Three Things About Elsie

Travel Guide

The Cherry Tree Carehome

This could be anywhere in the UK but what’s important is the description of the home and those who live there. How as a society we put our old people in homes and how they are sometimes treated in ways that are not always conducive to their happiness.

The author states that this is a love song to Whitby however – she spent her childhood holidays climbing the steps of the abbey and walking around the harbour and the women’s trip to Whitby is a memory and homage to the town and its people.

Flo lives in Cherry Tree Home For The Elderly, but prefers to stay in her flat and chat to her friend Elsie. However, she is told that she might be sent to Greenbank, a more restrictive facility if she doesn’t stop with her outburts and becomes a little more sociable.

In Florence’s words, “Probation? What crime did I commit?” “It’s a figure of speech, Florence” says her residential care manager, Miss Anthea Ambrose, but the threat of moving to Greenbank, “which was neither green, nor a bank, but a place where people waited for God in numbered rooms” has Elsie working overtime to calm Florence’s nerves.

Nerves are frayed even more with a  new resident who catches her eye, as she is sure that he is a long-dead figure from her past, a man called Ronnie Butler…

Memories, a life lived, past regrets and a friendship everlasting are just some of the themes the two women talk about

“Elsie’s father left for the war and returned as a telegram on the mantelpiece.”