Well, gentle reader, I did it. I walked away from the most amazing and most magical (and most badly paid) of jobs.
I don’t really know how it happened, but for the last few months I have been in a different world, working in a care home remembering the Britain of the 1940s to the 1970s with a group of my most elderly fellow citizens.
It was a bit like being Dominic Sandbrook but without the podcast and the Daily Mail rants. We walked back to happiness, we had never had it so good, we were so cheerful it kept us going and, most of all, we laughed in the face of dementia and we cocked a snook at the grim reaper.
The home is kind and warm, but with me gone it loses its last member of staff with any British heritage of any kind. It loses the Beatles, the rationing, the 1966 World Cup and the nostalgia which is a vital anchor for those with dementia.
If you have Alzheimer’s the short term is hard, but a shared past becomes ever more rich and comforting.
The retro noticeboard featuring the Grand National, D-Day, homemade lavender bags and silly snaps has been replaced with corporate photographic prints and a cheesy hotel lounge vibe.
On the wall behind some of the frailest residents, the new slogan reads: It's a Good Day to be Happy.
Homes Under the Hammer flickers on to the omnipresent telly as I leave. What are they are all going to do all day now?
The Secret Support Worker, a Liberal Democrat member, was paid £11 an hour and had a budget per activity session per resident of 3p. The home has an annual turnover of a million pounds and the proprietor a flash car with personalised number plates.
