This story appeared in 'Flash Dances' in November 2024, when Kathryn was 90. She came from East London to the launch party at Waterloo on public transport, at the cost of considerable personal effort. Kathryn always refused help from social services, and indeed from her friends. This fierce independence came at a cost. Her friend Beth – see the memoir on the next page – tells us that a trip to the shops which used to take thirty minutes could now take up to two hours, with rests. The story captures vividly the sheer effort involved in holding life together when you're very old.

She bent to pick up her shopping bags. It had been a mistake to put them down to ease the weight for a minute; it only made it harder to pick them up again. Their handles bit her fingers and their weight made her shoulders ache, but these were the least of her pains. Her back and legs hurt, permanent aches intensified by cold and tiredness.

Never mind, she was at the corner of her road. Not far to go now. Two hundred yards perhaps, two fifty? Something like that. It was only about six o’clock, but dark as midnight. Normal for the time of year, as was the icy wind from the east — it always seemed to be from the east, sending the rain horizontally into her face, giving her a headache. An ice-cream headache without the ice- cream, she thought glumly.

There was a blister on one heel; her shoe rubbed it painfully with each step. And both shoes were letting in water. The rain turned the day’s snowfall to dirty slush.

But soon she would be home. There would be warmth, and light. She wouldn’t unpack her shopping at once, she would have a little rest first. There was a comfortable old armchair where she would sit with a hot cup of tea, letting the tiredness drain from her body and limbs into the chair, then to the floor, then down, down to the absorbent earth. Soon she would be warm and dry, and then her back wouldn’t ache so much. And there was a soft fluffy rug in front of the chair, to sink her sore feet in when she’d kicked off these blasted shoes.

She crossed the road, no traffic to hinder her. It was always a quiet road, and she realised that since she’d turned the corner, she had seen no one; no cars, no bicycles, nobody walking. She had the dark silent road to herself. Everybody was home, putting on their radios and televisions, starting to prepare their evening meals, as she would be soon.

And now she’d arrived. Here was the short garden path, and she could see light behind the glass pane in the door. She put her bags down to get her key out of her pocket. She touched the key to the keyhole, and the world exploded in a flash of white light.

When she could see again, she was back at the corner, her bags on the ground beside her, and in an instant of horrible clarity she remembered. This had happened before, thousands of times before, and would happen again, millions, billions, an infinite number of times, because this was Hell, constantly renewing itself, for ever and ever.

The lucid moment passed. She picked up her bags, thinking she should never have put them down, and plodded on, the freezing wind driving needles of rain into her face, and everything hurt, and she was deathly tired. Never mind, nearly home, not long to go now.

Kathryn Bell

Kathryn talking about the start of GEMMA, the disabled lesbian group, for Newham Heritage Month in 2018.