Work

 

Work, that necessary thing most of us have to do at some point in our lives to earn money for our upkeep.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a teacher or an author, or both. I played school with my dolls and teddies. One particular teddy was always the naughty one and in trouble. His sums were wrong and his spellings were atrocious. I was an early reader which triggered a passion for writing my own stories. A love of ‘The Broons’ and ‘Oor Wullie’ educated me in Scottish dialect which I sometimes used in my written dialogue – not always appreciated by my teacher.

My mum was my mentor, my homework checker, my partner in fun and my planner for my future. Everything went awry with her passing and I was more or less left to go it alone. Floundering.

Dental nursing had never been on my list of possible occupations or training, but somehow, and luckily, it happened. There I was, schooldays over, thrust into the long days of a busy dental practice, 8.30 until 6 p.m. Monday to Friday, with college lectures on Monday evenings. Those were very long Mondays. A co-worker, who became a close friend, and I would take the bus from Blackpool town centre to St Anne’s College of Further Education for two hours of fascinating dentistry delivered by a local dentist, not the one we worked for. I didn’t mean for that to come across as sarcasm. It really was fascinating, and I was deeply interested and keen to do well. All this for £5.50 a week. Two years later, and a bit more money, I qualified, then shocked everyone by leaving to work in an office. Many years later, I returned to dentistry as a receptionist.

When my children were small, I helped in their school. It’s something I enjoy again as a volunteer since I retired. Too late to teach, but I’ve still got skills to share and help to offer, especially in the library and story-telling to infants.

I’m proud of my published work as a writer. I’m not a famous author, not yet, but never say never, and I haven’t earned a penny from stories or poems, but I have made some achievements. If anyone remembers the ghost stories from the Haunted Hotel in Blackpool Illuminations, mine was included and I’m still very proud of that.

My Haiku poem,

Working With the Public

Most people are fine,
Others can be difficult,
Arrogant or rude.

My pleasant calmness
And my eagerness to help
Didn’t always work.

Even my best smile
With a positive approach
Failed on occasion.

I met nice people
It wasn’t all negative,
I made some true friends.

Life-long friends as well.
We all matured together
And share a close bond.

Now in retirement,
Life should be quiet and still,
But no, it isn’t.

There’s still work to do,
So many places to go
And new friends to meet.

PMW 2025

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Gutta-percha - Fill Your Roots

 

Gutta-percha is a natural latex material obtained from Palaquium trees native to South East Asia. The sap is collected from trees which have been felled and left to coagulate. It has thermoplastic properties making it suitable for many uses including underwater cables and household electrics. It is used in dentistry as a permanent root filling.

Dental gutta-percha was first used over 170 years ago by American dentist and firearms inventor, Edwin Maynard. I was surprised to learn that he would practice in endodontics at a time in history when it was more usual to remove a troublesome tooth. It’s good that he did, as his legacy lives on. Gutta-percha is one of the most successful and widely used options in endodontics. It can completely seal a root canal which prevents bacteria entering the area and reduces the chance of complications.

If you’ve had dental treatment involving root canal therapy, you’ve probably got gutta-percha in there.

I was a trainee dental nurse when everything was old-fashioned by today’s standards. Modern surgeries look easier to clean and sanitise than the creaky contraption of a dental chair that I had to look after. We had sterilisers in the surgeries that had to be kept boiling all day long. Some instruments were sterilised by flaming with methylated spirits in a kidney dish – not so much that the flames reach the ceiling – such instruments included those used in root canal surgery which had to be thoroughly scrubbed first. To the best of my knowledge, these items are now single-use and disposed of immediately. My colleague, Helen, taught me very well, with lots of patience. We were the same age, but she’d left school before me. I could soon mix Kalzinol on a marble tile without too much mess and make amalgam filling to perfection. Dealing with root canal stuff and gutta-percha took longer to learn as it wasn’t an everyday thing. We shared joy, laughter and grievances about our boss. We did our Dental Surgery Assistant night-school course together and, upon completion, we were proud to wear our yellow belts. This was in the days before dental nurses were required to be qualified. Our careers took different paths. Helen stayed in dentistry, I moved away. We were good friends and kept in touch until Helen passed away a few years ago.

My Haiku, about those times,

It was my old days
When surgeries were basic,
Smelled of Kalzinol.

Trainee Dental Nurse
Eager to learn and succeed,
Finding my way round.

The knowledge of teeth
And all that makes their unique
Physiology.

I mixed a filling
With a small, flat spatula
On a marble tile.

What’s this pink stuff for?
I’ve not seen root canal yet.
Lethal looking files.

It’s gutta-percha
For completing root fillings.
We don’t see many.

Appointment for what?
What’s an apicectomy?
Ah! Fascinating.

PMW 2023

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Cosmetic Surgery - Nipped and Tucked

I’m glad to be happy in my own skin. I’m fine with my appearance, it’s what you’d expect for a woman of my age carrying the experiences of my life. The lines on my face belong there, each one earned. My laughter lines, just like the old joke of ‘Nothing is that funny’, I can’t remember who said it. My body, larger than I would like, but I’ll just wear bigger clothes and enjoy my day; carries the scars of necessary surgery, some life-saving, but that’s all fine, too. It’s me. At the moment I really need my sister-in-law. She is a hair-stylist, miles away in Troon. No one else cuts my hair and for almost a year we haven’t been able to meet, so I keep pinning it up out of my way and waiting. When it gets on my nerves I’m all for fashioning my own pixie cut with the kitchen scissors. I won’t. It’s not just my hair, I love her to bits and miss her and the family very much and look forward to a trip to Scotland as soon as we’re allowed.

Appearance is a confidence thing.  Accepting how we look is important to our general well-being, so if something is not right to the point of causing embarrassment or unhappiness and cosmetic surgery can sort it out, that is the way to go.

My family moved about a lot during my childhood. Dad’s job took us to various pubs all over the North West, some short term, and I was used to being the new girl at school. It didn’t bother me too much, until we came to Blackpool in 1965, or thereabouts.  I stood with my teacher facing my new class as she introduced me.

“She’s goofy!” 

A rude boy sitting at the front made everyone laugh and made me very self-conscious for years. The teacher didn’t say anything to him, which I thought was unfortunate, but as time went on I learnt why he had to sit at the front. His appearance was not flawless, he had puffed out cheeks giving him a fat looking face, but he was witty and quite funny. We went to different high schools, but met again by chance many years later at a works ‘do’ where he was the DJ. The rude boy was now a pleasant man with a successful business in entertainment and it was nice to spend a few minutes catching up. I was sad to hear he’d passed away some time ago. He’ll never see the results of my extensive cosmetic dentistry – joke.

A recent photograph of a well-known model without her dental veneers on horrified me. It was just a photo and could have been touched up, but there she was, a mouthful of what looked like good, vital teeth, filed to points to accommodate her dazzling white plastic (acrylic, porcelain, gold-bonded) very expensive smile. Money talks. There isn’t a dentist I know who would risk his / her clinical integrity to perform such treatment on healthy teeth. I wonder how she’ll look at age seventy, eighty and beyond with the ‘Colgate ring of confidence’ or if what is left of each tooth lasts that long.

Lip-fillers and Botox treatment seem to be the fashion, resulting in mask-like faces with an expression of surprise and suckers for lips. I think it’s supposed to slow down the natural aging process, but who knows if it works forever? There’s nothing wrong with growing old gracefully.  A few ‘nipped and tucked’ celebrities out there will disagree with me.

Here’s Dr John Cooper Clarke:

Face Behind the Scream
This case appears to be urgent
Kindly pull the screen
Cosmetic surgeon
The son of Mr Sheen
Is jerry building versions
Of the face behind the scream

The girl who would be beauty queen
Tells the doctor of her dream
In which she reads a magazine
Wearing only cold cream
They call her the face behind the scream

The image he maintains
And the silence he observes
Says it’s worth a little pain
For the figure we both deserve
A cowboy by profession since the age of 17
Whose singular obsession is the face behind the scream

The girl who would be beauty queen
Tells the doctor of her dream
A soiree in the mezzanine
And castanets and tambourines
A careless word and ugly scenes

The doctor knows he’s made for good impressions on demand
The new nose in the neighbourhood was fashioned by these hands
He can do it blindfold, his instruments are clean
A snapshot in his mind holds the face behind the scream

The girl who would be beauty queen
Diamond rivets in her jeans
Wild and with-it even off screen

He then removes the bandage and the odd remaining scab
A flair for fancy language…
The gift of the gab
Hands you a sandwich and applies the vaseline
To show to best advantage the face behind the scream

The girl who would be beauty queen
Tells the doctor of her dream
In which she turns her money green
Finds herself in a funny scene
Cracks up like a shatterproof windscreen

Danke schoen ich liebe dich, I promise not to hurt
A telephone receiver clicks RED ALERT
Whatever you do don’t touch that switch, the doctor goes to work
With his bag of tricks in his limousine
Mugshots from magazines
Face creams and photofits
To fit the face that doesn’t fit
The face behind the scream

The girl who would be beauty queen
Surrounded by the regular team
Of photo brats and coma teens
In bowler hats and brilliantine
Or bold cravats of bottle green
Such a precious little dream
To be taken to extremes
How many times can you be 16
The call her the face behind the scream

Thanks for reading, stay safe and keep well, Pam x

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Mouths - Open Wide!

“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes forth wisdom.”

 Or sometimes surprise, but nearly always truth, as they see it, and they always say it. I was mindful of this when out with my three year old son, many years ago. We were walking along a street in town when we saw a rather large gentleman taking time to get into the driving seat of his car. The car was a Metro and I was thinking he could do with a bigger vehicle when my son piped up, ‘He’s a very fat man, isn’t he Mummy?’ We were right next to the car by now and of course, he heard my son. I remember offering what I hoped was an apologetic smile to the man as we passed. My son was just saying what he saw. The innocence of his young age had not yet grasped the feelings of others. That would be a chat for later.

It was a privilege to spend a few years working with young children. They are amazing at sharing details of their lives in and out of school. I was good at keeping a straight face. ‘Mummy was being sick because she had wine.’ There was lots of ‘My Nanna/Daddy/Mummy said…’ followed by a serious sounding statement from them. I would be sympathetic hearing about fall-outs and possible consequences, who was shouting and who was crying. I shared in their joy of holidays, parties, friendships and special family occasions. I loved to feel included in their lives. Parents would have been horrified at some of the things their children said, whether truth or fiction. I’ve missed being part of that school. I should have stayed longer.

Dentistry has been a major part of my working life. I trained as a dental nurse before moving into other things, then coming full circle to work on reception in a large NHS practice. I’ve done my best to help people and I hope I’ve been successful in that but I’ve had enough of mouths and teeth now. I’m planning a slightly early retirement, soon.

And where will I be? Back to the ‘mouths of babes and sucklings’ with everything my grandchildren tell me.

Try this to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

 

‘Got my toothpaste, got my brush,

     I won’t hurry, I won’t rush.
     Making sure my teeth are clean
     Front and back and in-between.
     When I brush for quite a while,
     I will have a happy smile.’

Anon.

 

Here’s Pam Ayres,

   

 Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth

 

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth

And spotted the dangers beneath
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food.
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To give up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin’.

When I think of the lollies I licked
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,
‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s me they are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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