🔗 Share this article

This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life character. Clever and unemotional – and not one to say no to another brandy. At family parties, he is the person gossiping about the latest scandal to involve a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club for forty years.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Morning Rolled On

The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, we resolved to take him to A&E.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.

Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading 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?

Recovery and Retrospection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday is not my most cherished memory, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, I couldn’t possibly comment, but hearing it told each year has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.