We are delighted to showcase Kerry Hodges’ winning piece, as judged by Tom Bullough for the 2023 Richard Booth Prize for Non Fiction. This is the second time Kerry has won this prize – Many Congratulations Kerry!

Tom wrote, ““When”. This reads like a prose poem, exactly calibrated and with a beautiful, incantatory quality. Its structure – this sense of the pressures of life released, if only fleetingly, into the dawn – is equally effective and affecting.“

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“When” by Kerry Hodges

When you receive an email from a close friend to say her ex, but still close, partner has taken his life. A person loved by a child, a mother. How do the survivors survive? When they wake each morning to the realisation their dream has become a daily nightmare. When the child asks why, why, why and her mother cannot answer. Was our love not enough?

 
When another close friend you meet in an overcrowded, overpriced coffee shop tells you the dad of a third friend has died. You knew T, only slightly but he was one of those people you don’t forget in a hurry. Upright, elegant, quick-witted. You must call his daughter.

‘I didn’t know he’d been ill.’ you say as you queue for your coffee.

 
‘That’s the thing,’ she replies, ‘He wasn’t.’

Okay you think as you stand at the till, rummaging in your wallet for £2.69, so how did he die? An accident, that’s the most obvious. Or a heart attack.

 
Arriving at a table in the noisy café, you ponder further. Did he take his life? Seems unlikely at such an age – he must have been over ninety.

 
You sip in unison.

 
‘Okay, so if he wasn’t ill, how did he die?’

‘VSED.’

‘VSED?’

Yes, Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking.’

‘What, he chose to starve to death?’

‘Pretty much.’

Silence as you attempt to digest this information.

 
‘Tell me more.’

‘He decided to die this way in January and told his family and friends. They had to get a doctor to visit to ensure T had capacity to make the decision. He absolutely did.’

‘But what about B and the rest of his family? How did they feel?’

‘I don’t really know. Except they respected his wishes and cared for him. It took eleven days for him to die.’

You’ve never heard of this way of dying and find it scary but also peaceful, surrounded by loved ones. A supported death.


When so many friends are hurting. When a dear friend battles cancer. They are being brave, in pain, suffering. When they can’t walk out of hospital because their feet are weighed down by lead.

When they live on the loo as poison pours from their core. When they smile their dignified, brilliant smile as you enter the room. When they slurp homemade spicy soup as though it’s growing back their cells and their strength is returning with each spoonful.

 
When your grown child is lost in a working world of reports, visits, abuse, the taking of children to safety. When they receive little care from overworked, understaffed managers. When they crack and fall and drag themselves to their feet once again to ensure the office is staffed.

 
And when your elderly mother is getting frailer by the day. When she knows, the weaker she becomes, the more others will do unto her, even though she doesn’t want to be done unto. Like when the man from the care agency arrived to shower her and she said no, I don’t want to be helped by a man and the agency had not phoned to see if she would mind a man helping her. They were not seeing her, the 87-year-old woman who had birthed five daughters, sung in Gilbert and Sullivan operas, worked hard in her care of others. They saw an old lady who would accept any help offered. Too frail to argue the toss. She was not being respected, seen. She was reduced by age.

 
And when you have your own health worries. Eyesight failing – will I still be driving following my visit to the optometrist on Thursday? 

 
When you move away from the minuscule world you inhabit. Climate crisis, train strikes, NHS strikes, postal strikes, cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, war in Syria, the plight of women in Afghanistan, Palestine, boats bobbing in rough seas, over-loaded with people seeking asylum – and being refused – a plane to take them to Rwanda, the ongoing grind of institutional racism and sexism, mental health, hospitals creaking, weighed down, falling down for lack of funding. You can’t go on – the list becomes bleaker by the second. Overwhelming, under attack. Turn off the radio.

When you are in danger of cracking, being engulfed by what you see, hear, feel of the world. The low level, daily anxiety of the big issues; issues you can do very little about, when you feel your own impotence. The growing anxiety as friends tell their stories. When you find tears welling too readily, fatigue keeping you awake at night.

 
Empathy can be destructive.

 
But when you make tea, take it to your seat by the window and stare, unblinking into the dawn. Watch as light creeps along the hill, shyly opening its eyes for you. The sparrows awake, greet each other and begin their day – delicately drinking from the aluminium saucepan – will they get Alzheimer’s? – arguing furiously at the nuts, my turn, MY TURN. The woodpecker father, hopping up and down the energy balls, pulling sunflower seeds and taking them to his youngster who sits in the ash tree, patiently waiting for its breakfast. And the buzzard, sitting silently higher in the camouflage of leaves, hoping this will prevent the newly fledged robin, picking grubs from the earth, from seeing him.

And when you sip and swallow and sip and swallow and that movement, that repetition gives you comfort. Something has remained the same. For the moment, you can rely on daybreak, you can rely on nature. For the moment.

Lynn Trowbridge – Ex HWC Chair Comes Calling

At ninety nine and three quarter years of age, one would think Lynn Trowbridge would be slowing down a little, but as many of us know, her drive for reading, writing and living life is in itself an inspiration.

Earlier this month we were fortunate to enjoy Lynn’s company at our Cusop Hall meeting. She was our Chairperson for well over a decade , keeping the group writing and moving forward under her guidance. Of course, a decade ago Hay & District Writers’ Circle was very different; much smaller in number, meeting at member’s homes, publishing yearly magazines which were sold locally and just dipping our tentative online toe in the waters of the world wide web.

For our most recent members it’s good to hear how we have developed and arrived at where we are today – a strong, forward thinking writing group striving to craft individual voices through quality writing.

Our immense gratitude to Lynn and all those who shaped the HWC in the past cannot be overstated and we thank them for all their incredible efforts. The Hay Writers’ Circle journey certainly continues – onwards and upwards!

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