John: ‘If I get it, that will probably be the end.’
‘It isn’t cheap to keep everything repaired – and to be sure that we are safe (unlike in Miami).’ July 2021
‘Nutritional drink – a life saver for my wife.’ July 2021
John is an 92 years old retired Chartered Surveyor, who has lived on the fifteenth floor of a 32-storey block in EC2 for 45 years. He spends most of his day caring full-time for his wife Betty, who has Alzheimer’s. An army of NHS nurses and three private carers assist him with this task. His only reprieve – ‘ it is day and night’ - is his daily one-hour perambulation of the estate. On these walks he notes down things and sketches what catch his attention. He reminisces about ‘the difficulties in WW2’ ; he came to the site just after the Blitz when it was totally flattened - only the ruins of the burned-out church remained. He is amused by the persistent roadworks saying: ‘On this corner they are doing it again; dig holes like there is no tomorrow. They dig one and three weeks go by and they fill it in and three weeks go by and they dig it again.’ He offers me his stick to save a drowning moth in the pond, he jokes that he is part of the snail preservation society. He waves at the porter: ‘It is a bit of a lonely place; you can’t really communicate.’ An hour with me exceeds his standard two week tally.
