Author: Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Goodbye tour, health care, NHS, NHS: a trilogy in four parts, Sussex Partnership2 Comments

So, where was I …?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Brighton is an extraordinary place. Described by the journalist Keith Waterhouse as ‘a town that always looks as though it’s helping the police with their enquiries’, I’ve imagined Eastbourne and Worthing either side folding their arms, tapping their feet in an irritated fashion and wishing it would just sit down and be quiet, for goodness sake. I blame the Prince Regent; if he hadn’t come waltzing down here with his entourage, partying like it was 1799 and building hallucinatory palaces, the sixties would never have got a look-in and we would not now have this noisy, unruly, flamboyant, drama-queen of a city. I can’t help thinking Hove is a reluctant bride in … Continue reading So, where was I …?

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Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Originally posted on The World of Special Olympics:
John Franklin Stephens The following is a guest post in the form of an open letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night’s Presidential debate. Dear Ann Coulter, Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow.  So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult? I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow.… Continue reading

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‘Red is for Go’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Red is for Go’,  is on E. Victoria Flynn’s Roadside Attractions today. ‘Which one of us died?’  ‘He did. Back then.’  ‘And now?’ She looked up at the ceiling, at the bright carriage lights that cast unforgiving shadows under the sleep deprived eyes of its hot-desking passengers … ‘  Time travel? Ghost story? A dream? You decide. Definitely a love story though. Continue reading ‘Red is for Go’

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Bromley, learning disabilities, NHS: a trilogy in four parts, psychotherapy, vulnerable adults2 Comments

‘My Dad’s gone to Mars’ – when a star chart isn’t enough

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

It’s almost an affectation to say how much things have changed over these last few decades. A way of putting our hands on our collective hips and uttering the professional equivalent of  ‘When I were a lad …’, then shaking our heads in disbelief at the impact of modernity on treasured ways of doing things. Back in the good old days, psychologists were much more hands-on – demonstrating to bemused nurses how to teach an adult with intellectual disability (mental handicap as it was known) to feed themselves with a spoon.They would sit in rows of plastic seats as the live bait – Chris Cullen on one … Continue reading ‘My Dad’s gone to Mars’ – when a star chart isn’t enough

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Full of Crow3 Comments

‘The Wild Rose and the China Doll’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The Wild Rose and the China DollI am the oldest I have ever been, and the youngest. Saddled with Original Sin, so they say, but am I guilty of anything, except need?Jim and Eileen are newlyweds, embarking on a joined life that even the Catholic church could not discourage. He is back from the war. She is a machinist, escaping industrial drudgery and a household in which she is, like the furniture, utilitarian. It is 1946. Had it been 1986, we would not be here, in this place. But it is not. It is 1946 and much is pre-ordained.On a … Continue reading ‘The Wild Rose and the China Doll’

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retirement2 Comments

When Baby Boomers come of age: how will services cope?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

We were born between 1946 and 1964, after the second world war, and we grew up to be ‘the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation to that time’ with peak levels of income and expectations founded on freedoms associated with a teenage culture no generation before us had been able to enjoy. We were ‘the pig in the python’, the bulging cohort of financial, social, and intellectual liberty unleashed on a world that had queued, made do and mended, put up and shut up, kept calm and carried on. We have been noisy, demanding, musically irrepressible, politically vociferous, powerful, influential, hedonistic, ethical, … Continue reading When Baby Boomers come of age: how will services cope?

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‘The Justice box’ up now on Ether Books

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

‘Jesus loves her, Jesus loves her, Jesus loves the murdering bitch.’ Emmy chuckles to herself in that private way only people whose heads are somewhere else can do. She hunches up on the bed and grabs her knees; pulling them up to her chin, and hugging them like babies. ‘Pretty boys,’ she says; and bites into her knee cap. On Ether Books now. Continue reading ‘The Justice box’ up now on Ether Books

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