COPPY's CHRISTMAS YARN
WE all know the Christmas Yarn of Wise Men, of the good shepherds, of the Star of the East. And who does not know Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer ?
I will tells you true yarns, from my life, now not of a wise man but of a wise woman. Of a Good Shepherd. Of a Star of the East. Of a man nicknamed Rudolph because of his boozer's red nose.
THE YARN OF THE WISE WOMAN
It was Christmas 1970. I had left the Army earlier that year and was waiting to join Suffolk Police. As my interim job I worked as a male nursing auxiliary at a hospital for geriatrics and incurables. One of my patients was a man of huge proportions who had been deaf, dumb and blind from birth. His history was that he had become a permanent inpatient when his aging mother could no longer cope with his care at home.
We had bath hoists, to lower patients into the bath, but their poor design meant that flesh was trapped between bath surface and seat. And the injuries from this would lead to bed sores. So it was the task of the male nursing auxiliary to lift him like a baby and lower him into the bath. I did that job.
One day he received a visitor and it was his very ancient mother making the huge effort just to leave her home and visit him in the hospital.
This ancient woman must have been in her nineties. The the female nurses giggled behind their hands as they whispered to us that her wig was on back to front. The wig moved independent of her ancient skull and everyone tensed awaiting the moment when the wig parted company from its owner.
Then the nurses quietly speculated, out of the old lady's earshot, what age she must have been when she gave birth to our patient.
It was not long before, acting as judge and jury, we had concluded that the son's lifelong suffering was due to the idiocy of the mother bearing a child so late in life.
Then the old Ward Sister came along and, on seeing the old bewigged lady, snapped to attention. "Good afternoon Doctor", said Sister.
The old crone smiled, "Good afternoon Sister".
When the visit was over the Ward Sister came to us moist eyed.
"That lady was a General Practitioner. Our patient and his mother were her patients long ago. When the mother died the Doctor adopted the deaf, dumb and blind son to care for as her own and to save him from going into an institution. After many years eventually the task became too much even for her. But she always makes it in for Christmas".
That Christmas, under a sliding wig, at first I thought I saw a figure of fun and ridicule. But I had seen a wise woman.
THE YARN OF THE STAR (THE MEN OF THE BURMA STAR)
Our family home was the Ambulance Station and local welfare clinic. My dad was the ambulanceman and mum residential caretaker.
Once a week there was an outpatient clinic for chest diseases. Staff from the hospital manned the clinic one day per week as outreach. Emaciated men attended. Sometimes they were X rayed but every week physios expectorated them. Beat their backs to make them cough their lungs clear. The filled sputum cups were immediately burnt in a coke boiler. One of my boyhood tasks was to ensure the coke buckets were full next to the boiler.
These emaciated men were men from the Burma Star Association. Former members of the Suffolk Regiment who had been prisoners of war of the Japanese.
I remember one time an ex soldier there with his wife. He had learnt that the years of his postwar suffering were not "In his mind" and would never be cured by "Pulling himself together" (as he had been told by unsympathetic NHS doctors for some years). He was a victim of the strongyloid nemotode. A jungle worm that enters the body via bare feet.
Across his wife's face there passed an encyclopedia of emotions. Shame that she may have believed that her husband's post war illness was all in his mind. Annoyance at the poor regard this country has for its ex servicemen. Pride that her husband had served and survived.
Someone had to care. That was the charity called the Burma Star Association. This is the yarn of that Christmas star.
There was a sequel to this story. My mate's dad was a copper. A constable and unlikely to be promoted as a constable he had remained since joining police after the war.
When I went down the nick to take my entrance exam this old PC, my mate's dad, was ordered to make me a cup of tea. I felt how humiliating for him.
Some weeks later he was on duty in the town centre. Container lorries passed nose to tail up the A 45 from the giant Felixstowe container port. A baby, somehow, fell out of a pram and landed in the main road gutter. My mate's dad, he whose promotion ceiling was constable, dived and snatched up the baby virtually under the wheels of an HGV and he ended up laying protectively over the baby between the giant front wheels. The lorry driver had also helped by doing an excellent emergency stop.
The East Anglian Daily Times must have done its homework in the newspaper archives. Because the headline was "War hero is a hero again". My mate's dad had won the military medal in fighting against the Japanese in the Second World War. None of us knew.
If I had a medal. I thought, I would let everyone know about it. But his position was this.
"I had it easy. I could have been a prisoner of war and ended up at that clinic every week having my back beaten in by physios."
To the men of the Burma Star. Respect.
THE YARN OF RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER
In the 1960s in our area the ambulance at night was manned by a paid driver and a volunteer from Red Cross or St John. I was on the volunteer rota. The First Aid courses were taught by a Colonel ex Royal Army Medical Corps doctor who had retired and bought an apple farm.
He gave his free time to teaching first aid to cynical little know alls like meself !
The Colonel was a well known imbiber of Scotch. So much so that he had a large red drinker's nose and was nicknamed (without his knowledge) Rudolph.
One day, under the influence of the Scotch, he fell off his tractor in one of his orchards and ran himself over. He was built like a brick outhouse. The tractor rear wheel went over his chest and then he got up and chased the tractor and got back aboard and brought it to a halt.
Dad takes him to hospital. The old Colonel, drunk as a skunk, could still notice if he got the first aid wrong so dad was on his mettle.
At the A and E the Colonel insisted on examining his own X rays. Not a man to be denied by a pompous young A and E doctor.
"My God", slurred the Colonel, "Would you look at the state of my chest"
The A and E doctor said there was nothing wrong. The tractor had caused no serious damage.
"Awww I can see that young man", slurred the Colonel, "I am referring to my bloody smoking. I will stop smoking this instant. I have the strategy. I will compensate by consuming more Scotch". Indeed he did stop smoking that instant.
The young A and E doctor inquired of the Colonel's wife why her husband had devloped into such a cantakerous old gent.
"It comes", she informed him, "Of having been the head of the Field hospital burns unit at El Alamein".
Our cantakerous old Colonel who gave of his time to teach us first aid. He had earnt his rights to a red nose eh ?
THE YARN OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
In circumstances we do not need to consider here, I was temporarily dead in 1972. One of the trainee nurses, who had giggled at the old doctor during her SRN training years before, had qualified and become an ICU nurse. She refused to go off duty and stayed at my ICU bedside for 24 hours. I was blinded by the incident for three days. And when I left the recovery ward I weighed about 8 stones (I am now 18 stones).
In 1973 I moved to Kent and stayed with my aunt who owned a hotel in Surrey Road Cliftonville. My aunt taught ballroom dancing and two of her pupils were Mr and Mrs Stan Edwards. Stan's voluntary activity was running Margate Boys Club.
He had accumulated a good range of weightlifting gear at the Church Hall and told me that he felt I should get into weight training. At age 18, having never lifted weights before, my single hand strict press was seventy pounds. But the temporary death aged 23 had robbed me of my previous quite formidable strength. Stan had adults attend his Margate Boys Club weight training as he felt that provided a better environment for the youths.
Well I went along. All emaciated eight srones of me. Regularly attending were young men from the Royal School for the Deaf. Something about them. Strong as oxen. But unable to tell either when they were laughing out loud or farting out loud.
My initial weightlifting efforts were the cause of great guffaws from the deaf contingent.
Stan taught me a valuable lesson. Never resent people laughing at how stupid you are and avoid any unecessary opportunity to show how stupid you aint.
Stan was ex 8th Army. Also an Alamein veteran and ex Army PT instructor.
He taught me to laugh with them at how puny my efforts were. For they had their own cross to bear. And he taught me not to laugh when they farted out loud from the effort of their own might lifts for everyone is entitled to dignity.
Stan died in 1987 the same year as the giant St Lukes Judo instructor Charlie. In my mind 1987 is the year of the deaths of the Thanet tall trees in youth leadership.
In 1981, at Charing Cross Hospital, I learnt that the path of weight training that Stan had set me on had saved me from a lifetime in a wheelchair as weight training had fought off the osteoporosis side effects of powerful drugs the NHS prescribed for me until 1984.
I failed ever to seek Stan out to thank him.
With a heavy mortgage in 87 I could not afford even the timeoff to attend his funeral but my wife went along to the service instead.
I prayed my thanks to Stan in 1993 when I won a national powerlifting title.
Stan was the good shepherd and I learnt that I should not have missed any chance to thank him while he lived.
That is old Coppys true yarns, of reflection, into the Wise, the Shepherd and the Star.
I hope I learnt to be prudent to spare others from my ridicule, to judge not that I be not judged, to be onto my own self true.
For I have been privleged along my way to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.
I also learnt that Scotch is my tipple and blow the red nose (pun intended)
