"One of the best books I’ve read in such a long time. The presentation of history and information never felt dense or boring as some books on nature can."

"My husband grew up in an old people’s home, and lived there till we married, so some of this felt very familiar, especially the disjointed conversations and weird tangents, of which there are many.
�That was another thing that was always going missing, what they were talking about.�
That, and the fact it’s typical Alan Bennett: memorable characters bordering on caricature, brought together in an institution, with tragi-comic dialog, repressed sexual tension (occasionally expressed in taboo ways), slowly-revealed secrets, a chiropodist, a priest, mortality, and a decent plot.

This humorous novella is set in Hill Topp (double p) whose manager has delusions of grandeur and light-fingers where trinkets of the deceased are concerned. The first half establishes the characters, their quirks, and how they interact with each other. Any one of them would be a good subject for one of Bennett’s Talking Heads. Then Covid strikes, and it becomes more plot-oriented, with deaths and surprises.

Keep busy

My late mother-in-law was very conscious that those who retired and moved into the home she ran were of two broad types: those who seized the opportunities to pursue hobbies and be socially engaged invariably stayed mentally and physically able far longer than those who put their feet up and just stared at the telly.

The residents of Hill Topp have hobbies including knitting, gossiping, one-upmanship, gardening, fundraising, sex, and jigsaw puzzles. I was amused at Miss Rathbone being reduced to doing jigsaws made of anatomy illustrations, designed as a (failed) teaching aid. Of course, Google demonstrates that anatomy jigsaws are indeed a thing, and jigsaw puzzles are not a bad analogy for this story.


Image: Four 1000-piece anatomical jigsaws: brain, heart, skeleton, body ()

Freedom in confinement?

Although care homes limit residents� lives in some ways, they’re often of an age when they care less and less about what others think.

Woodruff’s life lessons make the point:
1. “There’s no need to be nice. Why? Because it gets you no further.�
2. “If you drop anything on the floor don’t pick it up. Why? Because the statistics of people having strokes go up the more one bends down� ‘So who picks it up?�... ‘Somebody else.�
3. “If you don’t want a stroke don’t linger in the lav.�
4. “Don’t go diddling your hands every five minutes either whatever the government says. Hygiene is overrated.�
5. “And avoid rhubarb.�

� They reminded me of Jenny Joseph’s poem, “Warning�, better known by its first line, When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, which you can read .

� See also Bennett’s Allelujah!, set in the geriatric ward of a hospital, and which I reviewed 4*, HERE.

Quotes

� “His flashing nowadays was less than fluent.�

� “He liked her. She didn’t like him especially but she had invested what was left of her life to this institution and she needed to make it work.�

� “Gus’s coterie found their misbehaviour unexpectedly rejuvenating. After all, sex was a secret and secrets did wonders for the spirits.�

� “We’re all lost property now.�

� “Covid now permitting church services while at the same time thinning the congregations available to attend them.�

� “Those who had the disease and lived felt superior to those who had escaped it.�"