Yes, reminiscence work is about history, but history with a difference[…] a life stretching back ninety years or considerably less. It can be a fleeting moment or a whole story.

This book came out of reminiscence work; recorded conversations with women in their seventies, eighties and nineties who were mostly recovering from falls, strokes and other illnesses. Their stays in hospital ranged from weeks to to months. Their writing covers stories of healthcare before the introduction of the National Health Service and a welfare state, factory work, the bombing of Manchester during the second world war; childhood and leisure time.

Day In, Day Out was a result of collaboration between Gatehouse Books, staff and patients at Monsall Hospital, Commonword and the former North Manchester College.

A later example of writing development work in Manchester hospitals is The Girl in the Iron Lung by Pat Winslow published by Commonword almost two decades later.

Published: 1985