In January 1996 an X-ray examination confirmed that sooner or later I would have to have an operation to replace my right hip. The specialist said that part of the problem was that the position of the hip since birth had caused undue wear. Clearly Justin and Patricia inherited from me the loose hips detected in their post-natal examinations and, thanks to the subsequent special medical care, should not have to face such operations when they reach my age. The orthopaedic surgeon’s diagnosis of my condition served nevertheless as a reminder that, apart from ageing itself, the risks I faced of more serious health problems were rapidly increasing.

Anne also faced health worries. Severe pain in her wrists led to a diagnosis of general rheumatoid arthritis. Her specialist immediately recommended an urgent attack on the condition with a range of medication.

Given our respective health scares, we were delighted when our friends Karl and Pat Jonietz, with whom we had already holidayed in Santa Fe, telephoned to say they had bought a house in the New Mexico capital and would love if we could join them there for a holiday in April. The invitation was accepted with alacrity. Given my recent decision to give a high priority to writing, I welcomed this, and every holiday prior to retirement, as providing quality time for what I hoped might become part of an artistic legacy.

As I thought about the Santa Fe trip, I decided to do something about my poetry.

From our previous Santa Fe holiday I knew that there were “open mic” poetry readings once a week at the Old Santa Fe Bookstore. I had never been to an “open mic” session, but hoped that if I brought my poetry notebooks with me on holiday I would have time to select a package from the pieces I had written since 1993 which might stand a first public performance. If I was to make a fool of myself I would prefer to do it far from home.

A diary extract tells the story of this first reading:

“11/4/96.

Went to read at the Open Mike at the Old Santa Fe Bookstore. Theoretically 7-10 p.m. Arrived at around 7h20, little sign of action. An elderly lady sitting in the bar and greeted by everyone as Karen looked like a reader with a plastic bag of papers and a magnifying glass.

Ordered a coke and read the papers, including this year’s Pulitzer Prize announcement. A tall young, dark skinned curly haired man with glasses and a magnificent Hawaiian shirt, navy blue base and yellow and white flowers and a gold cross hanging from his neck came in and sat at the bar. He clearly inquired about reading and signed on a list sitting at the mike stand end of the bar. I went over and found the list marked out in 15 minutes slots and only two names listed, at 8.15 and 8.30, so signed on for 8.45.

Bought chips and another coke and waited. At 8 a lithe long-haired and moustached man with green shirt and battle trousers organised the mike, introduced himself as Richard and recited/read some sex-oriented pieces and introduced Karen. Only desultory applause on introduction and at end. Bar life going on as normal throughout and not many more than 12-15 listeners at any one time.

Karen was set up in a chair, with lowered mike and a chair to prop up her papers and her big stick, which she called “my baby”. Even with the mike lowered she was barely audible but I was sitting opposite her and liked the tone of her spiritual and love poems full of references to pearls and diamonds. She said she was treating us to reading her first poems from 1964 and that she had eight files similar to the tattered yellow folder from which she read. She said she found the early quality good.

Hawaiian shirt read next and was young, direct and crude in style, but effective, concerned and funny. Strong on words like “mush”. Described his brain as “a magnet attracting bad thoughts”. He finished reciting by heart a piece about collecting a girl’s tears, filtering and freezing them and inviting us to a cocktail party.

I sat on a bar stool with my books on an adjoining stool. I ran through my rehearsed lyric and political programme, only leaving out “Casement”, which I then read at the end, because there was time.

Same applause as everyone else, with a slight impression that a few people liked the work. I would say preferring the lyric to the political. They were probably right, particularly with the mike the politics probably sounds trite.”

Since that first Santa Fe reading, I have written a lot more and even read at a public session organised by the Scottish Poetry Society at the Edinburgh Festival. I wonder whether the poetic side of my muse will survive the competition from my other retirement projects in which the multimedia dimension seems more immediately exciting.

In July 1996 John and I did what we could to contribute to Florence’s immortality. We placed an inscribed stone of polished granite on the memorial lawn in Glastonbury cemetery to cover the small square of excavated soil in which we buried the wooden casket containing Mum’s ashes.

It is an immense tribute to the freedom of rural England that, since I could only be in Glastonbury on the weekend following the arrival of the stone, and the completion of the official interment formalities, the cemetery authorities were prepared to leave the newly opened plot to be accessed by ourselves on the chosen Sunday afternoon, when there would be no cemetery worker or burial official in attendance.

Had we ever been closer to Mum than when we felt the ashes shift in the box as we pushed it into place so that soil fell around it, ready to be compacted by the newly cut stone?

Read more: 1997 – Anniversaries and Change