Lunch With Friends

In 2001, John Thorley was at home recovering from a stroke. One of his carers suggested that he check out a support group at the Belconnen Community Centre called Positive Strokes.

“And I said, ‘there ain’t bloody nothing positive about it because, deadset, when you’ve had a stroke … it’s a pain in the right royal.’”

Nevertheless, John promised to put his cynicism aside and give it a chance for one week. He arrived to that first meeting and was immediately asked to stand in front of the group and introduce himself.

“I tried to be cheeky and smart about it. I said, ‘the name is John, John Bond.’ I was a builder [but] I went on like I was James Bond, you know. Did it that way. Everybody thought it was great.”

At the end of the meeting, John was surprised to be told that he was welcome back the following week. He thought that if a sense of humour and a willingness to have fun is all it takes to fit in, then they must be a pretty good bunch of people.

Nearly 20 years later, that support group is still an important part of John’s life. Even if it looks a bit different now.

One Wednesday every month, a small group of friends books the back table of a coffee shop in central Belconnen. The cafe is a stone’s throw from the main bus exchange and is easily accessible for those using wheelchairs and walking aids.

The lunch group counts about nine members in total, but in any given month perhaps six or seven will make it along to lunch. The members are all that’s left of the original Belconnen Community Centre support group that John joined back in 2001.

Positive Strokes was established in the 1990s to help people recovering from a stroke after their discharge from hospital. After several years of gradual decline as numbers dwindled, the program wound up in late 2019. At launch, it was one of three stroke support groups in Canberra; when it closed, it was the last.

Another long-standing group member is Mignonne Cullen. Everyone affectionately calls Mignonne “our pollie” after her recent campaign as an independent candidate at the 2020 ACT election.

Mignonne joined Positive Strokes in 2005 following her third stroke in 2004. Her recovery was arduous. With severe damage to her auditory comprehension and speaking skills, she had to re-learn the English language from scratch.

“I bought DVDs and if I couldn’t understand something I’d put on English captions so I could interpret that. I had to read a dictionary and then trying to write using the words and making complete sentences took years.”

Mignonne’s stroke recovery was made even more difficult by her personal circumstances. Having recently separated, she was raising two kids as a single parent — a matter which unfortunately involved the courts. At the time of her illness, the pressure was overwhelming.

During her recovery, Mignonne saw a small ad for Positive Strokes in the local newspaper and resolved to go along to a meeting as soon as she could put a sentence together. At Positive Strokes, Mignonne felt a great sense of relief. Here, finally, were people who understood what she was going through.

At weekly sessions, Mignonne, John and other participants were joined by volunteers who facilitated group activities and arranged guest speakers. John also found the group useful to bounce around seemingly mundane problems and come up with solutions. With one arm partially paralysed, John was particularly keen to work out how he could carry a cup of tea and turn off a light switch at the same time. One person suggested that he put an oven mitt on his non-paralysed hand to encourage the other to regain some of its function.

“Six months I walked around with an oven mitt on my right hand to make the left hand do stuff. And it got back to okay. It’s not the way I want it to be — it’s not perfect — but it was turning into a claw and there’s nothing worse than a claw because everyone knows there’s something wrong. I pride myself on people not knowing there’s something wrong.”

One of the more recent recruits to the group is John Maher. To avoid confusion between the two Johns, their friends refer to them as John Rooster and John Rabbit in honour of their respective football teams. John Rooster joined in 2017 after his stroke the year before.

John liked going to the Belconnen Community Centre meetings as they gave him an opportunity to get out of the house and talk to people. He wasn’t a big fan of the group activities due to his poor eyesight, but the social aspect was valuable. It’s the reason he’s such an enthusiastic participant in the new, informal iteration of the group.

“Everyone gives an update about what they’ve been doing. What injuries they’ve … (laughs). How’s our families. Just chit chat. We call it Lunch With Friends.”

Several members of the Lunch With Friends group are former Positive Strokes volunteers like Kathy Barrett. Kathy has been volunteering in various capacities since she moved to Canberra about 20 years ago and she takes pride in keeping in contact with everyone she’s worked with during that time.

Kathy remembers fondly the earlier days of Positive Strokes. There were visits around town and picnics by the lake, but the standout feature was the camaraderie.

“The best part of the group and the biggest part of the group was that everybody cared for each other. It was the only group that I’ve been involved in that if you weren’t here … somebody within the group would follow up.”

Another member of Lunch With Friends, Dawne, has a unique perspective on how support groups function. She started with Positive Strokes as a volunteer in around 2005, and then, about five years ago, returned to the group after acquiring a head injury. By that stage, Positive Strokes had been re-named Positive Links and was welcoming anyone who’d experienced a “life changing” event.

Having had experience on both sides of the relationship between volunteer and participant, Dawne has a keen understanding of how organised support activities should work.

“You know what to ask from the group, you know what they’re capable of. Because the worst thing is when you keep setting people tasks or things to do that they can’t do. We don’t want that emphasis put on what we’re not able to do well. We want it to be put on those things that we can do, and shine.”

Kathy says everyone was shaken when Positive Links disbanded even though the writing had been on the wall for some time. Lunch With Friends had been running in parallel to the formal group for a couple of years and, after Positive Links closed down, it offered continuity.

With 30 years’ experience on a range of boards and committees, Mignonne knows a thing or two about how organisations work. And she thinks that Lunch With Friends is more functional than many of the formal organisations she’s served. Over coffee and sandwiches, in a casual and supportive environment, everyone can recount and discuss their own journey of recovery. While some anecdotes are funny and some are tragic, at the core of each is a story of survival and resilience.

“Sadly, we’re defined by our medical history rather than any other achievements past or present [but] through our adversity we’ve become better people.”

Lunch With Friends was initially organised by a former Positive Links volunteer but it wasn’t long until John Thorley took over the admin duties. It was always going to be John. His friends are quick to point out that he’s always the life of the party and made the original group tick — including taking on the important responsibility of playing Santa Claus at each year’s Christmas party.

Now, John makes the cafe bookings and sends out scheduling emails and text messages to members. He also makes sure to check in with those who aren’t in a position to come to lunch anymore, such as one former member who lives in aged care. John also keeps everyone informed about upcoming birthdays and other significant events.

The support group in all of its manifestations has been a part of John’s life for nearly 20 years. It started as Positive Strokes, evolved into Positive Links, and is now Lunch With Friends. And through those years, the role this support has played in John’s life has, in his words, “matured with” him. At first, Positive Strokes gave him a reason to go out, and the confidence to know he was capable of doing so. But now, Lunch With Friends is mostly about something very simple but no less crucial: social connection.

“It’s not much but when you’re isolated it’s a big deal. It makes life worth living.”