Hank Dunfield is about to turn 100 and is none too happy about the prospect. A tail gunner in the RCAF during WWII, he has lost friends, lost family and now he has lost his autonomy. He has every right to be grumpy when denied the simplest of life’s pleasures in the name of keeping him alive against his will. Sarah is a young student nurse facing her own personal health concerns when she takes a job in a nursing home and is tasked with keeping Hank quiet and contained. Katherine, Hank’s nurse, is determined to celebrate his centennial birthday; she’s long on experience and brimming with good intentions but too tightly bound by rules that only seem to make sense on the surface.
Bonding over a model Lancaster bomber, and a love of good coffee, an unexpected friendship develops between Hank and Sarah. They are a tired man at the end of his journey and a young woman just beginning hers, each trying to help the other cope with life. Life, according to Hank, is “all just flying in the dark, hoping you won’t get hit.” But this moving and thought-provoking story isn’t a novel; this is a play… and so much more.
“Despite being a play script, it is well worth reading.”
With award-winning playwright Meg Braem’s own experience of watching her father die in a nursing home, being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and her resultant interest in (obsession over?) aging, sickness and dying, she began visiting long-term care homes and eventually met a ninety-year-old RCAF veteran. From this was born her desire to tell the story of forgotten men with incredible life experiences. It is a brutal portrait of life for the elderly, a tender and moving story of a deep and out-of-the-blue friendship, scattered with humour as well as melancholy. It is ultimately a triumph of turning helplessness into liberation. Despite being a play script, it is well worth reading.
As a bonus, there are two essays included. The first, by the University of Calgary historian William John Pratt, tells the fascinating history of young Canadian men who flew the dangerous missions under Bomber Command in the RAF and RCAF in WWII, of the lifelong brotherhood forged under those terrifying conditions, and the way those men learned to deal with the sudden loss of friends and comrades. The second, by Drs. David Hogan and Philip St. John examine the history in Canada of the study of aging and explore the unique 70-plus year longitudinal study in Manitoba of cardiovascular health in young RCAF men who returned post-1945, which evolved into a study of what constitutes “good aging”. In between, are the poignant photos of smiling young men, some of whom never made it home, posing in front of their pin-up girl-painted airplanes. This slim volume is a tribute not just to these men but also to the nurses who try their best under difficult circumstances to provide good aging to those intrepid formerly young flyers in their care.
Meg Braem is an Alberta-based playwright and dramaturg. Her plays have been nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award and have won the Alberta Literary Award for Drama, and the Alberta Playwriting Competition.
- Publisher : University of Calgary Press (Oct. 15 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 118 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1773854720
- ISBN-13 : 978-1773854724
