10 October 2023, The Hive, Cheltenham, 12.15pm
Ann Morgan, Crossing Over
Polly Morland’s A Fortunate Woman charts the life and work of a country doctor, while Ann Morgan’s Crossing Over captures an unlikely allyship between an elderly woman with dementia and a recently arrived refugee. Together they speak to Julia Leonard about the importance of care, compassion and community and reaching across the social divide.
This event has now passed. Please see our events page for forthcoming events.Ann Morgan
Edie finds the world around her increasingly difficult to comprehend. Words are no longer at her beck and call, old friends won’t mind their own business and workmen have appeared in the neighbouring fields, preparing to obliterate the landscape she has known all her life. Rattling around in an old farmhouse on the cliffs, she’s beginning to run out of excuses to stop do-gooders interfering when one day she finds an uninvited guest in the barn and is thrown back into the past.
Jonah has finally made it to England – where everything, he’s been told, will be better. But the journey was fraught with danger, and many of his fellow travellers didn’t make it. Sights firmly set on London, but unsure which way to turn, he is unprepared for what happens when he breaks into Edie’s barn.
Haunted by the prospect of being locked away and unable to trust anyone else, the elderly woman stubbornly battling dementia and the traumatised illegal immigrant find solace in an unlikely companionship that helps them make sense of their worlds even as they struggle to understand each other. Crossing Over is a delicately spun tale that celebrates compassion and considers the transcendent language of humanity.