🔗 Share this article

Our family friend has always been a larger than life figure. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to another brandy. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person discussing the newest uproar to catch up with a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the outrageous philandering of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.

It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day 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 supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. Medical staff had treated him and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing as they usually were. He insisted he was fine but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

Therefore, before I could even put on a festive hat, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Worrying Turn

When we finally reached the hospital, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. 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, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.