Matthew Currey's Review and View on 'Full of Life'

The Darlington “Full of Life Day” in my opinion was a great idea. For people who don’t know what this is it an annual event aimed at elderly people on the fourth of October. Although not all of the things there were a great success it still helped a lot of people fill in their day. There were things like and NHS stalls to check people’s blood pressure and things like that.

 When we first got to the hall our first task was to set up tables and chairs. When I asked Sam Wears what he thought of this he replied “No well, well, well it’s not bad”. After that we were set about the task of setting up a projector, which is considerably hard to do when you don’t have all of the cables. In the end we decided to ask a man with a computer to set up the projector as at the time me, Sam and Bradley didn’t know we were short of some leads. The problem was nobody dared ask him. After around ten minutes of rock, paper, scissors and bagsy not me it was decided that Sam should ask. After half an hour of setting up a projector we were informed that it was technically impossible to do.

After that me and Sam sat down together so I could repeatedly beat him at dominoes. Sometime into the fourth game the mayor arrived (or just somebody with a massive gold necklace). When I went to speak to him I was side-tracked by a member of the council. In the end I ended up talking to an elderly lady called Jean. She was very appreciative of the service provided; the people from the NHS informed her that she had high blood pressure and helped her with the treatment.

I then spoke to a man called Harry Longmoor, an old Branksome caretaker. He was a member of GOLD, (Growing Old Living in Darlington) although he was mainly there to meet a friend. After talking to him for some time I realised none of what I was writing down was of any great importance, so I decided to go back and talk to Sam and Bradley. After a quick chat we realised that all we had done was set up tables and play dominoes, so out of boredom we decided to try something new.

So Sam and I tried just Dance 2. We got really good at it, but sometime around the third game we realised that half the room was looking at me and Sam dancing to M.C Hammer’s’ Can’t Touch This’. In humiliation we sat down and made a really big domino run.

After that it was time to go back to school. The Darlington “Full of Life Day” was ok, but I don’t think it lived up to the expectation of the council or any of the people setting up. Many of the stalls were unused and not many people that I spoke to visited the market. I also don’t see the point of the school going, but I still had a good time.