CARE home residents at Morpeth are enjoying the rhyme of their lives, with the help of local writers.

The initiative between Morpeth Poetry Group and Riverside Care Home has been hailed as a huge success.

Among those whose life stories were told in verse was 92-year-old former teacher Marjorie Robson.

She said poet Jan Clarke had done a wonderful job and deserved ten plus out of ten for her work.

Mrs Robson, who is originally from South Shields, gave up teaching when she had her children. She and her late doctor husband, Piers, lived in Dundee before eventually moving to Mitford and then Morpeth.

She said: “Writing the poem can’t have been easy and I admire Jan for what she has done.”

Jan Clarke said all of the poets had enjoyed their work with the care home residents.

“It certainly showed us that they all have interesting stories to tell,” she added. “Even those with levels of dementia have memories which, although they may have faded a bit, are still there.

“We wanted to give validity to them and encourage them to tell us about what had happened to them, what was important to them, what they were proud of, and what they had achieved in their lives.

“I had never met Marjorie before but it has been lovely to get to know her and learn about her life, and it was important to me to honour her memory. To hear how much my poem meant to her has been very emotional.”

In this video Richard Dobinson, Activities Co-ordinator at Riverside Care Home, also tells us what the poetry project has meant to residents and their families.