Six books are in contention for the annual award for excellence in science and health writing, including a trainee neurosurgeon’s posthumous memoir and books about the NHS, HIV/Aids and organ donorship.
The key thing about these books is that they draw people in to something they otherwise might find a bit scary to read about…
Spanning human origins, national health services, microbial life forms and death, the shortlist for the 2017 Wellcome Book prize has been hailed as one that will “shift perceptions” by chair Val McDermid.
Photograph: Thomas S.G. Farnetti | Wellcome Images
Announcing the six books in contention for the award, which pits fiction against non-fiction, McDermid told the Guardian: “The key thing about these books is that they draw people in to something they otherwise might find a bit scary to read about. There will be people who read one of the books on this list and it will change their lives.”
Enabling LGBT people to grow old together is not about creating a ghetto but about helping them to live later life openly, healthily and without fear…
When I used to live on the Northumberland coast, there was a game I played with visiting lesbian friends. On our walks and drives around the countryside, we’d identify houses we thought would make perfect lesbian retirement homes.
“No, that’s too exposed to the weather,” one would argue. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, you’d never get the staff,” said another. “The driveway’s too steep, we’d all break our hips in the winter,” a third objected.
But there was one thing we all agreed on. We really liked the idea of a community of lesbians growing old together more or less disgracefully. It may be a hangover from the ideas of communal living that gained a degree of traction in the 60s and 70s, often triggered by the political commitments of feminism and gay rights. But it’s one that retains a lot of appeal as we age.
Heaven knows, age comes with its indignities; this shouldn’t be one of them
Although attitudes towards sexuality have shifted radically in recent years, there are still significant levels of homophobia and transphobia around. Manchester city council, which is planning the country’s first local authority retirement community with a majority of LGBT residents, reports that elderly gay people fear hostility and discrimination from those charged with taking care of them. So they often hide their sexuality.
It seems profoundly wrong to me that after a lifetime of struggling to be accepted and to be open about who we are that we face being pushed back into the closet. Heaven knows, age comes with its indignities; this shouldn’t be one of them.
LGBT retirement homes are not about building a ghetto but rather being able to live life openly and without fear. To be surrounded by people with whom you have something in common. Often people move into such communities after a partner dies. How much healthier it must be to be able to express one’s grief freely, rather than hold back for fear of being judged.
Val McDermkd took part in a workshop with scientists & medical experts before writing the Radio 4 thriller “Resistance.”
by BRIAN FERGUSON
Leading Scottish crime writer Val McDermid has written a new BBC drama about an apocalyptic epidemic – based on the real-life concerns of scientists.
Their concerns about the rise of antiobiotic resistance across the planet will be replayed out in the Radio serial about a mystery illness which engulfs a music festival.
McDermid took part in a two-day workshop attended by scientists, academics, writers and radio producers which she says left her “profoundly shocked.” Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, was among those to give a presentation,
Fife-born author McDermid, who is best known for her series of books on the criminal psychologist Tony Hill, pitched the idea of an “uncontrollable epidemic.”
Gina McKee, star of Our Friends in the North and Notting Hill, plays a journalist caught up in the outbreak when she attends the music festival in the north-east of England.
The three-part serial, Resistance, will be broadcast on 3, 10 and 17 March on Radio 4.
