Transcript

I was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Mum and Dad were from Wales and spoke Welsh, but Dad happened to be working there. I returned to Wales when I was around 3 years old. I've lived in North Wales ever since. I had a short spell working in London. I was working there with the police for about two years. I've had quite a few different jobs. I worked for the Welsh Ambulance Service in North Wales for around five years.

After I had children I went to college in North Wale in order to train to become a teacher. I've been poorly for over twenty years now. But after suffering kidney failure things changed a lot. I worked part-time for a period. Things became more difficult for me in school. I had to cut my hours and eventually I finished working.

Everything changes completely when you're on dialysis because you're tied to the hospital on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's quite a strain to be honest. It's been an enormous change for me to go from a very busy life to one which is a lot quieter. It takes time to come around to the fact that you're not well enough to work. Work was everything. It's where my friends were, that's what I did.

As a teacher, you pray for the holidays to arrive. But I had all this time and didn't know what to do with it. I was very fortunate, because the hospital helped me straight away. Because I had dialysis at home at the start, there was a lot of contact. There's a team of renal nurses who look after you. They come to the house and help you to get set up. But I could only do that for around five years. It was during that time that I had my first social worker. She was extremely good with the children and the family as well. They were teenagers at the time and teenagers aren't the easiest to deal with at the best of times. I was poorly and it was extremely difficult for them. They were able to talk to her about it as well as me. She was there for us all as a family.

Speaking to a nurse or a doctor is difficult. They have a completely different attitude. When she came here, I was able to tell her what was really worrying me. She really helped me. Even though I'd been suffering with different illnesses I couldn't get a blue badge. I wasn't receiving Disability Living Allowance or anything like that. I would have been elligble for that whilst working part-time but I didn't realise. I was too ill to think about things like that. Financially It was a huge strain. She came along and worked on those things for me, and on my behalf when I couldn't fill in those horrible forms myself. It was a lot easier when she worked on them with me.

I've been very fortunate to have a social worker who is a fluent Welsh speaker. I've also had a social worker who couldn't speak Welsh but was willing to say simply "Bore da". It's very simple but it makes a big difference in terms of ethos. It makes you feel very comfortable. Some of the staff wear badges to symbolize that they are Welsh speakers. That's really nice because when you see that badge it's then easy to speak to them in Welsh. I think that the Welsh language service is essential because it's important to use Welsh from day to day. It means a lot to me. I speak Welsh with my family and with little children. It's natural for me to do so. It's a strange thing, If you start off speaking in English with somebody you'll always speak to them in English. There's no reason why we shouldn't all be able to speak a little bit of Welsh. After all, we're Welsh, aren't we?