'Mentioning Dementia', part of the 11th South Yorkshire Dementia Creative Arts Exhibition, was held on July 2nd in Sheffield and was conceived as a platform for people affected by dementia to speak about their experiences of life lived with dementia. The poster for the event was designed by Humairaa Hussain (University College Rotherham).
Maria Nightingale hosted the event and we were lucky enough to be able to partner with Dementia Diaries, a national initiative whereby people with dementia keep and share on-line audio diaries of their everyday lives, and this special Dementia Diaries Live! started the day, with Jacqui Bingham, Howard Gordon and Wendy Mitchell. Other people read their poetry - most notably including individuals from Mapplewell Manor care home near Barnsley, Willow Marsden and Rae Burton, who chose poems from her collection. Wendy Mitchell read from her international bestselling autobiography 'Somebody I used to know'.
Everyone who attended agreed it was a great success and plans are already in place to organise another event for 2020. As one delegate noted: "the support people get from sharing experience really shone through".
The event was orgainised by David Reid (Senior University Teacher, School of Nursing and Midwifery), Maria Nightingale (Senior Nurse, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals) and Helen Smith (Activities Coordinator, Mapplewell Manor Care Home).
Peggy Walker from BBC Radio Sheffield came and spoke with some of the contributors and broadcast this short but very informative piece about the event later that day. Thanks to Peggy Walker and Paulette Edwards, click on the link to download and listen. [Audio shared with permission of BBC Radio Sheffield.]