I'll Die After Bingo: My unlikely life as a care home assistant

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It's subtitled as a story of a decade as a Care Home Assistant but it seems to be stuck in this really disjointed state of being part academic and part memoir. Hannah Weatherill, Acting Head of Media Rights, Penguin Random House, said: “Pope’s memoir about his work as a carer is extraordinary – he captures the personalities of the residents, their families, and his colleagues in all their complexity with incredible empathy and humour. He thinks it’s absurd that he’s paid and valued more to stand on stage and tell jokes than he was keeping people alive. On the other hand, Lonergan very clearly developed deeper links with those he was looking after, long-term, in care homes.

And care home residents (I too hate the world clients) shouldn't need to have to be 'humanized' but Pope does bring out the people so lovingly, whilst still sharing what it's like when the people he's getting to know may be disinhibited, emotional, or disconnected in ways their families don't recognize, for worse and sometimes for better. The 30-year-old stand-up comedian attributes this shame to the “meagre” wage packet; the perception of the job as “grunt work”; a lack of support from the media and “the stigmatisation caused by abuse caught on hidden cameras”. They still say and do the most odd, sometimes transgressive, things – and Lonergan knows that’s too funny not to report, but we get a better understanding of the people behind the peculiarities. Nominated for the Chortle Comedy Book Award this year, the stand-up’s memoir was described as 'blisteringly well written, deeply humane and very funny' by the Daily Telegraph.Nominated for the Chortle Comedy Book Award this year, the memoir has been described as ‘blisteringly well written, deeply humane and very funny’ by the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail stated it’s ‘enough to make you die laughing’. Hats off also to him for his dedication in working this broken system, and I'm sure than many of the residents were that much the better because of him. Expectation – the production company behind Alma’s Not Normal, Bridget Christie’s The Change and The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan – has struck a deal with publishers Penguin Random House to work on the project. It can only add to the picture you have of what it's like to work in the health and care sector in this country.

It's clear that he feels his own vulnerability and struggles with mental health give him a heightened understanding of the plight of the 'elders' he supports- and, fundamentally a greater humility and patience. Not an easy read, but if you want to know what care homes for the demented are like, and why, it's essential reading. Having had some experience of visiting people in care homes, little in this book surprises me, and I share with the author much despair about the lack of sensible Government plans to fix the core issues longer term. Please read it - we should all read this and understand what happens in care homes and how important workers like Pope are in caring for our loved ones.Clarkson’s Farm producer Expectation is adapting for TV comedian Pope Lonergan‘s memoir about a decade spent caring for the elderly. Any money you contribute will directly fund more reviews, interviews and features – the sort of in-depth coverage that is increasingly difficult to fund from ever-squeezed advertising income, but which we think the UK’s vibrant comedy scene deserves. I tip my hat to Pope and all the Popes working hard and wiping all the arses that people like me wince at.

I was also really happy to find references of feminism, critics of capitalism and I would say socialism but not sure how the author identifies. When he slipped from “gentle repartee” into more risqué comedy, he was met with “raucous, delinquent laughter from the elders”. He did actually portray himself as the best carer in the home with the best methods and the most caring nature this did grate a little as I am sure he had more than a few moments of being human and losing the plot. Please get in touch and we will do our best to source your book, no matter how unusual or specialist.The author is obviously highly intelligent, proactive and caring, whilst not shying away from his own weaknesses. So he believes we need to remove the stigma from the realities of ageing and care work by bringing them into the open. great book and account of what it is like for care workers that work in care homes and are more often than not considered the lowest form of employment. But it also means these are ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ places, open to abuse both physical and financial.

In the creative industries (ergh) cultivating relationships is really important – and luckily Expectation is full of the nicest, most insightful and talented ‘TV people’ you’ll ever find. He says that the trading of dark jokes alleviates the stress and sorrow that accumulates when you’re bearing daily witness to the undignified disintegration of your fellow humans. Lonergan also has a special empathy for his clients as he has lived on the sidelines of society himself as a now-recovering drug addict. At the same time, Lonergan rails against a social and political system that underfunds and undervalues care work and the people who do it. Instead he prefers to engage in deeper conversation and often entertained his charges with comic outbursts.His writing is superb and his experience in the care sector makes this one of the most potent books on the subject of humanity. By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. If you are in Australia or New Zealand (DVD Region 4), note that almost all DVDs distributed in the UK by the BBC and 2entertain are encoded for both Region 2 and Region 4. I did struggle a bit to read the book and i did zone out to parts of it but can't really tell why it made me feel like that.