New Year, New Look

It began around a month ago: a growing, but frustratingly nebulous feeling of 'wrongness', accompanied by an appetite for afternoon naps that increased in length. I remembered my wife's warning - "Don't you dare be ill at Christmas!" - and tried to carry on as normal, quietly ducking out of as many social engagements as possible.

I read a lot, including the new Paul Theroux, a mammoth Trollope novel and the wonderful 'Stoner'.

During a drive to see some friends in Hampton, just before Christmas, I wondered how I was going to get through the day and resolved to see a doctor as soon as possible. But what would I tell them? There is an undefined territory between wellness and illness that I've never been able to map. I procrastinated.

Christmas and the New Year were the quietest we'd had for years, so I was able to conceal my growing inability to cope with everyday tasks. I largely kept my worries about the possible causes to myself and resolved to have a full medical as soon as possible.

But three days ago, everything changed. A growing pain in the centre of my stomach quickly became excrutiating as it migrated to the right side. I consulted Google and felt fairly certain that I had appendicitis, but was a trip to hospital justified? I wasn't sure.

I had a vision of a James Robertson Justice-style doctor pressing down on my stomach and annoucing to his young cohorts "Ladies and gentleman, this man has been admitted with suspected appendicitis. I will now demonstrate that it is just wind."

Then I read an entry about the complications that follow a burst appendix and my mind was made up.

The Accident and Emergency department of Brighton Hospital was surprisingly empty for a Saturday night. The only people waiting to be seen were a young couple in their 20s, a rather malodorous homeless man and three Chinese people, who kept changing their seats every five minutes, possibly in an attempt to fox the queueing system.

After what seemed ages, but was probably only 20 minutes, I was assessed and moved to a holding centre, where people lay on beds in cubicles. Opposite me lay a well-spoken woman, who faintly resembled the 122-year-old Jeanne Calment. She appeared to have forgotten what was wrong with her and the nurses' attempts to coax information out of her were largely unsuccessful.

On my left, a curtain concealed a woman who sounded as if she was in her 50s. Unlike Madame Calment, she was able to remember every detail of the last 24 hours and proceed to give a blow-by-blow account of the minutiae of her day: "Then I went to me mum and dad's and I sat down on the sofa, put on the telly and I 'ad a sausage roll..." and on she went, until she eventually proved that ad nausea wasn't just a figure of speech.

When the woman mentioned sausage rolls for the second time, I started to get the giggles. Each movement of laughter produced a spasm of intense pain, so I turned my attentions to the old woman.

I thought how absurd it was that doctors and nurses were going through the charade of treating the old woman as if she had a curable illness, when the truth - the 'elephant in the room' - was she was just very old and had probably reached the natural end of her life. But what was the alternative?

What upset me most of all was that the old woman appeared to be alone in the world. I thought of all the elderly people my mother knows who book unnecessary chiropody appointments, just so they can be touched by another person.

After a pain relief drip failed to make any difference, morphine was introduced. That didn't work either, but after three further doses, I noticed that although I could still feel the pain, I felt curiously detached from it.

I listened to the voices in the distance. Someone was being aggressive, but it was clear that they were very frightened. Another person kept talking in affected genteel accent about their 'anterior', trying to add a certain gravitas to their account, but undermining it with malapropisms.

As I listened to what was going on around me, what impressed me most was the utter professionalism of the staff, who appeared to treat every patient with an unfailing courtesy and respect. I had plenty of opportunities to eavesdrop on conversations and was impressed by what I heard. Lame jokes were laughed at, dull anecdotes listened to with interest and confusion met with patience.

I was less impressed by the patients, who were a rather rum bunch. A woman on my ward was booked in for an operation, but because she was obsese, diabetic and smoked 20 a day, the doctors wanted to run some tests on her heart first. Instead of being grateful for these precationary meaures, she whinged and moaned incessantly: "I wanna go 'ome today. I don't wanna hang around in this shithole."

I didn't like the woman's sense of entitlement, particularly given that her health problems appeared to be largely self-inflicted, but a universal healthcare system is there for the feckless, the irresponsible and the gluttonous as well as the abstainers, the joggers and the vegans.

An elderly man with the strongest Sussex accent I've ever heard complained about the meals at every opportunity: "Oi've got no complaint 'bout the 'awspital, but the food 'ere is doiabolical!" A Filipino nurse replied "If you don't like the food, I can get form for you to complain if you like." The Sussex man snorted: "Forrrm? Caahn't see that it would make any difference, moi dearr. S'no point tryin'. Nawbody listens."

Admittedly the food wasn't haute cuisine and it was appropriate that it was usually served by Eastern Europeans, as the last time I'd tasted anything like it was in communist Czechoslovakia, but it was still vaguely edible. As for the wards, they were anything but a 'shithole' - spotlessly clean and comfortable.

Perhaps I have lower standards.

My only complaints about the hospital were its design - which resembled one of those mazes that scientists use to induce stress in rats - and a litigation-avoiding obsession with doing everything in triplicate. When someone pressed down hard on my appendix, I consoled myself with the thought that now the diagnosis was complete, I'd never have to experience that pain again. How wrong I was.

But I had music with me, which helped more than anything else. If you're ever waiting to go into surgery, I can strongly recommend Mozart's sublime 'Soave sia il vento'.

After the operation, which wasn't the keyhole surgery I was hoping for, I spent the night in a dementia ward (the only place with an available bed) listening to one man yell "Ben!" every ten seconds for most of the night, while another shouted "Push down hard on the fog 'orns boys" (I don't think the sea view helped).

In the morning, I saw the full horror of dementia - a condition that I had only understood in an abstract way before. The person calling out for Ben turned out to be an Irishman named Bill, who had reached a state where he couldn't remember what a cup of tea was for and regularly tipped the contents all over his bed as he examined the cup, trying to guess its purpose.

Under the influence of morphine, the sound of Bill calling for Ben brought back the theme tune of a children's 'Watch with Mother' programme. But sadly the introduction of opiates into my system didn't result in any epic poems or symphonies.

People compare the very old to young children, but infants learn and remember. Bill was unlearning, becoming less competent with each day. Here was a man who once made people laugh, had a job and made love, reduced to a state where he could no longer recognise everyday objects or remember where he was for longer than two minutes.

Caring for Bill was draining. When he wasn't shouting for Ben, he yelled "Nurse!"every five or ten minutes and required a constant change of sheets. In the coming decades, the National Health Service will have to cater for a steadily increasing number of Bills. At what point will it become unsustainable?

But my experience during the last 48 hours emphasised the strengths of the NHS more than its weaknesses. The medical care was second to none and the wards were clean and comfortable. It made the current controversy in the US about Obamacare seem even more absurd.

This excellent cartoon has been doing the rounds recently (click on it to see the full cartoon). It lacks subtlety and the 'Anywhere but America' claim is inaccurate, but it still makes an important point:

Of course the NHS is far from perfect. People wait too long for important tests, operation waiting lists are often unacceptably long and the labyrinthine bureacracy can sometimes be hard to deal with, but overall, the sum is greater than its parts. It is a noble idea that, most of the time, actually works.

Long may it continue.

A Day in the Life of Derek

Many thanks to the excellent Dabbler for giving a second outing to the wonderful Derek diaries. With his Pooteresque prose and disarmingly moving narrative, Derek has posthumously acquired the readership he yearned for and deserved.

I thought I'd come to the end of my Derek extracts, but during a tidy-up I found a loose page that contained this entry from Saturday, 8th March 1986. The typos are Derek's:

"An excellent day at home. At its start I decided to identify the various things I did throught the day, together with the times. It has been an interesting experiment. It runs: -

6.30 Rise; put dirty dishes in soak; dress

645--7.15 Read scriptures--Leviticus--; prayed

7.15-8.5 Clean out stove; saw and chop wood; commune with Brenda about prescriptions.

8.10 Family Prayers.

8.20-9.25 Cut Richard's finger and toenails; bath and shave him. Shave and wash self. Prepare breakfast for the two of us; cheese on toast. 

9.30-10.20 Prune hydrangeas and roses. Go over flower border in front garden.

10.30-11.5 Take Richard out shopping so he can get a card and book for Mother's Day. Stop on way back to say "Hello" to Eric the Barber; He shows Richard his new eye. Richard kisses him.

11.5-12.30 Tie up fruit bushes; dig over onion and bean plots.


12.30-1.30 Watch wrestling on television with Richard--Big Daddy wins again--; eat dinner: jacket potato, scrambled egg with cheese, baked beans, followed by stewed fruit and custard.


1.30-2.45 Check sewer system. Invent device for removing half a brick from main channel--12 feet down--; put tools away;  brush down path.


2.45-3.15 Play with Richard's computer. Still struggling to understand it.


3.15-5.0 - Fall asleep over book in library. Back ache from gardening. 


5.00-5.15 - Search DIY magazines for plan to make simple bookcase. Phone Mr Nisbet for information concerning his Modular system for building shelves. 


5.20-7.0 Watch the Muppet Show on television. Have tea: crusty bread with fish and beef paste, home-made scones with butter, and apple juice.


And here I am now, just after family prayers, typing in the events of the day. It has been good."

A good day for Derek and a positive note on which to end the year.

Best wishes for 2014.

"In Full Pursuit of the Uneatable" - Boxing Day Morning in Lewes

This morning I walked into town and saw a side of Lewes that was very different from its 'Islington-on-the-Downs' image:



The 'meet' took place outside the White Hart Hotel, where Thomas Paine once used to attend meetings of the Headstrong Club.

On the balcony, a man with a faulty megaphone made a barely audible speech that seemed to go "Maaah the msssss, here a waaahh hmmm wehhhhwer...Royal family...Ennnaahhh tolllpum mahhh our country...mahhhh in forhhhh bin ohhhhh...Rule Britannia!" The crowd applauded the final words, but there was a ripple of embarrassment.

The horn sounded and a procession of hunters, horses and hounds rode off, ostensibly in pursuit, but perhaps, also in flight from the 21st century. Olde England. The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.

Once the last rider had passed, I walked past Lewes Castle and returned to my hovel.


NB - The title of this post comes from Oscar Wilde's quote about foxhunting: "The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable"; but I've been assurred that since the law was changed, the riders now merely follow a fox-scented trail.

Homing Instinct

I went back to Twickenham on Sunday and, for the first time since moving to Lewes, felt a slight pang of homesickness. I love living in Sussex, but it feels as if I'm on an extended holiday.

Twickenham and Teddington, where I spent the first three quarters of my life, is still home.

I began my visit by walking down Church Street. I wanted to see if the bookshop I used to manage was still there. It was, but only just.

In the 1960s and 70s, it was a thriving business; the largest for miles around. As a child, I always bought my Enid Blyton books in Langton's, all of which featured children with names like Peter, Janet, Colin, Anne, Dick, Susan and Ernest. The books seemed wonderful at the time, but reading them to my son, a few years ago, I quickly lost the will to live.

Later, as an awkward teenager, I purchased Pelicans with impressive-sounding titles like 'Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom' (I don't think I ever read it, but the mere act of buying the book made me feel terribly grown-up).

Sadly, in the 1980s, the owner decided to sell the business and the  shop entered a period of decline that seemed almost as long and drawn-out as the Byzantine Empire's.

Langton's was bought by a couple who wanted to run it as a retirement hobby. They both looked bookish - tweed skirts and bow ties - but the husband was a complete philistine who huffed and puffed around the shop floor, expressing his disapproval of certain books.

Holding a copy of the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde in his hand, he once said "Do we have to stock books by homosexuals?"

But the Major's posturing was all hot air; his wife was very firmly in charge. She was a highly educated woman who quickly learned the rudiments of bookselling and maintained a decent stockholding. Unfortunately, she was also a very abrassive character, whose loud Lady Bracknell voice and hectoring manner alienated as many as it amused.

The second nail in Langton's coffin was the appearance of a large branch of Waterstone's in Richmond, only a mile up the road. As well as losing sales, the owners also lost two members of staff, who couldn't wait to jump ship to a workplace where they wouldn't be treated like naughty children.

In the face of growing competition and the collapse of the Net Book Agreement, the owners decided to retire for a second time. The business was put up for sale.

A week or so after Langton's new owner had taken over, I decided to visit the shop. The moment I walked in, the atmosphere was completely different. Van Morrison was playing in the background and sitting behind the till, a balding, middle-aged man, with a long, grey ponytail, was chatting to a young woman.

I bought a copy of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Five minutes later, I was sitting in a pub across the road with the ponytailed owner, who offered me a job running the shop. "The thing is," he exlained in a soft Ulster accent, "I've got three other shops, so I need someone who can manage things here. How much are you being paid at Waterstone's?"

Like a fool, I told the truth. He offered an extra £500.

It all looked promising enough. I would be managing three people and have complete control of the stock. I was also given the impression that there were more shops in the pipeline and that I had joined the next Waterstone's. I could hardly believe my luck.

I spent several weeks decorating the tired-looking interior and improving the depleted range of titles. I felt that I was restoring the shop back to its former glory and was confident that the sales would begin to rise. Sadly, after only a month, it was clear that something was not quite right.

My new boss was a charming, likeable man, but he was also maddeningly mercurial and disorganised. In hindsight, I now understand that the challenges of running four separate businesses and having a son with cerebral palsy must have been extremely difficult. But at the time, all I could see was a man who undermined everything I did.

The owner specialised in secondhand books and his business mantra was "If people can't find what they want, they'll buy something else instead". I would often return to work after a day off and find that my carefully arranged bestseller bays were covered in a completely random selection of review copies, bought as a job lot from a journalist.

At the time, the bestselling title was the Alan Bennett Diaries. Finding that our only copies had been concealed behind a single copy of 'A History of the Belfast Telegraph' for a whole weekend was frustrating, to say the least.

But the thing that really got to me was the staffing. After beginning with three staff, my boss gradually whittled it down to one person: me. Each time someone left I was given the same story: "Cashflow's a bit tight at the moment...if you can just hold off for another month...things will pick up soon..."

Managing a shop alone is challenging both practically and emotionally. The essential day-to-day tasks like banking, unpacking, shelving and cleaning have to be combined with manning a till point and dealing with enquiries. At Christmas, when deliveries are four times larger than usual, it is an almost impossible challenge to sell books and replenish the shelves.

There is also the small matter of being able to buy lunch, eat it, or answer the call of nature. Eight hours is a long time to go without a break.

However the greatest challenge was the sense of isolation. I had regulars who came in for a chat, but they were usually lonely individuals who would talk at, rather than with me; often at great length. After two years, I was well acquainted with the minutiae of their lives, but I doubt if they knew a single fact about me.

As time passed, I realised that things wouldn't get any better. I now had occasional help from part-timers, but the money had stayed the same. I found a job with Ottakar's, where I went on to spend the ten most enjoyable years of my working life. My boss and I parted on good terms and to his credit, he gave me a very nice leaving present.

Before my return visit to Twickenham, I'd heard that Langtons now had a cafe and was keen to see what it looked like, but as I walked towards the shop I saw that the windows had been whitewashed and a sign announced that the shop was for sale.

I peered through a small gap in the window and saw the outline of a doorway that led to the children's section. I wasn't sure what was worse: a closed bookshop or a dying one? Perhaps the thing I'll miss most is the shop sign, with the font that has been the same for over half a century.

After Langton's, I walked with my wife and sons down to York House Gardens:

Unlike some parts of Twickenham, the riverside was reassuringly familiar, unchanged since I first went there in the 1960s:

These statues, imaginatively known as the Naked Ladies, were acquired under mysterious circumstances by the notorious Victorian fraudster, Whitaker Wright - a man who evaded justice by taking a cyanide capsule after he was convicted.

In some ways, the Naked Ladies have been a barometer of postwar Britain. When I was a small child, they were clean but the fountains hadn't worked for years, then as we entered the era of Punk and industrial strife, they were frequently vandalised, with the regular addition of blue pubic hair.

At some point in the late 1980s, the vandalism ended. Ten years later, the fountains were restored.

An arched 18th century footbridge connects the gardens to York House. I was very disappointed when I discovered that it houses offices for the local council, instead of a rakish lord. However, it had some auspicious former owners, including Sir Rajan Tata, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff and Philippe, comte de Paris.

York House isn't famous, but anyone who has seen the film Alfie may experience a flicker of recognition:



The main centre of Twickenham is grotty, but the walk along the towpath from Richmond Bridge to St Mary's church has barely changed since the 18th century and I'd forgotten how idyllic it was.

When the good weather returns, so shall I.