The Journey is Home

For a person living with dementia, there is typically a pattern of ‘first in, last out’ with memories. The ability to form new memories and the challenges of short-term memory loss are often impacted far more than longer-term memories. Older people can regress to childhood or assume they’re living as past versions of themselves in times of which their memories are far more vivid and real. This is why music therapy and revisiting past songs can be so effective for calming confused patients: older well-known songs have taken deeper root earlier in life, so hearing them takes them back emotionally to those earlier and better-known times. There’s a bittersweet synchronicity with this sad phenomenon in John Sam Jones’s The Journey Is Home. Not only does the early part of his memoir deal with his mother’s final months, detailing his loving care and the challenges faced as she regresses to her earlier life and family secrets are unearthed, but Jones also seems to structure the book in reflection of this. We are first introduced to Jupp, Jones’s husband, and their life together in a German border town. From this contemporary jumping-off point, we work backwards, taking in different points in Jones’s life. Often, like the music therapy for those with dementia, chapters are headed with songs from the ‘oldies’ radio station that wakes him each day. Leo Sayer’s Thunder in my Heart brings forth a recollection of an early lover, while Donny Osmond’s Puppy Love sparks a less fond memory. This synchronicity may have been merely coincidental in the hands of a lesser writer, but Jones is considered, calm and will no doubt have intended this. Memory, music and the stories of our lives and others are the focus of this wonderful book. Jones’s life is one that is deserving of a memoir. As the subtitle implies – Notes from a life on the edge – Jones’s years have been filled with a series of experiences, encounters and time spent on the edge of society. As a young man he was the recipient of cruel electroshock ‘therapy’ to change his sexuality. He went on to work with the Catholic church in the States and on his return to the UK became a public-health worker. A further stint as a B&B owner and mayor of his home town followed before settling, post-Brexit, in Germany. From his own experiences as a gay man at a time when his sexuality put him on the wrong side of the law, to his work with others on the edge of society – sex workers and communities affected by the AIDS epidemic – this is a story from the edge of acceptability. Acceptance is a recurring but reluctant theme throughout this book. Much of Jones’s work in public health is about gaining recognition and acceptance for those most affected by the AIDS epidemic. Many of his own struggles with his faith, organised religion and the bureaucracy of modern Germany are about acceptance. While ‘acceptance’ is still a positive word, there’s a sense that it is just a step on from polite tolerance, which itself is a mere stone’s throw from outright hostility. Jones’s life takes in shades of all of these. People like John Sam Jones are the real unsung heroes of society. His work, and the work of his peers in public health and LGBTQ equality campaigning, mean that those growing up today face a different world from the one Jones was born into. It is easier to live without shame thanks to the work of those who went before. For this reason alone, it’s important that Jones’s story is heard. However, that is to say nothing of Jones’s wonderful writing. His words are considered, his meaning is clear, and the complex issues and experiences he’s faced are described with a roundness that is unexpected. Despite the traumatic nature of much of what’s described, Jones’s voice is without bitterness, resentment or anger, and it is clear that his own internal struggles and release of shame have resulted in him becoming who he is. His own journey is the making of him and it’s a privilege that he chooses to share it. -- Liam Nolan @ www.gwales.com