Nana Joy and The Sadness of the World

written and illustrated by Lainey Lancaster

Published in 2018 in the United Kingdom by Independent Publishing Network

Lorraine Pocklington

Rhydlwyd

Bontnewydd

Aberystwyth SY23 4JJ

nanajoy.co.uk

Story, content and illustrations © 2018 Lorraine Pocklington (Lainey Lancaster)

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted at any time or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior, written permission of the publisher.

The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Designs, Rights and Patents Act 1998

First printed August 2018

Layout and design by Lorraine Pocklington greenweeds.com

Printed on 170gsm FSC uncoated. Fonts: Granville font from Production Type; Whitney by Hoefler; Charcuterie by Laura Worthington Type, Chauncy from Chank Co, Rollerscript by G-type, Earwig Factory by Typodermic.

ISBN 978-1-78926-532-0

written and illustrated by Lainey Lancaster

Nana Joy was feeling low. It seemed that every day there was more sadness in the world.

Trowser tried his very best to cheer her up, but on sad days nothing that he did seemed to help. Though that didn’t stop him trying.

On the day the postman delivered yet more sadness, Trowser fetched his lead for Nana Joy, and together they set out on a walk.

Stopping by at the Last Shop in the High Street, Nana Joy bought a fish, some carrots, some chocolate, and a bone for Trowser.

“Enjoy that fish Nana Joy,” said the shopkeeper, “there’s not so many left in the sea. Soon the shops around here will just be filled with things that people didn’t want and never needed. We could all do with finding some happiness.”

Putting her change in her purse, and the fish, the carrots, the chocolate and the bone in her basket, right then and there, Nana decided to do just that.

Stopping off at home only to pack a flask of tea, Nana Joy and Trowser set off on a journey to find happiness.

Not far from town Trowser heard a weak miaow.

Now Trowser liked cats, but even though he ran as quickly as he could, he had never managed to catch one.

He followed the sound and found a poor little kitten with a bowl full of words instead of food. The words were the same as those in the sad letters that Nana Joy received.

Trowser was puzzled.

“ It’s all very well,” Trowser thought, “but she can’t eat those words”

Leaving the fish for the kitten to eat, Nana Joy and Trowser continued on.

After just a hour’s walk, they came across a gnarled old tree. But instead of leaves and fruit the tree was full of words.

“Perhaps these words will tell us where to find happiness.” said Nana Joy. She had always enjoyed word games.

Nana Joy pulled a pen and a notepad from her pocket, poured herself a cup of tea from her flask, opened the chocolate, and settled down

Feeling weary after all their work, Nana Joy and Trowser decided to take a nap. While Trowser dreamed of playing with puppies, birds and kittens...

...Nana’s dreams were not so sweet...

Waking from their nap – less tired, it’s true, but not refreshed –Nana Joy and Trowser continued on.

Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, they found a very sad dog chained to a weathered signpost. Retired from a puppy farm, no one had taught him how to live in a house and keep it clean. He was without company or shelter.

Now, Nana Joy had rescued Trowser from similar trouble so he completely understood.

“We are on a journey,” he told the dog, “and until we find happiness all I can offer you is this”

and promptly donated his bone.

In his heart, Trowser knew the dog would still be sad, but he felt better for giving him the bone.

Moving ahead, it was not long before Nana Joy and Trowser came across a little donkey, burdened by its load.

“How can we lighten your load?” asked Trowser

The little donkey sighed.

“I carry on my back all the sadness of the world. Charity has broken, and it’s full of misery instead of hope. The only one who can fix it is the Happiness Engineer. But he has been so busy trying to harvest the sun, he has taken his eye off charity. I need to catch him to let him know, but with this load on my back I fear I never will.”

“Where do we find him?” asked Trowser, “because I’m good at catching – apart from cats.”

“You may be good at catching, but I’m not so good at maps,” said donkey, “I can only follow my nose. But if you try hard and listen to your hearts, then I believe that you will find him.”

And although it didn’t really solve donkey’s problems, Nana Joy gave her the carrots.

“My heart tells me we should head to the City,” she said to Trowser , “someone there will know where he is. Though it’s a long and winding road.”

Frowning at a memory that she could not quite reach, Nana Joy started to hum a tune.

Arriving at the gates of the city, Nana Joy and Trowser were halted by strange flower headed folk holding buckets.

“Who goes there?” asked the flower with the biggest head. She was quite alarming!

“Just an old lady and her little dog. We’re looking for the Happiness Engineer. Do you know where he is?” asked Nana Joy

Ignoring Nana’s question, the smallest of the red flowers squeaked “Do you have any spare change?”

Worried that they would think badly of her, and even though she had hardly enough left for herself and Trowser, Nana Joy emptied her purse into a flower bucket.

The flower creatures parted, allowing Nana Joy and Trowser to pass.

The city streets were loud, smelly, and strewn with rubbish. Nana Joy and Trowser came across all kinds of sights, not all of them sad, though many seemed to be concerned with money. The Happiness Engineer proved hard to find.

Eventually, they came across a sorrowful looking young man, and Nana Joy spoke to him.

“Do you know where we might find the Happiness Engineer?”

“I think I do,” he replied, “if you could just sign here, then I will take you to where he lives.”

The reserved young man seemed so kind!

Nana Joy took his clipboard, filled in her banking details as it asked, and signed at the bottom. What harm could it do, and it could make him happy?

Now this worried Trowser, even though he was just a dog, and he allowed himself a little growl.

Nana Joy, though, seemed innocent of any doubt.

But to Trowser’s surprise, the sorrowful young man was true to his word. He led them to an ordinary house with a sign that simply read

“We found him!” cried Nana Joy, with joy, and rang the doorbell. There were some scraping and shuffling noises from inside the house, and then the door flew open. Standing in the doorway was a serious looking man, somewhat shorter than Nana Joy had imagined him to be.

“Are you the Happiness Engineer?” asked Nana Joy

“I try to be, I enjoy the challenge.” he replied, “What can I do for you, Nana?” A brightness shone from the house beyond.

Nana Joy thought about their journey, and the sadness of the world. Of the creatures and people that they’d met, who most of all just needed love.

“I want to end the sadness of the world.” said Nana Joy “Charity has broken and I am told that you can fix it.”

Nana Joy and Trowser followed the Happiness Engineer into a brightly shining room. He checked some devices, then tutted to himself, somewhat vexed.

“You are right, Nana Joy, charity has moved out of its correct orbit, and it has broken. I’ll have to fix it.”

Nana Joy stood patiently while he pressed buttons and turned dials. Trowser – not being technically minded –fell asleep and dreamed again of chasing kittens.

Suddenly there was a whirling. And a swirling. And a rushing. And a swooping. And then ....

“That’s done it, Nana Joy, charity will take a turn for the better. There will still be sadness in the world, but not so much of it will be brought to your door.”

“You should make your way home now. Though don’t forget, Nana Joy, I may have fixed charity, but the key to happiness lies in your own heart.” And with a quick wave he was gone.

Trekking back along the same route as they had travelled only a short while before, Nana Joy could see that things were already on the mend.

Home at last, Nana Joy and Trowser found on their doorstep the kitten that they’d met on their travels.

Trowser was so excited! At last he’d have a kitten of his own to love and to chase!

“Well, Trowser, that was quite a journey!” said Nana Joy

“We have found some new friends, and with charity fixed there may well be less sadness in the world.

I feel it in my bones.”

About this project

All of the collage elements from this book – including the coins, the pens and the teabag – have been created from unsolicited mail received from charities and collected over the course of a year from five households in the UK. The collages were then further developed using digital illustrations from photographs.

The project was originally inspired by the story of Olive Cooke, an elderly charity volunteer from Bristol. Olive was reportedly overwhelmed by the charity mail that she received, and this contributed to her decision to take her own life. After an investigation into her case by a House of Lords committee, significant changes were made to the regulations governing charity direct mail.

In the aftermath of that review the regulating body, the Fundraising Standards Board, was closed down in 2016, replaced by the Fundraising Regulator.

During the year of our collection, our five households received mail from 67 different UK charities: more than 180 pieces of mail. Many challenging images and stories arrived unbidden on our doormats. Around Christmas was a peak time for its delivery, with the Salvation Army, The Red Cross and Crisis each sending multiple copies of their Christmas message to all five households. Another prolific sender was the Cats Protection League, who sent multiple copies of the same mail to every household except the one in London. They received none.

The demographic targeting of the mail was very evident. For example, the London residence received far more mail from overseas aid and arts projects compared to the rest of the country. Lincolnshire – where there is a large Eastern European population – was the only area to receive plastic clothing collection sacks. The trade in secondhand clothing from the UK to Eastern Europe is well known. I used the plastic sacks to make the ‘begging bowls’.

What I didn’t know when I started the project is that it would mark the end of an era. The householders collected the mail from August 2016 for a year. By the end of that year, the volume of mail was evidently slowing down. By the end of 2017, I was no longer receiving regular charity mail, and now – in 2018 – the supply of mail to my home in Wales has totally dried up. The other collectors report a similar, striking decline.

The charity direct mail industry seems to have been swept away in a perfect storm. How so?

We could suppose that the regulation changes made in response to Olive’s story have taken effect. Our attitude to environmental waste may have led us to question the volume of unsolicited paper and plastic that we receive through our letterboxes in the name of charity.

Simultaneously, charities have had to respond to the rise of online donations and the ‘democratisation of giving’. Through websites such as Just Giving, individuals can set up their own fundraising initiatives. Charity donors are traditionally from an older generation, hence the hounding of Olive Cooke, but as that population declines, new ways of establishing donor relationships are being sought. Online fundraising has the benefit of appearing lower in cost and environmental waste –though appearances are deceptive – and its rise has been inexorable.

Since 2000, a new breed of professional charity worker has emerged, varnishing large charities with a corporate gloss. Boards peopled by older volunteers have been replaced by professionals: Chief Executive Officers and Board Directors who command eye watering financial packages. For the larger charities, at least, business is more about finance and investment than it is about doing good. National charities such as the Cats Protection League have assets worth tens of millions of pounds, and carry very substantial cash funds.

I believe that it’s partly as a consequence of this approach to marketing and business that charities are now coming to terms with a multitude of bad news stories that serve to undermine their public image. We could have seen it coming. As early as 2015, reporters recognised the dubious financial practices being operated at Kids’ Company overseen by Camila Batmanghelidjh, once fêted by politicians as the essence of ‘New Charity’.

Since then more bad news. The new breed of career charity worker – as interested in personal progression as they are in doing good – has brought with it a whiff of entitlement, patriarchy, power and exploitation that would not have been imagined just a decade ago. In 2017, news stories about the exploitative antics of Oxfam’s aid workers in Haiti ran alongside tales of the

inappropriate behaviour of senior members of staff in the British offices. From boorish to bordering on illegal, with none of the cases particularly well handled by the so-called professional management. On the day I am completing this article, 31st July 2018, the House of Commons International Development Committee1 reported that sexual abuse is ‘endemic across the international aid sector’, and that the sector demonstrates ‘complacency bordering on complicity’ in this context. A poverty of morality.

Yes, charity really is broken. Perhaps with these latest revelations the axis will swing in favour of the smaller ‘table top’ charities that still run on goodwill and voluntary giving.

So, what had started life simply as a long term project for a graphic design degree developed into a commentary on change.

The story of Nana Joy and Trowser* touches on themes of animal welfare, elderly loneliness, exploitation, abuse, and care for the environment. If you read the story with children, I hope you might use it as a catalyst to talk about how we might all contribute to development of a kinder world. And perhaps to initiate discussions on some important topics that can be difficult to address.

Either way, I hope that you also enjoy the tale as the fable that it is intended to be.

1 House of Commons International Development Committee, July 2018 Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector London: House of Commons

*Missed from the print edition was an explanation. Trouser was the original name of my mom’s rescued dog, now known as Tess. My mom (age 90) was the model for Nana Joy. My dog Archie the model for Trowser, since there are too many white cartoon dogs in the world. Sorry, Tess!

The Collection

These are the 67 charities that sent direct mail to one of the five properties during the collecting year: Action for Blind People (became RNIB), ActionAid, Age UK, Alzheimer’s Research, Alzheimer’s Society, Amnesty International, Arthritis Research UK, Barnados, Beating Blood Cancers, Bible Society, Blythswood Care, Breadline Africa, British Heart Foundation, British Red Cross, Cafod, Cancer North East, Cats Protection League, Centre Point, Child & Teenage Cancer & Leukaemia Foundation, Childrens Air Ambulance, Christian Aid, Crisis, Dogs Trust, Dreams Come True, English Heritage, Forces Support, Freedom From Torture, Friends of the Royal Academy, Guide Dogs for the Blind, Gurkha Welfare Trust, Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Medicins Sans Frontieres, National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline, National Literary Trust, National Trust, NSPCC, Orbis, Practical Action Technology, Railway Children, Red Nose Day, RNIB, RNLI, Royal British Legion, Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation, RSPB, RSPCA, Salvation Army, Save the Children, Shelter, St John’s Hospice, Starlight, Stroke Association, The Brooke (working animals), The Camphill Family, The Eve Appeal, The Heart of England Forest, The National Brain Appeal, The Relatives and Residents Association, The Southbank Centre, University of Birmingham Alumni, Water Aid, Womankind, Woodland Trust, Woodland Trust, World Cancer Research Fund, World Horse Welfare, World Villages for Children.

Left: Some of the ‘begging bowls’ made from the plastic clothing sacks.