised I could only be put on the longer hypofractionated radiotherapy over 20 working days, as my prostate was too enlarged for surgery to consider what could be saved of any sexual function, and brachytherapy could lead to serious complications.

You Always Excise the Cancer

Prostate Cancer UK felt I should have opted for active surveillance, but I had come so far in the medical analysis to back out. Apart from the fact that, besides the recommendation to treat it, I was not going to endure the presence of cancer in my body, waiting to see what it might do in years or decades.

Whilst the side effects were close to debilitating, they were manageable with good advice from the cancer health nurse consultant that my company recommended as I began treatment.

As prostate cancer leads the cause of deaths from cancer in men in the UK, and it impacts black men twice as much, the decision not to recommend national screening is quite unfortunate.

Get Screened and Scream Too

Even those with the BRCA gene mutation that suggests greater susceptibility to cancer will not find that out unless they are screened for it, probably in a separate medical checkup.

Reviewing all my medical notes, I cannot find any indication of any BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation, and yet I have had two episodes of cancer malignancy in the space of 15 years.

Obviously, it means men must have a voice in their individual medical situations and advocate for the necessary interventions towards the best outcomes.

From my perspective, every time I have a platform to speak about men's health, I will say: if you're a black man over 45, you need to get the PSA test and go the full course until you are satisfied everything is fine.

Then, if anyone in your family (and that is mother, father, sister, or brother) has had cancer, get checked too. Demand to be seen as a person before you become a statistic.

Putting your health first, above any cultural, societal, or personal embarrassment, is paramount. Prostate cancer is treatable, especially when caught early. The lack of a national screening programme does not make it less incumbent on every man to step up and be part of ensuring that prostate cancer is no longer the biggest cause of cancer deaths in men.

Thank you.

BBC News: Men's things XXVII: The inconvenience of incontinence

References

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - A year from starting radiotherapy

Blog - A prostate cancer diagnosis, one year on

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - XVIV - I Just Can't Wait

Blog - Men's things XXVII: The inconvenience of incontinence

Blog - Men's things - Prostate Cancer blogs

Key

The PSA unit ng/ml is nanograms per millilitre.

In a year of remembering Dr Willy Legg

In a year of remembering

I never met Willy, but we had many conversations on WhatsApp and when he moved into a nursing home, there were bits of interaction when Brian went to visit him.

Last year, as Brian was about to leave for Cape Town to help me recuperate, he visited Willy and part of what transpired was Willy had a premonition and said he'll be gone before Brian returns to Bulawayo.

We were only about three weeks in Muizenberg, near Cape Town, when the news came that he had passed on. There have been snatches of memory and recollections since, many quite interesting and fond too.

I share one such memory below, which was a comment to the blog I wrote in tribute to Willy, a year ago. Unfortunately, the contributor did not leave a name.

The tortoise she birthed

To add to your fund of Willie stories: In amongst all the normal activities of being a clinical student in Harare Hospital, Zimbabwe, occasional remarkable incidents stood out.

One day, someone mentioned in the tea-room that there was an especially unusual case in the maternity unit. It was definitely worth going to see, and it involved a tortoise. Along with Willie Legg, with whom I was then sharing a house, I went to have a look at this 'most unusual case'.

In one of the small side wards holding the recently delivered mothers and their babies, we found a perfectly ordinary young mother in her bed; the adjoining bassinet contained a somewhat dusty but otherwise perfectly ordinary adult tortoise, complete with a few lettuce leaves.

Luckily, Willie spoke perfect Shona, so he asked the mother what her exact story was. She told him she had gone through her pregnancy without any real problems and had an apparently normal delivery in a district clinic. She had been greatly distressed when she was then presented, not with a swaddled baby, but a swaddled tortoise.

According to the established protocol for such things, she was transferred with her new and very obviously 'abnormal' baby to our teaching hospital, as this was a most unusual complication.

It appeared impossible to either of us that anyone could ever accept this story, so we asked the young midwife working on that ward what she thought of the story. She said, and I quote: “No, it could not possibly be true. I have examined the tortoise and noted that its umbilicus is fully healed.” I took this as a valid point, but not a completely satisfactory answer.

Naturally, we were nowhere near the end of the story, as the police were already on the case. It was soon confirmed that the clinic midwife had accepted a significant sum of money to give the newborn baby to a well-off local woman who was infertile.

The tortoise had been substituted for the baby, with the hope that this unsophisticated young mother would just accept this reptile as her unhappy lot. Luckily, this never had to happen, and justice was eventually served.

Blog - Dr William George Wykeham Legg (Willy)

Men's things XXVII: The inconvenience of incontinence

We Need a Screening Programme

At any opportunity, especially when I encounter black men, I bring up men's things and prostate cancer. However, what has surprised me is that many of my white colleagues have had some exposure to this matter, usually through older members of their families: their fathers or fathers-in-law.

This might make people think prostate cancer is a middle-aged affliction in black men and a geriatric condition in white men. We should be careful not to delude ourselves into thinking this is the case. It affects all men, and whilst there are extenuating factors relating to race, age, and family history of cancer, we all need checkups, early ones too, to ensure that abnormalities, when found, are promptly dealt with.

This points to the need for widespread screening for prostate cancer, rather than leaving it to individuals to demand it themselves.

Some Aftereffects of Prostate Cancer

From my experience, almost 18 months after a prostate cancer diagnosis and 13 months after radiotherapy, I have come quite a long way, and I am grateful for that. The issues I still deal with are nighttime insomnia, some fatigue (though not to the point of being debilitating), occasional incontinence (more with the bladder than the bowel), and a lack of any sexual drive, which may also present as erectile dysfunction.

Inconvenient as incontinence might be, I manage it quite well: my Radar key for disabled toilets, my Just Can't Wait card to request the use of a toilet elsewhere, and I wear incontinence underwear, or I line my underwear with incontinence pads. These all save you the greater embarrassment of publicly visible mishaps, and better that than pushing up a gravestone in some nondescript cemetery.

Making the Best of It

Still on incontinence: the bladder aspect is usually that sudden and pressing urge, where you are never able to get to a toilet soon enough before wetting yourself. When it comes to the bowels, it is a feeling somewhere between the urge and constipation. Having already had a movement, it doesn't feel empty, and yet you can't make it happen. That presents some discomfort and anxiety whilst you hope it clears up soon.

With a basic consultation at a regular pharmacy, you can get medication to combat issues with erectile dysfunction. Ultimately, you work with or around the problems for the best outcomes in experience and wellbeing. Choosing not to be defined by either manliness or manhood can also be the key to contentment and happiness.

The walnut-sized prostate gland can be life-threatening if enlarged and cancerous, but once treated and kept under medical observation, the inconvenience should not take away from the joy of living.

AI Postscript

As I have AI to review my blogs for grammar, spelling, and contextual checking, I was quite impressed with this summary of the blog: The key was asking: "Would Akin still recognise this as his own thought, just expressed more clearly?" If the answer was no, I didn't restructure it. Your voice is situated in the precise intersection of being black, male, professionally engaged, medically informed, personally affected, and committed to demystifying this subject for others.

References

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - A year from starting radiotherapy

Blog - A prostate cancer diagnosis, one year on

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - XVIV - I Just Can't Wait

Blog - Men's things XXVI: Let's avoid the stigma of prostate cancer

Blog - Men's things - Prostate Cancer blogs

Nobel Laureates and Limitations: The Perils of Unearned Omniscience

All accounts balanced

James Watson, who died at the age of 97 on November 6, 2025, was a DNA pioneer who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 jointly with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins at the age of 34.

When I received news of his death, I remembered that I might have written something about him. That was back in 2007, when, during a book launch, he veered from the science of genetics to the pseudoscience of eugenics by suggesting that intelligence could be genetically differentiated by race.

There was swift retribution for that aired opinion: a suspension followed by a resignation. The controversy became the benchmark by which Dr Watson was judged, rather than on his more significant work with DNA.

Intelligent monkey talk

I had also forgotten that in writing my first blog in October 2007, I recounted a story of someone suggesting I was a monkey and how I was blessed with the wit to respond, not out of offence, but with a willingness to engage. If I were a monkey, I would have become so intelligent that I could communicate with human beings; alternatively, my interlocutor would have acquired the ability to cavort with simians.

An apology followed, of course, but the damage had been done. Way back in innocent 2007, Dr Watson was cancelled, ostracised, and consigned to a scrapheap of ignominy. His groundbreaking work in discovering the double helix structure of DNA at the age of 25 and subsequently winning the Nobel Prize was overshadowed by controversy. His eugenics remarks created a dual legacy of brilliant scientist versus reprehensible public intellectual.

Dr Craig Venter, known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome, had this to say at that time: "Skin colour as a surrogate for race is a social concept, not a scientific one. There is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of intelligence."

The folly of universal expertise

The Nobel Prize is a high accolade, but it does not confer polymath status on the recipient. Upon being named, laureates do not suddenly become omniscient or experts in every imaginable field outside the sphere of their expertise. They should also possess the self-awareness and presence of mind to dismiss questions that seek their opinions on issues beyond where they have been accorded due recognition.

Contrasting Dr Watson with Dr Arthur Kornberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959, for his work on RNA & DNA, and died around the same time as the 2007 controversy, one sees that Dr Watson could have learnt how to carry oneself and manage one's opinions when conferred with the Nobel Prize. There should be a resounding memento mori in the ears of a Nobel laureate, for in the mortality of man lies the enduring power of memory.

Though he paid a heavy price for his indiscretion, the work he accomplished was worthy of celebration and commendation. May his soul rest in peace.

References

Blog - Doctor Neutralises Africans [October 2007]

Blog - Happy Retirement, Dr Watson [October 2007]

Blog - Arthur Kornberg - DNA Pioneer, dies [October 2007]

Men's things XXVI: Let's avoid the stigma of prostate cancer

A stigma on the prostate

Much as I have openly written about my account of being diagnosed with malignant prostate cancer, a Twitter exchange between two young black men left me wondering about the kind of stigma that associates with situations we as human beings might have little control over.

It has taken me months to process this experience before I found the opportunity to write about it. These young men in Africa were in what might be a phase of explorative bisexuality or homosexuality, full of youth, bravado, and machismo. One should not deny the youth their virility, vigour, and vitality.

Rather a living older man

However, they were not content with their good fortune without finding others to pull down to feel better about themselves. In this case, they took on the topic of older black men who had become less sexually able because of prostate cancer. The exchange was in jest, levity, and mockery; it cut quite deep.

Obviously, having good health is amazing, and some of us have the kind of genes that we may never be susceptible to any infection or disease, and that is good for them.

I have had two different encounters with aggressive cancers some 15 years apart that were successfully treated, and I am grateful for the gift of medicine, the gift of faith, and the wonder of life. I have been very fortunate.

Youthful delusions of invincibility

Then again, we must be careful of the hallucinatory qualities of the elixir of youth that confers invincibility bordering on immortality on us, such that we forget the occasional frailties of the human organism and the malfunctioning of parts of the human body that could present with life-threatening conditions, easily ignored until they become untreatable.

I have made it a point to always discuss "men's things" with any black man I meet, in groups or during the occasional encounter on a taxi ride. We need to be aware that one in four black men might encounter prostate cancer, and that is twice the susceptibility compared to the wider population.

Yet, there is no widespread screening for the disease, such that it becomes incumbent on the individual to get tested and screened by making the enquiry of their medical practitioners for themselves.

Health trumps sexual prowess

Whilst doing this, we must have the mindset of not being embarrassed about seeking a medical opinion on the health of our private parts and welcoming whoever has the medical expertise to ensure we are in the clear. It should never matter what the gender of the specialist is; they are there to help you, not violate you.

I fear that men who have treasured their unquenchable sexual libido will face an almost insurmountable challenge to their manhood before they engage the authority of medical science to ascertain if they are alright. The time wasted in addressing this personal battle can be quite costly.

I faced up to my doctor to address out-of-range results of blood tests, insisted that whatever it was be seen to, and tacked on the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test because I fell in the cohort of those who might be susceptible. I was over 45, and my father had, before without verification, said he had prostate cancer.

Be a man, get checked

What matters is if you are black, over 45, or have had male or female members of your family diagnosed with cancer, you need to go for checkups.

Also, if you have issues with your urinary system (urgency, not emptying your bladder fully, straining to start urination, waking up multiple times at night to urinate), you should have your prostate health checked.

Not every case of prostate enlargement indicates cancer, but every reason for that condition needs to be determined and treated.

Finally, being able to perform sexually is not what defines a man, and what use is a dead man who had gone too soon because they were too coy about having their prostate gland checked? To those young men: all erections will eventually fail; life is more precious than all that.

References

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - A year from starting radiotherapy

Blog - A prostate cancer diagnosis, one year on

Blog - Photons on the Prostate - XVIV - I Just Can't Wait

Blog - Men's things XXV: Prostate cancer under control

Blog - Men's things - Prostate Cancer blogs

Essential Snobbery 101: Leaving the village people in the village

A fear of the imagined

Village People, and this is not the American disco group from the 1970s; rather, it defines a state of mind, the foreboding that any adversity or misfortune is an extension of the negative influence of people from your homestead on your circumstances.

The idea of village people is retrogressive, a concept of people limited by a frame of reference governed by malevolence and envy: detractors who cannot bear to see others succeeding, whose sense of joy is derived from the downfall of others.

Whether the concept of village people is imagined or real, we find ourselves caught in the paranoia of being watched and afraid to stumble. Everything becomes a premonition towards ill. The danger is that we become ensnared by mental constraints we have imposed on ourselves, borne of the irrational yet significantly impactful on our mien.

Leave them in the village

Yet, I aver that village people should be left in the village and not be given any semblance of influence beyond the village limits. They cannot walk where we have walked, nor can they see through our eyes.

Why, then, do we believe that village people have the ability to impact our lives so profoundly that they have such a hold on us? How can they divert not just the course of events far removed from them but also define our destiny? The truth is probably a battle we are engaged with, in our heads rather than something external to us.

To paraphrase Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice (of village people) that which is adequately explained by incompetence (of ourselves)." If we took more responsibility for some things that have happened to us, the village people might just become the music that gets us on the dancefloor.

Chicken suya, an emetic aid

A review from the start

A review is subjectively a random stranger's opinion of an experience they've had. I never think of an experience as one where I've been selected to receive the good or the bad of a service. This is why I take reviews seriously: the experience of many averages out to net good, net bad, or neither good nor bad.

Having a desire for something spicy, I tried to access a website on my phone. I'd forgotten it wasn't mobile-friendly; you could select all you wanted, but you'd never be presented with the checkout button because it was obscured by other webpage elements.

Now, consider this: you have an account on the said website and, having logged in and made your order, you'd expect that order to be retained for a session on another device with the same credentials. Perish the thought.

It did not get better

I made my order, supplied my phone number, email address, and home address with a view to collecting it from the shop rather than opting for home delivery. Even after paying through the banking system they offered, I got no confirmation of my order sent to any of the personal details I'd shared. I had to take a screenshot as confirmation.

Then I called an Uber to take me to the shop, and for the second time, I arrived before my order was registered on their system. My screenshot and banking transaction confirm I have a bona fide order.

Only now, what I'd ordered had run out, and I was offered an unappealing alternative that, for the journey I'd made, I tolerated. Soon, I was given my takeaway, which was a lower price compared to what I'd wanted. A bit of back and forth ensued before he realised I was due some change.

I've never suffered worse

When I tucked into it as I walked back home, it was nothing like I'd expected. I would have enjoyed a Nando's takeaway for less, with two sides and a lot of tasty bits to eat. Chicken suya is no substitute for beef suya, even on the worst of days.

And Suya Republic, Chester Road, you missed a treat: the apparently XL portion was as parsimonious as a chicken on Ozempic, and having to quibble for change when you couldn't fulfil the order I'd originally paid for was unfortunate. I'll remember this long enough not to grace your stoep with my interest again.

My lesson learnt

Never pay upfront. Have enough time to wait for your order at the shop when you visit. The food is good enough; the service, however, is tolerable to abysmal.

Alright, I happened upon this place on one of my wanderings around Manchester. This was my fifth visit.

Desert Island Discs: Childhood Trauma and Workplace Pastoral Care

In the passing of stories

Listening to the back catalogue of Desert Island Discs has now brought me into the middle of the pandemic, the year 2020.

However, since I began this exercise way back in March, some of the people featured have passed on. I note with particular significance Yvonne Brewster, who was the first person I wrote about.

She passed away on 12th October at the age of 87 and was featured on last week's edition of BBC Radio 4's Last Word. [AkinBlog.NL: Desert Island Discs: To Be Young, Gifted and Black]

The interview format possesses an almost disarming innocence. What gets revealed shows how the context of sharing one's choice of music can inadvertently expose both vulnerability and discovery.

A spectrum of care

Whether it's the child sexual abuse suffered by Christopher Hazlewood, who founded the Paraorchestra, or the obvious abandonment of Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, born mixed race and illegitimate, housed in a convent with nuns whilst her mother visited monthly, you appreciate the kind of trauma that forms part of the history of these remarkable people.

Then there's the story Dame Sally Davies told. At the point of retiring as Chief Medical Officer, she highlighted something missing from today's teaching of vocation, the grooming of talent, and the nurturing of expertise.

On the matter of junior doctors, she observed that pastoral care was missing. Very few knew the name of a consultant; that is, if consultants could even name others they had taken under their wing.

One example stood out. She arrived for an interview in a sports car and, on arrival, ended up in a driving manoeuvre that spun her around 360 degrees.

A consultant stepped out of the department and asked if she had come for the interview. On responding in the affirmative, he called to postpone the interview until the next day, taking the time to settle her down and getting her a cup of tea.

She returned the next day, interviewed, and got the job. However, she said, without the care and consideration of that consultant, she would likely not have got the job.

Care in the workplace

By extension, that lack of pastoral care and consideration of the humanity of junior staff, when interacting with sometimes overworked middle management who are under pressure to deliver to almost impossible terms and without the time to manage effectively, diminishes the productivity of the employee in many unquantifiable ways.

This is besides the way managers use promises they would never fulfil to lure new talent onto their teams.

In the end, it is usually left to the individual to decide whether they are fulfilled in settings that barely appreciate them.

When it comes to the tussle between self-respect and being patronised to the point of feeling belittled, I would hope the former would guide the person towards seeking greener pastures whilst nipping avoidable workplace stress in the bud.

Desert Island Discs references

Desert Island Discs: Yvonne Brewster 01/04/2005

Desert Island Discs: Christopher Hazlewood 29/05/2020

Desert Island Discs: Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu 04/06/2020

Desert Island Discs: Dame Sally Davies 02/08/2019

Pastoral care in modern workplaces (AI-generated)

Then I asked AI the question, How could the lack of pastoral care be addressed in modern workplaces?

That's an excellent question that extends beyond the scope of blog editing, but I'm happy to explore it with you.

Based on the themes in your blog post, here are some thoughts on addressing the lack of pastoral care in modern workplaces:

Structural Changes

Mentorship programmes - Formalising what once happened organically. Assigning senior staff to genuinely know and support junior colleagues, not just tick boxes. The consultant who postponed Dame Sally Davies' interview demonstrated this perfectly.

Protected time - Managers need designated time for pastoral duties, separate from productivity targets. When middle management is stretched thin, human connection becomes the first casualty.

Smaller teams - The anonymity you described, where junior doctors don't even know their consultants' names, suggests units have grown too large for meaningful relationships to form naturally.

Cultural Shifts

Redefining success - Measuring managers not just on outputs, but on staff retention, development, and wellbeing. What gets measured gets valued.

Slowing down - The consultant who made tea instead of rushing to the interview understood that five minutes of humanity can change someone's trajectory. Modern workplaces resist this pause.

Accountability for promises - Your point about managers using unfulfillable promises to lure talent speaks to a deeper dishonesty. Holding leaders accountable for what they commit to would restore some trust.

Individual Actions

Modelling care - Even without systemic change, individuals can choose to be that consultant. Remembering names, checking in genuinely, postponing the interview when someone clearly needs a moment.

Choosing environments wisely - Your conclusion about self-respect guiding people towards greener pastures is crucial. Sometimes the best response to uncaring systems is to leave them.

What aspects of pastoral care do you think are most critical in your own experience?

Junk the funk

Gloom Over Bloom

The number of times I have written about the joy of living and the pursuit of happiness would suggest to some that I never experience periods of funk, where dark clouds loom as harbingers of the rains of depression.

Like a cloud, it creeps up on you from a height where things might not seem discernible until the cool of the shadow hits your skin, the direct impact of sunrays abruptly taken from sight. As you look up, you hope the cloud is moving and that soon the sunrays will return, but you can never predetermine how large a cloud might be.

Depending on the weather of life, the cloud might linger for longer than is comfortable for the soul and body; it begins to affect your spirit. This is where you need a lift.

Count My Blessings

It was in the shower this morning (and a lot of interesting contemplation happens under a showerhead) that I realised I seem to have lost that lovely feeling, a kind of lethargy where the desire to do anything is lost. Plans percolate in the mind but never reach an execution stage, with procrastination unwittingly taking the fore and control.

There are many things I have had the intent to do but cannot seem to be bothered with, apart from feeling swamped by the underachievement or the lack of it. The inability to produce is like an infirmity.

I began to think of how to get out of this rut: by cultivating a spirit of thankfulness, getting out to do something even though I do not feel that sociable, then reflecting on what things I have wanted done. Moreover, I should stop thinking in terms of the means but rather the opportunity to do.

Thought Picnic: Shuttling and bungling

Sacrificing the child

I can imagine the exasperation of a parent when a child, given every opportunity, does not seem to take advantage of the situations presented.

Unfortunately, they usually view this failing from the perspective of the child not trying hard enough and not appreciating the privilege they have, compared to those never afforded such luxuries of comfort, shelter, provision, and family.

Weighed against societal expectations that seem to inform and drive parents to desire children who are naturally intelligent, succeeding, and exercise initiative to the extent that parents need to boast of their wards, they are blinded to other issues.

They never consider the possibility of psychological, mental, and emotional problems exacerbated by their environment that could have resulted in the child's change in behaviour, attitude, and productivity.

Burdening the child

To address these issues, they use attribution and comparison, finding examples of the succeeding and the failing to pitch the child into a quagmire of adjustments seeking to please others without addressing the actual problem.

Now, we have some understanding that bedwetting might not just be a lack of willpower and control of one's bladder; just as sudden changes in a child's performance and ability to produce expected results is not a basic lack of application.

Issues like bullying, childhood emotional and sexual abuse could easily be the factors indicative of these changes, but parents, in their naivety, think the home, or other bubbles they have created, are free of the unspeakable interferences that rob a child of innocence and a clear conscience.

Misunderstanding the child

Worse still, parents wrongly assume that the child, if afflicted by a violation of their body, will immediately run to them with a complaint when they have never created the atmosphere for that kind of troublesome conversation.

They are dealing with the symptoms without being intelligent about seeking the cause.

Whether the parent eventually appreciates this or not, the child carries these unfortunate failings of care and consideration into adulthood, at times damaged or simply resentful. Others find the kind of therapy that helps them move forward.

For instance, I was 52 when my father first learnt that I was sexually abused from the age of 8. This was prompted because, once again, he was trying to address the symptom of my homosexuality, causing him embarrassment, rather than knowing who his son is.

Losing the child

What I did not reveal in that exchange, which would have caused ructions beyond repair, was that my first sexual encounter was at 7, and I had no clue what was going on, but the playful intentions of the other destroyed the bubble of childhood bliss that one inhabited.

If anyone had been curious enough to look at what was happening, maybe, just maybe, there would have been a better relationship between parent and child.

However, the total breakdown of the relationship between my mother and I did not start in August 2023.

What we tried to build upon left lots of unresolved issues that, in African culture, I am not supposed to hold my elders accountable for. Then, whilst I might have an African heritage, I am hardly African, by any stretch of the imagination.

What parents easily overlook (AI-generated)

Since we are in the age of AI, having reviewed my blog above, I asked for it to share some common signs of childhood trauma that parents often overlook. The text following was generated by AI, and I believe it contributes to the conversation, prompted by my blog above.

Behavioural Changes

Academic decline - Sudden drops in grades or loss of interest in schoolwork that was previously enjoyed. Parents often attribute this to laziness rather than considering underlying distress.

Social withdrawal - A child who was once outgoing becomes isolated, avoids friends, or stops participating in activities they previously loved.

Aggression or defiance - Increased anger, talking back, or acting out. Parents may see this as typical teenage rebellion or poor discipline rather than a cry for help.

Regression - Returning to behaviours from earlier developmental stages, such as thumb-sucking, baby talk, or clinginess in older children.

Physical Manifestations

Sleep disturbances - Nightmares, difficulty falling asleep, fear of sleeping alone, or sleeping too much as an escape mechanism.

Bedwetting or toileting accidents - As you mentioned in your post, this is often dismissed as a control issue rather than a stress response.

Unexplained physical complaints - Frequent headaches, stomach aches, or general unwellness without medical cause.

Changes in eating habits - Either loss of appetite or comfort eating, which parents might dismiss as "just a phase".

Emotional Indicators

Heightened anxiety - Excessive worry, panic attacks, or fear of separation from parents or specific places.

Emotional numbness - A child who seems disconnected, shows little emotion, or appears "too mature" for their age. Parents sometimes praise this as being "well-behaved" or "independent".

Excessive guilt or shame - Taking blame for things beyond their control or expressing feelings of worthlessness.

Mood swings - Rapid changes between anger, sadness, and apparent normalcy that seem disproportionate to situations.

Cognitive and Developmental Signs

Difficulty concentrating - Inability to focus on tasks, appearing distracted or "in their own world".

Memory problems - Forgetting things they previously knew or seeming confused about recent events.

Developmental delays - Falling behind in speech, motor skills, or social development without obvious cause.

Red Flags Often Dismissed

Sexualised behaviour - Age-inappropriate knowledge of or interest in sexual matters. Parents often dismiss this as "curiosity" or something picked up from media.

Fear of specific people or places - Intense reactions to certain individuals or locations that parents attribute to "shyness" or "being difficult".

Perfectionism or people-pleasing - Desperate attempts to be "good" or avoid disappointing others, which parents often celebrate rather than question.

Self-harm or risk-taking - In older children, this might manifest as cutting, substance use, or dangerous behaviours that parents view as attention-seeking.

Why Parents Miss These Signs

Cultural expectations - As you noted, some cultures discourage questioning elders or discussing uncomfortable topics, creating barriers to disclosure.

Assumption of safety - Parents believe their home or supervised environments are inherently safe, blinding them to potential threats.

Normalising symptoms - Attributing changes to "phases", puberty, or typical childhood behaviour rather than investigating deeper causes.

Lack of open communication - Never establishing an atmosphere where children feel safe discussing troubling experiences, particularly around sexuality or abuse.

Focus on outcomes - Being more concerned with grades, behaviour, and social standing than the child's internal emotional state.

Denial - The possibility that something terrible has happened to their child is too painful to contemplate, so warning signs are rationalised away.

The Critical Point

As you powerfully illustrated in your blog, these signs are often symptoms of deeper trauma. Parents who focus solely on correcting the behaviour without seeking the underlying cause risk compounding the damage. The child learns that their pain is invisible, their distress is dismissed, and they must carry their burden alone into adulthood.

Creating an environment where difficult conversations are possible, where children know they'll be believed and supported, and where parents look beyond surface behaviours to understand their child's inner world, can make the difference between a lifetime of unresolved trauma and the possibility of healing.