News | Wednesday, 5th July 2023

University helps NHS workers tell their personal stories for 75th anniversary of NHS

Moving creative writing project showcased with recitals, exhibition, and performance

The results of an innovative creative writing project that’s seen staff from Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School support health workers and their families to tell their NHS stories have been showcased at an event to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS.

By turns humorous and harrowing, Untold Stories of the NHS tells the moving personal stories of Trafford General Hospital staff and members of African-Caribbean communities who have worked, or whose families have worked, in the NHS.

These stories of hope, courage and determination were shared through readings, exhibition displays, and a performance by actors, at Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library and Grosvenor Theatre.

From January to June, Manchester Met’s lecturer in Creative Writing Dr Kim Moore worked as writer in residence at Trafford General Hospital, the first NHS hospital to be opened, running weekly writing workshops and supporting staff to share their NHS experiences though short stories, poems and plays which were read and performed at the celebration event.

Over the same months City of Literature Community Champion and Manchester Met Visiting Fellow Jackie Bailey collaborated with members of Manchester African-Caribbean communities to tell their family stories of working for the NHS, to mark the 75th anniversary this year of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in Britain.

Windrush and Trafford Untold Stories interwoven in the performance and exhibition include a poignant play based on the real COVID diaries of a nurse who worked through the pandemic, memories of Windrush generation nurses and the sacrifices they made to balance hard working lives with motherhood, and a consultant’s emotional poem on her memories of working in the UK and India.

Led by Manchester Metropolitan University, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and delivered in partnership with Lime Arts, NHS England, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Manchester UNESCO City of Literature, Untold Stories of the NHS creates a rich and moving tapestry that explores the NHS at age 75, and the people that have made it ‘our NHS’.

Manchester Met’s Dr Kim Moore, who recently won the prestigious Forward Prize for Poetry Best Collection award, said: “It’s been an absolute honour to work with some of the staff from Trafford and across Manchester Foundation Trust, and listen to their stories.  I’ve met the most wonderful people, and to see their service and dedication celebrated through poems, stories, plays, illustrations, photography and film is really wonderful.”

Trafford participant Dr Anjali Santhakumar whose poem I Remember is inspired by her work in rural India as well as 19 years for the NHS, said: “I’ve never done anything like this before, and I found the session really inspiring.

“I surprised myself at my ability to reflect and to write, as I don’t consider myself to be a creative person. Taking part in this project has given me the opportunity to pause and reflect on a what’s been a long journey of working in the NHS and has given me the inspiration and confidence to pursue creative writing.”

Hospital radio station manager Amanda Jordan wrote a short story about her first day at Trafford General, as well as The Moral Battle of HR, a poem about some of the experiences she faced as a hospital HR manager over a decade from 2002. She said: “The experience of taking part in Kim’s workshops was fabulous and quite cathartic.

“I haven’t written creatively since school, and I was surprised at what came out. Since the project I’ve kept up my writing, jotting down ideas when they come to me. I’m proud to have taken part in Untold Stories, which is a lovely tribute to the 75th NHS anniversary.”

Manchester Met Visiting Fellow and City of Literature Community Champion Jackie Bailey, said: “It was an honour to work with my community of African-Caribbean people who have either made personal contributions to the NHS as part of the Windrush generation, or have close family members who have contributed.

“Being able to hold space for these people to share their authentic personal experiences through creative writing was humbling.”

Mental health nurse Karen Dawn Hutchinson’s poem My Journey Into The NHS draws on her own experiences of working in the NHS.

Speaking about taking part in the project, she said: “For me, writing my untold story was very cathartic. I remember trying to write my story and getting quite emotional because I was reliving my own frustration. I don’t think I’d ever expressed this or how much it hurt that I hadn’t progressed, or I’d not got the jobs that I thought I was going to get.

“The opportunity and encouragement to be honest about what was going on or what I’d experienced was helpful. I think I’m stronger for it.”

In addition to the celebration event to mark the culmination of the project, an Untold Stories of the NHS exhibition will run at Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library on Oxford Road until September, which is open to the public. It includes displays of the creative writing, illustrations that respond to them, and portraits of the 26 participants by photographer Chris Saunders.

To find out more about Untold Stories of the NHS, read the participants’ stories and see their portraits, go to www.untoldstories.mmu.ac.uk