“The reading group gets it out in the open. Whatever is hidden up and out – if you have got feelings put down they have got to come up and out otherwise your head would explode.”

Lesley Tinsley  joined the reading group at Upstairs@83 in July 2009 when it was initially set up as part of one of our research studies into reading and depression. The study, funded by MerseyBEAT, lasted 12 months in total, with Lesley attending for the whole of that time. Lesley continues to attend the group at Upstairs@83 which has continued beyond the scope of the study due to its success at the mental-health drop-in centre.

Lesley is in her early 50s. She has learning disabilities and also suffers from depression and anxiety. She currently lives alone and has felt quite isolated at times in her community and local neighbourhood. Due to past experiences she is also rather nervous about going out by herself, especially of an evening and if having to travel outside of her local area. She has also reported that she finds it difficult to trust people. She has been attending the centre Upstairs@83 for over 2 years and the centre is one of the few places Lesley can go to and mix with other people in a supportive and safe environment.

On first joining the reading group at Upstairs@83 Lesley was rather shy and reluctant to talk at any great length or read aloud. After a few weeks however she began to volunteer to read aloud from the poems at the end of the session and as her confidence grew she felt confident enough to be able to meet the more challenging task of reading aloud for a sustained period from the denser text of the prose.  She first volunteered to read aloud from the prose in Week 6 of the project, from Mitch Albom’s Five People You Meet in Heaven. By the end of the project she was volunteering to read aloud from more difficult prose works including Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The opportunity to read aloud in a supportive environment has proved extremely beneficial to Lesley. She says:

“When I first joined the reading group I thought people would laugh at me because I’ve got a learning disability. I didn’t want to read aloud at first in case they’d laugh. But it’s not like that. Now I have a chance to read aloud and know that no one will laugh.”

She frequently takes a turn in reading aloud now, an experience which she has grown to enjoy as an educational and learning opportunity as well as an opportunity to hear her own voice expressed and listened to by her fellow reading group members.

Having a supported access to literature and its varied and complicated language is something that has proved highly beneficial to Lesley’s sense of mental well-being. She has often felt that her own life story has been overlooked and she says that she’d like to be able to write it all down one day. Having access to a literary language has enabled her to better understand, inwardly make sense of and also outwardly express her own personal experiences, thoughts and feelings, and to do so crucially in a way which does not simply leave her telling of past experiences but has also allowed her to share forgotten memories and review past, present and future anew through the stimulus of the literature and also the interaction with other people’s thoughts and feelings. Lesley is quick to recognise the mental health benefits of the reading group:

“I really think that the reading group helps with your mental health. Other people might just think it’s a reading group and nothing to do with mental health, but I think that the group has really helped me with my mental health. Sometimes before the group I feel restless and anxious – like I can’t settle – but then when I go into the reading group I can start to relax and feel better.”

Lesley has benefited greatly from her participation in the reading group. She has reported an increase in her level of self-confidence and self-esteem and also in her sense of self-worth and value. The reading group gives her something else to think about apart from her own worries and she really values this space away from her own anxieties and the opportunities it gives her to channel her thoughts in new directions:

“I’d just be sitting at home if I wasn’t here in the reading group. It gets me out and it gets me thinking and afterwards I go out of the room still thinking about the poems we’ve read!”

Since joining the project Lesley has also participated in other events outside of the reading group that have been organised by The Reader Organisation, including the evening event of the annual Penny Readings.’

Lesley read little before joining the reading group, rarely turning to novels as a natural resource and was not a reader of poetry. Since joining the reading group however Lesley’s reading interests have dramatically expanded and become more varied, encompassing novels and also poetry. Her favourite poem during her time at the reading group so far has been Maya Angelou’s ‘Touched by an Angel’. Lesley has continued her reading journey outside of the group, completing the novels Rebecca and The Painted Veil in her own time and she is now beginning The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Lesley has now realised that she can turn to books and enjoy them as a way of helping her cope with her own personal difficulties. She is currently doing an English course at college and gained her level one City and Guilds qualification.