Manchester Writing School partners with NHS workers for poignant Untold Stories exhibition

Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School has partnered with NHS health workers and their families to share and showcase an array of deeply personal stories.

Coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the NHS and the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush, Untold Stories of the NHS explores the moving individual tales of Trafford General Hospital staff and members of African-Caribbean communities who have worked, or whose families have worked, in the NHS.

The innovative creative writing project has seen staff from the school help share these stories through readings, exhibition displays and a performance at Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library and Grosvenor Theatre.

Earlier this year, Manchester Met’s Creative Writing lecturer, Dr Kim Moore, worked as a writer in residence at Trafford General, the first NHS hospital to be opened, running weekly writing workshops and helping staff share their unique experiences through short stories, poems and plays which were later read and performed at a celebration event.

Throughout the same period, City of Literature Community Champion and Manchester Met Visiting Fellow Jackie Bailey collaborated with members of Manchester African-Caribbean communities to share their family stories. This work led to a performance and exhibition that included a poignant play based on the real COVID diaries of a nurse who worked through the pandemic, memories of Windrush generation nurses and the sacrifices they made to balance hard-working lives and motherhood and a consultant’s emotional poem featuring her memories of working in the UK and India.

Dr Kim Moore, who recently won the prestigious Forward Prize for Poetry Best Collection award, said: “It’s been an absolute honour to work with some of the staff from Trafford and across Manchester Foundation Trust, and listen to their stories. I’ve met the most wonderful people, and to see their service and dedication celebrated through poems, stories, plays, illustrations, photography and film is really wonderful.”

Trafford participant Dr Anjali Santhakumar whose poem I Remember is inspired by her work in rural India as well as 19 years for the NHS, said: “I’ve never done anything like this before, and I found the session really inspiring.

“I surprised myself at my ability to reflect and to write, as I don’t consider myself to be a creative person. Taking part in this project has given me the opportunity to pause and reflect on a what’s been a long journey of working in the NHS and has given me the inspiration and confidence to pursue creative writing.”

Hospital radio station manager Amanda Jordan wrote a short story about her first day at Trafford General, as well as The Moral Battle of HR, a poem about some of the experiences she faced as a hospital HR manager over a decade from 2002. She said: “The experience of taking part in Kim’s workshops was fabulous and quite cathartic.

“I haven’t written creatively since school, and I was surprised at what came out. Since the project I’ve kept up my writing, jotting down ideas when they come to me. I’m proud to have taken part in Untold Stories, which is a lovely tribute to the 75th NHS anniversary.”

Mental health nurse Karen Dawn Hutchinson’s poem My Journey Into The NHS draws on her own experiences of working in the NHS. Speaking about taking part in the project, she said: “For me, writing my untold story was very cathartic. I remember trying to write my story and getting quite emotional because I was reliving my own frustration. I don’t think I’d ever expressed this or how much it hurt that I hadn’t progressed, or I’d not got the jobs that I thought I was going to get.

“The opportunity and encouragement to be honest about what was going on or what I’d experienced was helpful. I think I’m stronger for it.”

The Untold Stories of the NHS exhibition will continue to run at Manchester Met’s Manchester Poetry Library until  September.

Open to the public, this includes displays of creative writing, illustrations that respond to them, and portraits of the 26 participants by photographer Chris Saunders. To find out more about Untold Stories of the NHS, read the participants’ stories and see their portraits, visit the exhibition website here.