Unlike our Covid-protocol-ridden, experience last year…
…this year’s Crisis at Christmas experience was an unmasked affair.
The “needs must” experiment of using hotels rather than colleges for the residential centres had proved so successful in 2021, Crisis decided to repeat that model in 2022.
Thus Ged and Daisy returned to the “secret location near Hyde Park” where we did our volunteering last year.
A couple of days before our first shift, Daisy was excited to see our actual “secret location” on Breakfast TV:
As in the past, we met some really interesting people over this period while doing our Crisis shifts – both guests and other volunteers.
This time, probably because we were returning to the same centre, we encountered several volunteers and team leaders that we had got to know the previous year, which was pleasing. Even more satisfying was the fact that we saw hardly any of the same faces among the guests, which hopefully helps to confirm the evidence that the majority of guests last year were helped back onto their feet.
Feeling Old – Feeling Useful!
When you get to our age, stuff happens that makes you realise how old you are. For example, the realisation that England cricket’s latest wunderkind, Rehan Ahmed, is younger than my cricket trousers, as reported recently on the King Cricket website:
But when volunteering at Crisis, sometimes our age comes in handy – especially as Daisy and I are as fit and able as most of the youngster volunteers.
On our first shift, Christmas Eve, a late arrival had possibly missed his slot and was at risk of being turned away. Our shift leader asked me and Daisy to look after him and keep him occupied while “Crisis central” tried to resolve the problem and find him a room.
An interesting character, we asked him a bit about his background. He told us he was born and raised in South-East London. Almost the same vintage as me. When I asked him where he went to school, he said, “oh, my school’s not there any more. I was a Billy Biro…”
…”oh yes, I know”, I said, “William Penn. I went to school around there too”.
We went on to discuss the relative merits of The Specials and UB40…the time flew by. He also took the opportunity to wipe the floor with me at chess. Twice. Bernard Rothbart would have been stunned – not so much at my rusty rubbish – but at how good this fella clearly was. Mr Rothbart would have approved of the matching up I did on subsequent shifts to help this guest and others who could play to get some good chess match-ups.
That “Billy Biro” was one of several really interesting characters we met this year. From some, we learnt how they had fallen on hard, crisis-ridden times. Some chose not to discuss such matters and left us wondering. In all cases, we just hoped that our small contribution would help them back on their feet.
Utilising Our Food Charity Skills
Daisy and I did dinner service a couple of times, utilising our FoodCycle skills, which we have been deploying on communal meals for the last 15 months, to good effect.
I particularly enjoyed getting the opportunity to do the washing up (yes really!) in a commercial hotel kitchen, never having had the opportunity to use machines and equipment on that scale before.
Some of the guests are overwhelmed by the experience of being in a hotel and being looked after by a team of kindly volunteers. One guest almost refused to let me take him to his table and serve him his food, because he felt that “wasn’t right”.
Some find it quite difficult to make a decision along the lines of “vegetarian or non-vegetarian pasta”, one guest seeming almost paralysed by indecision until I suggested that he might like a bit of both. “No thanks, I’ll have the meat please”.
It can be quite a leveller, though. When we were on the coffee stall, one particularly demanding guest came to me for a coffee three times during the 90 minutes or so we were on that duty and complained each time. The first time he complained about the coffee, the second time about the sugar and the third time about the angle from which I poured the milk (left-handed, from a full, large flagon, as I politely and smilingly pointed out). Another guest, when I asked him to repeat his order to be sure to make the coffee to his specification, told me off for not having listened properly the first time.
I was reminded of my father’s favourite put down, usually directed towards a politician of his loathing, that the person in question “couldn’t even run a coffee stall”. In less robust minds than mine and Daisy’s, the experience could induce a crisis of confidence.
But, joking apart, the experience is, on the whole, hugely rewarding and satisfying.
It won’t be the same secret location next year, but of course we plan to return to help Crisis next year; of course we do.
Postscript: Returning To Crisis Sooner Than We Expected
Actually we returned to do a couple of additional part-shifts during the final few days at that location. There were rail strikes on those days so we agreed to cover a few hours over the evening meal surge, utilising our FoodCycle skills.
We saw some of our volunteer colleagues from January last year whom we hadn’t seen earlier in the season, which was nice. It was also good to follow through with some of the guests towards the end of their stay.
The leveller motif was continued and even enhanced though, with one guest who seemed especially keen for me to serve him virtually clicking his fingers in my direction for “service”.
On the other side of that coin though, one guest with whom I had chatted several times over the weeks came up to me to shake my hand as he left after his last evening meal. One other regular, whom I had judged to be painfully shy, quietly said to me as he left the restaurant area on the last evening, “thank you for serving me”.