real life
Weaver's Row Halstead
A man called Smith – Remembered
A. Smith, that’s my initial and surname, however many of us are there, or were there. I’ll tell you a story about one special A. Smith.
The year 2014, marked the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of World War One. The tagline most commentators used at the time was, that just about every British family today, would have had a relative who fought, was injured, or died in the First World War. I didn’t think my family did, until my Dad mentioned his Uncle Alf.
Uncle Alf, was born Alfred Walter Smith in 1897, to parents Harry and Emily Smith and was the third oldest, or second youngest if you will, of four children, two boys, two girls. They lived in a terraced house in Weaver’s Row, Halstead, Essex. Harry Snr, was a bricklayer, Harry Jnr (my dad’s dad) ultimately became a bricklayer, Cecil, my uncle was a bricklayer, and guess what my trade is…
In 1911, there was Harry and Emily, the four children and a lodger all living in this small property of five rooms, that’s rooms in total, not five bedrooms. Three years later, the world changed for this family, and virtually every other family in the country.
A. Smith, that’s my initial and surname, however many of us are there, or were there. I’ll tell you a story about one special A. Smith.
The year 2014, marked the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of World War One. The tagline most commentators used at the time was, that just about every British family today, would have had a relative who fought, was injured, or died in the First World War. I didn’t think my family did, until my Dad mentioned his Uncle Alf.
Uncle Alf, was born Alfred Walter Smith in 1897, to parents Harry and Emily Smith and was the third oldest, or second youngest if you will, of four children, two boys, two girls. They lived in a terraced house in Weaver’s Row, Halstead, Essex. Harry Snr, was a bricklayer, Harry Jnr (my dad’s dad) ultimately became a bricklayer, Cecil, my uncle was a bricklayer, and guess what my trade is…
In 1911, there was Harry and Emily, the four children and a lodger all living in this small property of five rooms, that’s rooms in total, not five bedrooms. Three years later, the world changed for this family, and virtually every other family in the country.
Deir El Belar War Cemetery
Alf enlisted with the Essex Regiment, signing up in Halstead. Whether he was a volunteer or a conscript is unsure. Speaking to local historians, revealed that it was dependant on what year he enlisted, which I don’t have at this time. The Essex Regiment was a line infantry regiment, in existence from 1881 to 1958, seeing conflict in the Boer War an WW2 as well as WW1.
Mention the Somme, or Ypres, and these are synonymous with WW1. I was astonished to find that the Essex Regiment saw action in Palestine. A young man from a small town in Essex, along with many many young men from all over the country, suddenly crossing the Sinai Desert to take part in the Palestine Campaign. Names from history like ‘Gaza’ and the ‘Ottoman Empire’ crop up throughout the conflict. The First Battle of Gaza, The Second Battle of Gaza, The Third Battle of Gaza, The Capture of Gaza, The Battle of Jaffa. All in 1917.
On November the 4th, 1917, Alfred Walter Smith was wounded in the Egyptian Theatre, a somewhat grandiose name for basically war against the Turks. He subsequently died of these wounds on that day, aged just twenty.
Alf was not a well known general, he was Private 250846 ‘B’ Coy 1st/5th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, a casualty of war, one might even say, just a number. Such was the distance away, he was never repatriated. He was buried in Deir El Balar War Cemetery, his grave is D91 headstone 651, with the inscription ‘Rest In The Lord’ chosen by his mother (who I believe was widowed as well by then).
Mention the Somme, or Ypres, and these are synonymous with WW1. I was astonished to find that the Essex Regiment saw action in Palestine. A young man from a small town in Essex, along with many many young men from all over the country, suddenly crossing the Sinai Desert to take part in the Palestine Campaign. Names from history like ‘Gaza’ and the ‘Ottoman Empire’ crop up throughout the conflict. The First Battle of Gaza, The Second Battle of Gaza, The Third Battle of Gaza, The Capture of Gaza, The Battle of Jaffa. All in 1917.
On November the 4th, 1917, Alfred Walter Smith was wounded in the Egyptian Theatre, a somewhat grandiose name for basically war against the Turks. He subsequently died of these wounds on that day, aged just twenty.
Alf was not a well known general, he was Private 250846 ‘B’ Coy 1st/5th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, a casualty of war, one might even say, just a number. Such was the distance away, he was never repatriated. He was buried in Deir El Balar War Cemetery, his grave is D91 headstone 651, with the inscription ‘Rest In The Lord’ chosen by his mother (who I believe was widowed as well by then).
The War Memorial, St Andrew's Church Halstead, Essex
I was born and raised in Halstead, Essex, and I used to walk to and from school through St Andrew’s church yard, did readings in the church and sang in the choir there for the school. It was a well used thoroughfare and remains so to this day. In the graveyard, stands a war memorial, where a ceremony takes place every Remembrance Sunday. It was only when finding out about Alf, did I realise, he is remembered on this very memorial, which is currently being restored.
How many twenty year olds do you know? How young do they look? Imagine sending such a young person across the planet to fight, and them never coming home again.
I don’t have any photographs to share with you of Alf, and of course no one living today knew him. But along with thousands of people I wear my poppy with pride, and on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, personally I will now stand and remember Private Alfred Walter Smith in particular. Not just ‘a man called Smith’.
Lest we forget
This would not have been possible but for the input from Terry Mead and Robin Weathersbee, who were immense help when I had hit a metaphorical wall in pushing on past finding my Alf, among all the others. Also to Marcel Rayner, my Mum’s cousin and historian who pointed out the memorial in Halstead. Many thanks to you all.
How many twenty year olds do you know? How young do they look? Imagine sending such a young person across the planet to fight, and them never coming home again.
I don’t have any photographs to share with you of Alf, and of course no one living today knew him. But along with thousands of people I wear my poppy with pride, and on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, personally I will now stand and remember Private Alfred Walter Smith in particular. Not just ‘a man called Smith’.
Lest we forget
This would not have been possible but for the input from Terry Mead and Robin Weathersbee, who were immense help when I had hit a metaphorical wall in pushing on past finding my Alf, among all the others. Also to Marcel Rayner, my Mum’s cousin and historian who pointed out the memorial in Halstead. Many thanks to you all.
This article was influenced by a recent stay in hospital I had. Just some jolly stuff I hope you enjoy
Then and now, hospital stays.
By Andrew Smith
Aged 6 years 11 months and 50 years
Incredibly I have been lucky enough to have only had two hospital stays in my life, and they were around forty three years apart. I sit writing this after night one on a drip to see to an infection in my gums, face and jaw, in Goldhangar ward, Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.
So many recall the farces that were the Carry On films, I tell you what, the
truth is far stranger than fiction. Here from the recollections of a seven year
old in the 1970s, followed by my current experience, and both events are true,
but names have been changed
In a Military style
I was admitted to hospital when I was six years 11 months, for a, what is now known as a tonsillectomy, or whipping your tonsils out as we knew it back then. Colchester hospital on the Lexden Road looked a bit modern, and a lot old to be honest.
The foreboding of the disinfectant smell mixed with pre-cooked mince based meals and cabbage, if nothing else was the smell you remember for that visit.
I was put in a children's ward, next to a boy called Andrew probably in an
attempt make the ordeal slightly less stressful by having another Andrew in the
house. Immediately you got there, it was straight into pjs and to bed........
Why??? Middle of the afternoon and you had to go to bed!! Wasn’t even ill yet. The beds were in regimented rows down both sides of the ward. In the middle was the hub from which everything flowed out wards. The sister's table.
Mum and dad could visit, but my sister had to stand only at the doorway of the ward in case she brought anything in with her, good grief. Eventually the officiousness of the staff nurse cleared the mums and dads away and we were left there alone. We were informed in no uncertain terms that the lights would go out and from then you were not to leave your beds under any circumstances. If you needed the toilet, you were to call for the nurse and she would bring a pan for you to use.
I think not.
You see, I may have only been six years 11 months, but I had a set of moral standards in place put there by my mum, and these did not include a middle aged stranger holding a pan under my willy so I could wee in a metal receptacle, that surely everyone would hear rattling, and have her tap the end like a Woodbine in an ashtray. In any event, I was six years 11 months old, I could go to the toilet quite proficiently, thank you
The lights went out, at some ludicrously early hour and sister encouraged us to go to sleep. Not having been to hospital before, this was near impossible to start with, sister sat at her desk doing paperwork, by lamplight. Eventually, and inevitably, I needed the toilet, positioned behind sisters table. How would I get past said obstacle? Suddenly it became apparent that sister would have to leave the room for a few seconds, here was my chance.
I positioned Golly and Eddie my companions for the ordeal at the head of the bed to look like I was still in it, not realising the fundamental differences between a Caucasian six year 11 month old and a knitted jolly faced Golly.
Quick as a hiccup, in my Paisley pyjamas I made it to the boys toilet and the relief was incredible. Now the more hazardous journey back because sister would surely return. Imagining a rhythmic military type drum beat, swishing searchlights and a
warning siren, I left the toilets and slipped past the still empty desk, and toward my bed, eight rows away. I hid as there was sister returning, with more paper to sort, which looked like it would take sometime to do. She looked left and right and saw my camouflage disguise as Golly, just as a whinghy kid on the opposite side called her.
I saw the break and made it back, but was just getting into bed when......busted! "What were you doing out of bed (pause to read name) Andrew Smith?"
"I went to the....."
"Toilet??"
I didn't need to confirm or deny, she knew. "You know you are not supposed to be out of bed, get back in it now". I though I was going to get a clout, in fact there's apparently a good market for men who want to get a spank off a middle aged woman in a nurses uniform. I tried to get to sleep, but the whingy kid opposite and the noise from outside of rumbley trollies prevented this. Finally
after an eternity, I was asleep.
Rude awakenings
The combination of Morpheus and Hypnos had me in their gentle grasp but were suddenly shooed away by the glare of the overhead lamp and a glass rod rattling in between my teeth. "Wake up, you were out, like a light. Time to take your temperature". So could we go back to sleep afterwards???? Could we ever! 6.30 am and we were all wide awake.
Then came a lighter moment. A jolly red faced porter type chap came into the ward. He lightened the mood. Some of the kids in the hospital had been there some weeks with little chance of returning home for some further weeks. One was called Mary, and he sang Max Millers 'Mary from the Diary' to her . Think about it, a grown man singing I fell in love with Mary from the dairy to a nine year
old?? Different and more innocent times, where an adult could have a joke with some kids without being put on a register….
He went round each child, some very ill ones, and had a word with them. He picked Eddie up by the ear. "What's this fellows name then......Andrew?" He enquired. "Eddie". Was my still sleepy reply, "and the other one's Golly", which I'd suggest was fundamentally obvious to him.
"Yes, and Andrew was caught out of bed last night too" the nurse grassed on me. The porter half grinned at me and shrugged his shoulders in a good on yer mate fashion. All around were children getting breakfast, milk being prominent "Drink it up drink it up, it's a food", commanded one nurse. I hadn't got any, my op was today. "Tonsils out?" Said the porter, "aha, you get to eat jelly and ice cream after that, lad"
Two men came and got me, wheeled me out on a trolley, across the courtyard which was uneven and noisy and freezing cold. I got to a room, where a masked surgeon looked down at me. "Can you count to ten Andrew?" He asked. "I can count to a hundred" I boasted. "Well that's great, you count to a hundred for me" he said piercing the vein on my left hand with a syringe. What I got to, I don't know
My next memory was looking at a ceiling in a chilly room with trollies randomly positioned around the place each with a recovering body on it. My mouth was as dry as a Sahara desert camel dealers flip flop, and I tried to call out, but no words would be heard. Eventually a kindly nurse approached. "Please may I have a glass of water" I croaked. Apparently I couldn't have water, but I could have an ice cube in a type of net, and suck on that. Nice!
I was taken back to the main ward, thankful that sister hadn't confiscated my travel Ludo game in penance for the previous night's transgression. Great idea having a game for 2, 3, or 4 people in hospital, when you are there for hours on end on your own!! Or maybe she would have had me wheeled to solitary, with only a baseball and glove to bounce off the wall a la Steve McQueen. The rest of my stay was basically filled in hope that I could go home soon! which of course I did.
Hospital dot….dot. I had jumped the queue for both procedures it seems. The latter was as I was an emergency, the first was because in ’70-’71 there was a postal strike and letters were not getting through. Mum and dad had a phone (rare back then) so the hospital rang and got me in……Apparently there’s a considerable difference between catheters and cannulas……Oppo gowns, everyone puts them on the wrong way round, why? Cos they put the bows in a stupid place you can’t do up yourself if you put them on correctly…. I am of an age where I cant think of hospitals without Carry on Doctor or Carry On Nurse springing to mind. I longed to be in Fosdick Ward, and set myself up as the Frankie Howerd character…..There were no nurses who came in to the da da da da datdatdat da da da datdatdat……. When it’s quiet at night, sometimes the night staff have a lot of downtime, spent, eating. Just wish they’d tip the stuff into a blimmin BOWL!.....The X-ray lady muttered incessantly throughout my session, and fiddled with the kit, but my goodness she got a crystal clear image….
Get them out
Fast forward now to 2014, and I'm fifty, admitted via A &E due to the previous days being swollen everywhere fascially. Now I'd visited people on hospital before, but staying is different. My ward was a four bed all male ward. Two guys considerably older than me and one younger.
The old guys had been in a while, one knew everything. June and I got the telly working, before he soon piped up "put your headphones on mate, we had a terrible night in here last night and I want some sleep"
The lights went out but you could still watch the telly, you had freedom to come and go, you could have a shower on your own. The guy opposite became restless, he clambered out of bed and over to the basin. I thought he wanted a drink but no, he flopped out a limp one and piddled in the basin! Without so much as a by your leave and not an iota of shame, he knew what he was doing cos he washed his hands afterwards in the same basin!!
The bed was still like a crisp packet' the sheets slid on the mattress and within minutes the bottom one was a twisted mangled up piece of material. The sheets seemed smaller that they should be for the bed and it wasn't long before extremities poked out and got cold. An hour after lights out the younger guy was comatosed in the bed next to me. Suddenly in came a nurse and woke him up.
They needed his bed so he was discharged a full two hours after his family, the cast from TOWIE it seemed had all gone home.
He was getting his stuff together, frantically on his phone to get a lift home with regular ‘I know babe’ placative statements to his protesting other half.
Reg, the guy who had told me to be quiet, raised his head "noisy sods". He protested. A new patient was wheeled in and serious amounts of kerfufflement took place to get him settled. There were mobile blood pressure units that started up audibly with the first few bars of the Magic Roundabout, and then whilst collating the data, a bit like Bully on Bullseye.
Through the doors clearly audible was a guy shouting like Blakey off On The Buses, staff not even caring to lower their voices and Stan weeing in the basin again.
Hurricane force warning
Finally I got off and slept for an hour and a half at a time, being disturbed only by Reg wandering about. But nothing could prepare me for the incessant and increasing loud involuntary farting from the two old boys opposite. The sheets must have billowed up like a home made ghost costume at Halloween, as toxic green smoke emanated from beneath. At one point I had Tchaikovsky's 1812
Overture playing in my mind to their arse ripping accompaniment.
During the morning , Reg decided he found me quite interesting, and the fact that I’d combed my hair in its usual style. Constantly staring at me he eventually tottered over with the assistance of the nurse who was constantly with him. "Alright mate?" I asked, and he reached out and deliberately messed my hair up. "I nearly got ya" he said. "I think you should go back over your own side" I suggested......
He came back later, asking to borrow £50.00, and got rather a short shrift shall we say. All the time as I carried out the writing of these notes, he stared across the room at me saying to the nurse "what's he doing now?".
Lunch came and went, and was truly rotten, they served starter, main and dessert at the same time, so dessert was cold as stone by the time you got to it. More groups of nurses came round with clip boards and were introduced to me. "This is Andrew, he's having an intravenous drip of anti biotics to treat ‘a very long word" and hopes to have a deep LL7 and LL8 extraction.
By the time the evening came my lamb dish probably wasn't my greatest choice, cubes of extremely boingy meat set in some kind of glutinous mass I found difficult to ingest, let alone digest.
Throughout the stay, I had this to occupy my mind, plus decent telly and visits from June, and surprisingly the time seemed to go by quite quickly. My specialist had visited Tuesday morning, so experienced he was he could tell my increasing progress just by looking at me. But talk about a flying visit before he had to start with his surgery, I all but had to run alongside him! The younger lad who I'd seen several times before explained the lay of the land later. They wanted the teeth out, sooner rather than later. I could wait in
and for the infection to clear then 'go to the dentist in hospital' or go under and have the op, possibly late Wednesday or early Thursday
Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, I about died when I went to sleep. Comatosed shall we say. The last drip around midnight had taken forever to work and I was completely knackered. Nothing was going to wake me up. Suddenly there was a pulling on my arm. I shot up in bed, not knowing the look on my face, but the guy with the morning drip took three sharp paces backwards! "Were
you having a bad dream?"
"Yeah someone had grabbed hold of my arm" Prat. It was 6am for crying out loud, at least shake me awake first.
I nipped down to the bathrooms spruced myself up, and considered whether to have breakfast until I had seen the specialist. I needn't have worried as he came round almost on my return. It was explained that I could go home with oral anti biotics and make an appointment to come back, or if I wanted it done today, they could fit me in!! Wow, let's get it on.
And breathe
It was a whirlwind from there, I got gowned up, wrongly, and was issued with those lovely surgical stockings. The anaesthetist visited me and was extremely thorough. Someone else came and asked a bunch of questions and a porter was ready to take me down. The journey down was long and involved in the rabbit warren of corridors to theatre. The actual room was quite small, people
introduced themselves to me and the process of putting me under explained. "So you might start to feel a little light headed, some people do and if"................That was it.
The next thing I recall was waking up in a curtained off cubicle with a little Asian looking nurse constantly writing notes and asking me to breath deeply as my oxygen levels were low. “Please to keep breathing deeply Andrew” Next thing I knew, I was cleared for take off and back on the ward, texting June that it was all done, while a lunch and dinner menu was thrust under my slightly still groggy nose.
The chicken and pasta was actually quite nice, in fact, so was life. Sure my jaw was stiff, and I had a gap you could drive a transit van through at the back of my mouth but I was out of pain at last. I don't know what's in those drugs but I had a feeling of euphoria for the rest of the day. There was swelling of course but I could take anything now, except another poorly sussed beef stew
dinner that was like trying to chew a powerball.
I was still on the drip, the last of which seemed to be scheduled for Thursday morning. I had breakfast, which I was ravenous for, and gradually got my stuff together, as the day shift were told it was likely I was going home today so they weren’t interested in me (joke)
I was furnished with a treasure chest of tablets and instructions, and waited in the drop off and pick up area for June to pick me up. Reflecting as I do, this ultimately had a serious and very sobering side to my age 50 story. What started off as a root canal treatment, turned into two weeks of incredible pain, infections and swelling. And it was made plain to me that, it could have killed me had it not been for the actions of the incredible NHS staff at Broomfield Hospital….
© Andrew Smith August 2014
By Andrew Smith
Aged 6 years 11 months and 50 years
Incredibly I have been lucky enough to have only had two hospital stays in my life, and they were around forty three years apart. I sit writing this after night one on a drip to see to an infection in my gums, face and jaw, in Goldhangar ward, Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.
So many recall the farces that were the Carry On films, I tell you what, the
truth is far stranger than fiction. Here from the recollections of a seven year
old in the 1970s, followed by my current experience, and both events are true,
but names have been changed
In a Military style
I was admitted to hospital when I was six years 11 months, for a, what is now known as a tonsillectomy, or whipping your tonsils out as we knew it back then. Colchester hospital on the Lexden Road looked a bit modern, and a lot old to be honest.
The foreboding of the disinfectant smell mixed with pre-cooked mince based meals and cabbage, if nothing else was the smell you remember for that visit.
I was put in a children's ward, next to a boy called Andrew probably in an
attempt make the ordeal slightly less stressful by having another Andrew in the
house. Immediately you got there, it was straight into pjs and to bed........
Why??? Middle of the afternoon and you had to go to bed!! Wasn’t even ill yet. The beds were in regimented rows down both sides of the ward. In the middle was the hub from which everything flowed out wards. The sister's table.
Mum and dad could visit, but my sister had to stand only at the doorway of the ward in case she brought anything in with her, good grief. Eventually the officiousness of the staff nurse cleared the mums and dads away and we were left there alone. We were informed in no uncertain terms that the lights would go out and from then you were not to leave your beds under any circumstances. If you needed the toilet, you were to call for the nurse and she would bring a pan for you to use.
I think not.
You see, I may have only been six years 11 months, but I had a set of moral standards in place put there by my mum, and these did not include a middle aged stranger holding a pan under my willy so I could wee in a metal receptacle, that surely everyone would hear rattling, and have her tap the end like a Woodbine in an ashtray. In any event, I was six years 11 months old, I could go to the toilet quite proficiently, thank you
The lights went out, at some ludicrously early hour and sister encouraged us to go to sleep. Not having been to hospital before, this was near impossible to start with, sister sat at her desk doing paperwork, by lamplight. Eventually, and inevitably, I needed the toilet, positioned behind sisters table. How would I get past said obstacle? Suddenly it became apparent that sister would have to leave the room for a few seconds, here was my chance.
I positioned Golly and Eddie my companions for the ordeal at the head of the bed to look like I was still in it, not realising the fundamental differences between a Caucasian six year 11 month old and a knitted jolly faced Golly.
Quick as a hiccup, in my Paisley pyjamas I made it to the boys toilet and the relief was incredible. Now the more hazardous journey back because sister would surely return. Imagining a rhythmic military type drum beat, swishing searchlights and a
warning siren, I left the toilets and slipped past the still empty desk, and toward my bed, eight rows away. I hid as there was sister returning, with more paper to sort, which looked like it would take sometime to do. She looked left and right and saw my camouflage disguise as Golly, just as a whinghy kid on the opposite side called her.
I saw the break and made it back, but was just getting into bed when......busted! "What were you doing out of bed (pause to read name) Andrew Smith?"
"I went to the....."
"Toilet??"
I didn't need to confirm or deny, she knew. "You know you are not supposed to be out of bed, get back in it now". I though I was going to get a clout, in fact there's apparently a good market for men who want to get a spank off a middle aged woman in a nurses uniform. I tried to get to sleep, but the whingy kid opposite and the noise from outside of rumbley trollies prevented this. Finally
after an eternity, I was asleep.
Rude awakenings
The combination of Morpheus and Hypnos had me in their gentle grasp but were suddenly shooed away by the glare of the overhead lamp and a glass rod rattling in between my teeth. "Wake up, you were out, like a light. Time to take your temperature". So could we go back to sleep afterwards???? Could we ever! 6.30 am and we were all wide awake.
Then came a lighter moment. A jolly red faced porter type chap came into the ward. He lightened the mood. Some of the kids in the hospital had been there some weeks with little chance of returning home for some further weeks. One was called Mary, and he sang Max Millers 'Mary from the Diary' to her . Think about it, a grown man singing I fell in love with Mary from the dairy to a nine year
old?? Different and more innocent times, where an adult could have a joke with some kids without being put on a register….
He went round each child, some very ill ones, and had a word with them. He picked Eddie up by the ear. "What's this fellows name then......Andrew?" He enquired. "Eddie". Was my still sleepy reply, "and the other one's Golly", which I'd suggest was fundamentally obvious to him.
"Yes, and Andrew was caught out of bed last night too" the nurse grassed on me. The porter half grinned at me and shrugged his shoulders in a good on yer mate fashion. All around were children getting breakfast, milk being prominent "Drink it up drink it up, it's a food", commanded one nurse. I hadn't got any, my op was today. "Tonsils out?" Said the porter, "aha, you get to eat jelly and ice cream after that, lad"
Two men came and got me, wheeled me out on a trolley, across the courtyard which was uneven and noisy and freezing cold. I got to a room, where a masked surgeon looked down at me. "Can you count to ten Andrew?" He asked. "I can count to a hundred" I boasted. "Well that's great, you count to a hundred for me" he said piercing the vein on my left hand with a syringe. What I got to, I don't know
My next memory was looking at a ceiling in a chilly room with trollies randomly positioned around the place each with a recovering body on it. My mouth was as dry as a Sahara desert camel dealers flip flop, and I tried to call out, but no words would be heard. Eventually a kindly nurse approached. "Please may I have a glass of water" I croaked. Apparently I couldn't have water, but I could have an ice cube in a type of net, and suck on that. Nice!
I was taken back to the main ward, thankful that sister hadn't confiscated my travel Ludo game in penance for the previous night's transgression. Great idea having a game for 2, 3, or 4 people in hospital, when you are there for hours on end on your own!! Or maybe she would have had me wheeled to solitary, with only a baseball and glove to bounce off the wall a la Steve McQueen. The rest of my stay was basically filled in hope that I could go home soon! which of course I did.
Hospital dot….dot. I had jumped the queue for both procedures it seems. The latter was as I was an emergency, the first was because in ’70-’71 there was a postal strike and letters were not getting through. Mum and dad had a phone (rare back then) so the hospital rang and got me in……Apparently there’s a considerable difference between catheters and cannulas……Oppo gowns, everyone puts them on the wrong way round, why? Cos they put the bows in a stupid place you can’t do up yourself if you put them on correctly…. I am of an age where I cant think of hospitals without Carry on Doctor or Carry On Nurse springing to mind. I longed to be in Fosdick Ward, and set myself up as the Frankie Howerd character…..There were no nurses who came in to the da da da da datdatdat da da da datdatdat……. When it’s quiet at night, sometimes the night staff have a lot of downtime, spent, eating. Just wish they’d tip the stuff into a blimmin BOWL!.....The X-ray lady muttered incessantly throughout my session, and fiddled with the kit, but my goodness she got a crystal clear image….
Get them out
Fast forward now to 2014, and I'm fifty, admitted via A &E due to the previous days being swollen everywhere fascially. Now I'd visited people on hospital before, but staying is different. My ward was a four bed all male ward. Two guys considerably older than me and one younger.
The old guys had been in a while, one knew everything. June and I got the telly working, before he soon piped up "put your headphones on mate, we had a terrible night in here last night and I want some sleep"
The lights went out but you could still watch the telly, you had freedom to come and go, you could have a shower on your own. The guy opposite became restless, he clambered out of bed and over to the basin. I thought he wanted a drink but no, he flopped out a limp one and piddled in the basin! Without so much as a by your leave and not an iota of shame, he knew what he was doing cos he washed his hands afterwards in the same basin!!
The bed was still like a crisp packet' the sheets slid on the mattress and within minutes the bottom one was a twisted mangled up piece of material. The sheets seemed smaller that they should be for the bed and it wasn't long before extremities poked out and got cold. An hour after lights out the younger guy was comatosed in the bed next to me. Suddenly in came a nurse and woke him up.
They needed his bed so he was discharged a full two hours after his family, the cast from TOWIE it seemed had all gone home.
He was getting his stuff together, frantically on his phone to get a lift home with regular ‘I know babe’ placative statements to his protesting other half.
Reg, the guy who had told me to be quiet, raised his head "noisy sods". He protested. A new patient was wheeled in and serious amounts of kerfufflement took place to get him settled. There were mobile blood pressure units that started up audibly with the first few bars of the Magic Roundabout, and then whilst collating the data, a bit like Bully on Bullseye.
Through the doors clearly audible was a guy shouting like Blakey off On The Buses, staff not even caring to lower their voices and Stan weeing in the basin again.
Hurricane force warning
Finally I got off and slept for an hour and a half at a time, being disturbed only by Reg wandering about. But nothing could prepare me for the incessant and increasing loud involuntary farting from the two old boys opposite. The sheets must have billowed up like a home made ghost costume at Halloween, as toxic green smoke emanated from beneath. At one point I had Tchaikovsky's 1812
Overture playing in my mind to their arse ripping accompaniment.
During the morning , Reg decided he found me quite interesting, and the fact that I’d combed my hair in its usual style. Constantly staring at me he eventually tottered over with the assistance of the nurse who was constantly with him. "Alright mate?" I asked, and he reached out and deliberately messed my hair up. "I nearly got ya" he said. "I think you should go back over your own side" I suggested......
He came back later, asking to borrow £50.00, and got rather a short shrift shall we say. All the time as I carried out the writing of these notes, he stared across the room at me saying to the nurse "what's he doing now?".
Lunch came and went, and was truly rotten, they served starter, main and dessert at the same time, so dessert was cold as stone by the time you got to it. More groups of nurses came round with clip boards and were introduced to me. "This is Andrew, he's having an intravenous drip of anti biotics to treat ‘a very long word" and hopes to have a deep LL7 and LL8 extraction.
By the time the evening came my lamb dish probably wasn't my greatest choice, cubes of extremely boingy meat set in some kind of glutinous mass I found difficult to ingest, let alone digest.
Throughout the stay, I had this to occupy my mind, plus decent telly and visits from June, and surprisingly the time seemed to go by quite quickly. My specialist had visited Tuesday morning, so experienced he was he could tell my increasing progress just by looking at me. But talk about a flying visit before he had to start with his surgery, I all but had to run alongside him! The younger lad who I'd seen several times before explained the lay of the land later. They wanted the teeth out, sooner rather than later. I could wait in
and for the infection to clear then 'go to the dentist in hospital' or go under and have the op, possibly late Wednesday or early Thursday
Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, I about died when I went to sleep. Comatosed shall we say. The last drip around midnight had taken forever to work and I was completely knackered. Nothing was going to wake me up. Suddenly there was a pulling on my arm. I shot up in bed, not knowing the look on my face, but the guy with the morning drip took three sharp paces backwards! "Were
you having a bad dream?"
"Yeah someone had grabbed hold of my arm" Prat. It was 6am for crying out loud, at least shake me awake first.
I nipped down to the bathrooms spruced myself up, and considered whether to have breakfast until I had seen the specialist. I needn't have worried as he came round almost on my return. It was explained that I could go home with oral anti biotics and make an appointment to come back, or if I wanted it done today, they could fit me in!! Wow, let's get it on.
And breathe
It was a whirlwind from there, I got gowned up, wrongly, and was issued with those lovely surgical stockings. The anaesthetist visited me and was extremely thorough. Someone else came and asked a bunch of questions and a porter was ready to take me down. The journey down was long and involved in the rabbit warren of corridors to theatre. The actual room was quite small, people
introduced themselves to me and the process of putting me under explained. "So you might start to feel a little light headed, some people do and if"................That was it.
The next thing I recall was waking up in a curtained off cubicle with a little Asian looking nurse constantly writing notes and asking me to breath deeply as my oxygen levels were low. “Please to keep breathing deeply Andrew” Next thing I knew, I was cleared for take off and back on the ward, texting June that it was all done, while a lunch and dinner menu was thrust under my slightly still groggy nose.
The chicken and pasta was actually quite nice, in fact, so was life. Sure my jaw was stiff, and I had a gap you could drive a transit van through at the back of my mouth but I was out of pain at last. I don't know what's in those drugs but I had a feeling of euphoria for the rest of the day. There was swelling of course but I could take anything now, except another poorly sussed beef stew
dinner that was like trying to chew a powerball.
I was still on the drip, the last of which seemed to be scheduled for Thursday morning. I had breakfast, which I was ravenous for, and gradually got my stuff together, as the day shift were told it was likely I was going home today so they weren’t interested in me (joke)
I was furnished with a treasure chest of tablets and instructions, and waited in the drop off and pick up area for June to pick me up. Reflecting as I do, this ultimately had a serious and very sobering side to my age 50 story. What started off as a root canal treatment, turned into two weeks of incredible pain, infections and swelling. And it was made plain to me that, it could have killed me had it not been for the actions of the incredible NHS staff at Broomfield Hospital….
© Andrew Smith August 2014
