🔗 Share this article

This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life character. Witty, unsentimental – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he would be the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.

Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, his state had progressed from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at Christmas spirit all around, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.

By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

Healing and Reflection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get deep vein thrombosis. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.