Summer in Hospital, 2025

5 June 2025. Woke up last night with what sounded like furniture falling over in the adjoining ward. Then a lot of shouting. At first I thought someone had either fallen out of bed or had knocked something over but then someone stormed down the corridor and our night nurses ran to the door of our ward shouting, "Don't let him in here!"

I was told later that a patient had gone berserk and had flung one of those over-the-bed tables, hitting another patient. Whilst security and male nurses had tried to restrain him, he was military trained and it got a bit dicey for a while.

So I spent much of this morning asleep and spent the afternoon doing this. After tea my legs were redressed. The change is amazing. Yes I've lost a lot of flesh - veins standing out but far fewer wounds. Unfortunately one on each leg keeps pain levels up. Meanwhile Miss Franny collected my new glasses and brought them in.

6 June 2025. Last night's tale of mayhem... Just after lights out the same chap in the next ward kicked off. Shouting, banging, security racing up the corridor. Then after it had quietened down again the chap in the next bed ripped out his catheter at 4.30. Took them until 6.00 to deal with it, blood everywhere and of course this is the chap that shouts a lot if touched... so an hour and half of shouting and screaming and not letting the nurses help him.

By the time he went quiet they were doing the morning pill run so that was that. We were all up having to listen to The Swearer telling the nursing staff to f... off. And they tell me he knows what he is doing, he doesn't have any dementia. Just a horrible horrible man.

The Physio team and someone from the Delicate Tissue Team came in the afternoon to try getting me out of bed again. I lasted longer sitting on the side of the bed this time but then as in previous tries the pain hit and my legs just started bleeding.

The back of my calves look like one of those maps of the arterial and veinous systems that you might see on the wall in a doctor's consulting room. The flesh has withered so much the veins stand proud. They said they would come up with a plan to help the tissue of my legs to grow back but agreed that until that happened I would have to stay in hospital. I asked how long this would take. "One year give or take a month or two... So shock hit immediately. The nurses who were with her both stared at her in shock, never mind me. It took me a while to even process that. I am determined to beat this thing but being told that out of the blue and then wondering how to tell family etc was a blow.

Some hours later came a bit of light relief. I had had my left leg redressed. Half an hour later my lovely staff nurse from the Phillipines came round searching for a lost key. Lifting my bedcovers at the feet end she stared diligently between my legs. "Searching for treasure?" I asked. And she found it!

8 June 2025. Ok, so after all the trauma I caused yesterday - 71 messages of support came at me on Facebook, people are wonderful - it seems as though she may have meant something else. Though the two physios and a couple of nurses also thought exactly the same as I did. We now think she meant that's how long it will take the ulcers to heal. From when they started which was over a few weeks from last August. So that is a much less stressful thing to contemplate.

Having seen them and comparing the pain over the past few days that would seem to be a realistic target and not one that would require a full year in hospital. It's driving me daft already and it's been just about one month.

The main problem now is to regain lost flesh on the back of my calves. Veins etc standing out and rupturing if lower legs go vertical, ruling out standing, or sitting as yet. Not to mention the pain that goes through the roof. And I'm no wimp. The nurse redressing them yesterday said she couldn't understand how I bore her cleaning and placing fresh dressings without any shouting or screaming.

So relief on the possible length of stay. It may still be measured in months but that's better than being told a year and seeing the same shock on the faces of everyone else. I had accepted it as having no real choice anyway. I'll beat this no matter how long it takes, with the support of family and all my awesomely wonderful army of friends on Facebook. You matter and you do without fail raise my spirits. So thank you and sorry for yesterday's shock.

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index
Family Memories: Personal Index

Artworks, October 2021 - September 2022

Another round-up of sketches and artwork done over the past year.

It has been another weird year in more ways than one. In 2021 we were still in a lockdown year and in fact this is the only bit of artwork that I undertook during the final three months of that year. This is the village of Brent Knoll in Somerset, from an old sepia postcard from the early 20th century. It had beeen called South Brent, but was changed somewhere in the 10 years from 1875 as railways spread in order to avoid passenger confusion, there being another South Brent in Devon. Oil pastels on A2 paper done over a few days at the end of Novermber 2021.

Done in a day, the day being the 21st of January 2022, this is Polperro in Cornwall, drawn in pencil crayon in the A4 sketchbook from one of my own photographs, taken in 1971.

Also in pencil crayon in the A4 sketchbook and also from one of my own photos, this is the harbour at Torbole on the northern banks of Lake Garda in Italy. A lovely place that we have visited a few times. This was done on the third of March 2022.

Towards the end of May we had a couple of nights stay in Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucester. The Cotswolds can pull me towards them any time and we had an enjoyable few days with only a few interludes of rain. It was also wonderful to be able to sit and draw with the scene actually in front of me in real life and not just on a photograph.

Also in Bourton - I think it's the town hall or something like that. I should take more notice...

This one is of Arlington Row in Bibury from the same short break. It was raining a little as I did this. I was sitting in the car on the back seat with the sliding door open. A few people came past and one or two stopped to drip and say nice things about the developing sketch.

After the Cotswolds break everything started to go a little bit pear-shaped... In June I was called back after a blood test showed anemia. After a second blood test I was referred to the gastroenterology department at the local hospital where I was told it looked likely to be cancer. I had CT scans, cameras up and down and an MRI scan after which cancer on the liver was confirmed. At the end of June I was referred to St James Hospital in Leeds, they being the liver specialists for the region. I went over during the third week in July to be told the cancer was too big to operate on. It was inoperable and incurable, however a procedure would deliver targetted chemo directly to it via the arteries from my groin - nice... The procedure took place on the 11th August and a few weeks after we had a couple of nights break in Bridlington as a bit of a "sanity break" for the mind. Whilst there we hopped a bus to Scarborough where I drew this from a small garden near the funicular cliff railway. By way of a footnote, the procedure shrank the cancer as evidenced by a further MRI scan on 17 September. I now await another MRI in December to see what has happened since September.

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A House and a Home or Two

Nostalgia time again! This time we take a look at the home environment. There are very few photos of my childhood homes. Just odd bits seen as the background to a family snap.

This photograph isn't even a real room - it's a reconstruction that can be seen at the Castle Museum, York - a place well worth visiting.

The 1950s sitting room is so close to how I remember Nanna and Grandad's house, or Grandma and Grandad Burke's house, it could almost be my first home. Both had a front room and a back room. This is closest to the back room of Grandma and Grandad Burke's probably. Both houses had a table in the window and a writing bureau. They both had the tiled fireplace with an open coal fire. Both had carpet that covered the middle of the floor with polished floorboards around the edges of the room.

The big difference was that Nanna and Grandad used their front room almost every night whilst Grandma and Grandad Burke only used theirs on Saturdays and Sundays. In winter the fire took ages to warm up the leather settee in their front room and it took your breath to sit back on it! Both sets of grandparents had an upright piano in the front room. Nanna and Grandad had a TV. When Grandma and Grandad Burke got one, it went in the back room where they spent most evenings.

The settee and armchairs always had antimacassars draped over them. Men wore brylcream on their hair and the covers, named after Macassar hair oil, stopped the furniture from being ruined as they leaned back! There were a few other things the houses had in common.

They both had the same early washing machine - huge green things with a lever that had three positions and looked like the gear stick of a Morris Minor. I saw one in a museum ages ago but didn't get a photo.

Also the kitchen had a gas boiler for hot water. Again the photo comes from the Castle Museum, York. The clothes drying rack, suspended from the ceiling is very familiar too! I don't think either set of grandparents had one, but Aunty Cissie did and Aunty Muriel (Grandad's sister) also had one. In fact I'm sure at least one of them was in the living room not the kitchen. There would be a fire to dry the clothes in the living room! Most kitchens were only warm in summer or when the stove was on!

Though on washing day there was plenty of steam about - the boil wash was necessary! Nanna swapped her old green washing machine for a Hotpoint twin tub, but then got a separate boiler for doing the boil wash. I found one exactly like it at Elsecar Museum in Yorkshire - they have a knack for this sort of thing in Yorkshire, obviously!

Whites were kept white (almost) by the use of "dolly blue". This was some sort of soluble gunk that came on a small stick - a bit like a lollipop - and it was swished about in the washing water and turned the water blue. Later this stuff presumably got added to the more sophisticated washing powders coming out. Daz advertised "a new white - a blue-white!"... Huge wooden tongs were used for pushing the washing down into the witch's brew that was those early detergents.

The twin tub had one tub for washing clothes, then a spin dryer with a glass lid for spinning out most of the water and rinsing. It had a rubber ring, like a grill to stop the clothes from flying up - it had a hole in the middle and was great for whizzing round on your finger, then throwing it up in the air to catch on your finger again without letting it stop spinning!

Vacuum cleaners existed but were hardly powerful. Most housewives had a Ewbank - more or less a mechanical dustpan and brush. When wheeled about, the brush turned against the direction of the sweeper and brushed bits into the innards of the sweeper. A lever opened the pans for emptying.

If you think housework is demeaning or hard work now, how would you have fared in the 1950s? Housewives who lived in terraced houses used to wash the pavement in front of their house at least once a week! This would be done using hot water and a "donkey stone" that was bought from rag and bone men. Whoa betide anyone who dared walk over their bit of pavement whilst they were out scrubbing on hands and knees! Anyone who didn't have a pristine scrubbed patch of pavement was whispered about by the other wives!

We had a proper bathroom with a huge cast iron bathtub and taps and an indoor loo. Not everyone had those in the 1950s by any means. Once we moved from Nanna and Grandad's, to the ill-fated house in Castleton (see illnesses and ailments entry) we had an outdoor loo and no bathroom. An email from my mate Alex Dyson:

"I had forgotten how rich your family was, what with an indoor bog and everything! Until I was 10 our toilet was at the end of the back yard and the bath was hanging on a nail on the wall outside the back door! We had to fill it from a gas geyser in the kitchen and then empty it using buckets when we'd done. Same with the dolly tub and wringer for the washing."

My own first house was an inheritance from my Great Uncle and Aunt who had moved away from Rochdale but kept a small cottage as a base for when visiting family. It was a one up-one down cottage, just two rooms, no bathroom, with the toilet in a back yard row of privies, serving several houses. We all had our own little room, just big enough to take the loo and with a flimsy wooden barn door. Mine had a metal towel rail with a piece of rubber wrapped round it. Without the rubber in winter, there was a danger of fingers sticking to a metal bar in the freezing cold. With the door shut the bar was so close to your face that I wondered whether my uncle had piles and it was for biting...! A tiny paraffin burner had to be kept in there to stop the loo and pipes from freezing up. On winter's nights you only went out in dire need! Everyone had a chamber pot under the bed!

Auntie Cissie, Grandad Burke's sister, had a cottage in Castleton with a long garden that had a really tall rhubarb patch. It was taller than me as a kid and it scared me to death to walk through it to her loo! The loo scared me too. The little brick building had a seat over an open sewer which was about 30 or 40 feet down. If you shone a torch down you could see a small stream and sometimes rats scurrying along. The hole in the seat was adult sized and my bottom wasn't in those days! I was petrified of falling!

Alex again: "I remember going up to (a relative's) farm as a kid and the toilet was a big plank of wood with two holes cut in it, side by side - very sociable. The privy was built on the side of a hill which sloped away at the back, and under the plank it was open to the air, so everything just built up in a huge heap for 12 months and then once a year, he would shovel it onto the back of his tractor and spread it on the fields. Happy days - NOT!"

Double sitters were not uncommon - the family that dumps together, stays together - perhaps... The photo comes again from the excellent Castle Museum in York and is a double example of the one Auntie Cissie had. Some had a pail under the seat. Only one step up from sitting on a bucket. The council employed men to go round and empty them - Nightsoil Men. They were a bit like fishmongers... everyone knew when one had entered the pub...!

After Dad's health scare at the terraced house in Castleton we moved back in with Nanna and Grandad for a short while. The only photo I could find of their house was this birthday party shot with me going all red-faced, blowing out my candles! The photo was rather dark and despite my best efforts, the background objects are hard to make out. Behind Mum looks to be an old sideboard/dresser that I just do not recognise, but under her arm is our big old wireless set, the knobs of which have caught the flash - the two dots of white by my ear!

The mere fact that flash was used is probably a clue that the photo was taken by either Uncle Geoff, or Great Uncle Percy - who had a camera shop in Rochdale. Using flash meant flash bulbs, glass filled with yards of magnesium filament that went off with a pop and produced enough heat to melt and bubble the blue glass of the bulb!

Mum and Dad then bought a bungalow in nearby Royton. Although there are no photos of the house, this shows the bungalows opposite which were exactly the same. Whilst we were at this house, Dad bought his first (and second and third, if not fourth) car(s)! The bungalow was not quite at the top end of a short cul-de-sac, Grisedale Avenue at Summit. Whilst officially designated Royton it was so close to Rochdale that it made no real difference except that we now had to catch the number 9 bus to school!

How many kids today would wear a shirt, tie, pullover and blazer in sunny weather to play out? There would be a vest under that lot too! I sometimes wonder whether global warming has been going on for longer than people think! Go back 100 years and you see photos of folks in shirts, waistcoats, jackets and mufflers in the middle of summer... and that's the navvies digging roads and canals etc.! Either we as a whole (and me in particular) were immune to heat, or it had to be much colder then than now. These days I can't stand even a jacket on warm summer days - and despite Grandma Burke's sternest advice, gave up wearing a vest many many years ago!

Around 1964 we moved from Royton to the village of Milnrow to a brand new bungalow on an estate that was being built at the back of the cricket club. Our house was one of the first to be sold and when we moved in the roads and pavements were still to be built, so we used to slosh about in mud whenever we went out of doors for a month or so!

Behind the house was an open field - great for playing in. Across the field was a rough path that led down to Stanney Brook Park, a small park that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere between Milnrow and Rochdale. We used to walk through it every day, then through farm lanes and back roads to get to Lowerplace School. I was coming up to my 11-plus and Harry Whitehead didn't want to lose a pupil who he thought would pass! From home to school was probably a walk of 3 or 4 miles.

I was 11 when we moved to Milnrow and I lived there throughout my teens, through secondary school, college and first jobs, first love, first car and first heartbreak. Whether the latter was caused by the first car or the first love you will have to find on other pages!

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Nice End to a Not Nice Week

It's been one of those weeks. Started with the car screeching one of those metallic squeals at us. Stopped at the next services on the motorway to find the rear wheel radiating heat alarmingly.

Hang on... I paid £200 to have that problem on that wheel fixed not so long ago! Luckily the problem this time (only this time?) was the handbrake sticking on which required a new handbrake cable fitted. Huge relief until I went to pick it up and found another bill for £200 waiting for me. "It's a right job with them...!" For £200 for a handbrake cable I should bloody hope it's a right job...

Long term readers (er... you do exist, right?) may remember me having to have an operation on the nose a few years ago and whilst it went spiffingly, (ignoring the following infection which had me off work for three months and resulted in some spectacular bouts of nose bleeding) the nasal passages have been steadily shrinking since then and it's getting to crisis point again. Date for the specialist has been set, but for now I'm going through all the familiar side effects of the steroid spray with 2 or 3 (smaller) nosebleeds a day.

Plus my ear bunged up with wax and I've gone fairly deaf in one ear - makes David's singing a bit more palatable of course, but not good really (my hearing I mean, not David's singing which at times approaches ok...) and my ear feels as though I'm in a descending aeroplane and wouldn't I just love it to go "pop" and clear! Putting ear oil in has only softened the outside of the wax "plug" and eventually after a full week of not being able to shift it, I got the doc to have a look to make sure I wasn't trying to soften the remains of a spider that had curled up and died in there... His reaction was that it was unlikely to shift before another week goes by and that it will need syringing out even then. Great... If you ask me a question and I don't respond it's nothing personal, ok?

And then poor Mum got confirmation that she has cancer, though relief all round when it turned out to be contained and should hopefully be easily operated on. But that was obviously the big scare and health story of the week and I'm not even thinking of joking about that.

Finally in the ever-growing health row of dominoes that I've had for the past few years, the doc gave me some water tablets to tackle the size of my feet, which now require clowns' shoes, following my introduction to the pills for hypertension. (I'm busy - I need high blood pressure!)

A week on the first lot made little difference, so yesterday morning the doc, after freaking out a little when I asked him to check there wasn't a spider in my ear, upped the doseage of my water pills with the result that today has been extremely interesting during a day out to the Lake District, where we took Mum for her birthday. That half hour was the longest boat trip I've ever taken. I was thinking I might have to make a personal apology to the residents of Manchester (whose drinking water is pumped from Lake Windermere) but, luckily, I made it onto the pier (unfortunate term...) at Ambleside and they had some Gents...

I don't follow football that much but sheesh I wish I was paid several annual wages every week just for cocking things up. Most people get into trouble for doing a rotten job. Footballers apparently get into a strop at a demonstration of fans' disappointment...

Talking of the World Cup, Marlene - one of the Ladies-over-the-Water, sent news of a woman who had torn her windpipe through blowing one of those vuvuzela horns. She said "I'm not blowing one again - it wasn't much fun..."

Meanwhile, Amanda, another of the threesome that make up the Ladies-over-the-Water, sent me a photo at Christmas of a new wine decanter she was very proud of. She and her hubby Paul and her neighbours were gathered round it drinking the wine from straws... Not sure they quite got the concept of a decanter, but anyway, she's broken it and asked if I'd print a memorial here... It was probably a fight over the last drop...

And (because I just can't leave her out can I?) Evy has had some new decking done in her garden outside her back door. There's been a long standing joke about her house because she once confused me by describing her stairs - it sounded as though they end abruptly halfway up her wall. Anyway... they obviously match the rest of the house because the back door has a drop of three feet to the garden...

Lunchtime in Lincoln

I've been to Lincoln today for an afternoon meeting with some people at the university and having arrived just before lunch, parked in the old part of the city and went to find something to eat there.

There were lots of school trips going on - everywhere were uniformed children with clipboards, looking for things they had on a list to find, drawing the castle or cathedral and somewhat bizarrely in a small group in an alley listening to a man dressed in a toga... Lucius Dressdus...

The castle is imposing and stands squarely facing the equally impressive gateway to the cathedral.

This is pretty much a building in its own right that has a gateway cut through it. It makes entering the Cathedral grounds something of an experience.

The cathedral houses one of the original copies of King John's Magna Carta document and a nearby pub is called the Magna Carta to commemorate the fact. Not that Clive and myself knew or thought to ask why it was called that when we called for a pint a few years ago whilst in the city to deliver a workshop...

There's an incredibly steep and long shopping street that leads from the castle and cathedral's hilltop to the modern city below.

They call it The Health Walk these days, but then every night you can take one of several ghost tours which probably list off all the people down the ages who have had heart attacks and died whilst walking back up...

Nearby is this very ancient Roman archway over the road - one of the original gates into the Roman city. It had a close call with a rather too large lorry in 1964, the damage costing over 1500 pounds to repair. And before anyone thinks that's not a lot, you could buy around 80 Mars Bars for a pound in 1964. A useful measure of worth, the Mars Bar, I always think!

Stress Test

Yesterday was a stress test. Part of the ongoing investigation into my heart attack. I wondered whether they wired you up to a monitor and then told you about Gordon Brown's latest plans for tax but no, it was a wiring up and then a journey to nowhere on a treadmill which went a touch faster than I am normally wont to walk...

I was starting to have visions of flying backwards as the legs stopped of their own volition but one of the nurses said "You look very professional up there!"
"What the heck does that mean?" I asked (gasped). Apparently the majority of people who have this test don't seem able to co-ordinate putting one leg in front of another to match the rate of the machine and so do a sort of hop, skip, run-to-catch-up routine.

"Can I still lead a debauched sinful life?" I asked. The doc looked a bit surprised.
"Why? Do you?"
"Well no... but it would be nice to know I could, if the opportunity came along..."

Anyway I bravely stuck it to the end, manfully resisting the urge to drop exhausted over the grab bar at the front to let the feet dangle and be dragged along the treadmill.

I now have little bald patches all over my chest where a very young and pretty nurse shaved them to stick on the ECG contacts. I might sell pictures on Ebay...

Let's Have a See - Whoa! I Don't Like The Look of That!

Ah yes, catch up time again!

Well it's been a funny old few months really and other things have contrived to become more important. Health for one.

Now here's a comedy of errors for you.

I've been asthmatic since the age of seven and it's been well controlled for so long that if there's even a hint of a wheeze Miss Franny's head shoots up to fix me with an accusatory stare. "What are you wheezing for?!?" she'll say, as if it's something I've done deliberately to wind her up.

Anyway, once a year I have a medical where they do various things like take my blood pressure, ask me about my general health and lifestyle (there's always some surprise at the latter for some reason) and measure my breath output and send me away for another year.

At the asthma test last year they called me back and said "Your blood pressure is up." I didn't even know it had to be renewed...

Heck, with a lifestyle like mine I need my blood pressure to be up! But I went back and am now happily on pills for the rest of my life. They took a blood sample.

From the blood pressure tests they deduced that my thyroid was underactive. Aha! An excuse for the weight, the tiredness, the generally being just plain bloody dopey on some days. I was relieved to find it wasn't the onset of early dementia and was booked into a specialist who would do further tests for the thyroid.

At the thyroid test they weighed me, measured me (height, pal, don't get silly!), asked me lots of questions, did an ECG, sounded me, tested all the reflexes (stop hitting me with that thing!) and said out of the blue "You've had a heart attack."

So now I have even more tests lined up and am wondering what the heck they will find at those!

A few people have said "How could you have a heart attack and not know?" Well in my opinion if you have to have one, then they are the best sort...! Although I can probably remember the incident but I thought I'd just pulled a muscle in my chest (really badly I have to admit!) and I was on the verge of wondering but then it cleared up and didn't recur so I just got on with things.

Now though I have to endure everyone saying "It's a warning!" and "You'll have to slow down..."

I've cut down the driving so now I don't have to worry that this huge queue will mean it could be midnight when I get home and instead can let the train take the strain and just worry about simple things like "will I make that connection?" which is the same as "will I get home at all tonight?"

Tests over the next few weeks so will see whether there needs to be any life change I suppose. It's hard being a rock 'n' roller... Can you pass me the remote, Darling, I can't quite reach it and mustn't exert myself!

A Healthy Walk

Having just got back from an invigorating walk along the Promenade at Cleveleys, I can honestly say it's a bit chilly out there!

We had to drive all the way up to Anchorsholme to get across the hole where the tram tracks used to be. They are re-doing all the tram tracks at the moment in Blackpool and to stop people from falling down the hole they've created they've blocked off all the crossing points between Bispham and Anchorsholme.

The sun is low in the sky, blinding you, the wind whistles around your lugs and the cold was making my nose and eyes stream constantly.

It does feel good to get some exercise...

Sunsets

I went a bit mad on Wednesday night and went for a walk to pick Fran (wife) up from work instead of driving there. Took the camera with me just in case and was glad I did as the sun was starting to disappear and the colours were quite vivid.

Normally I don't expend this much effort once the evening stodge is working its way down the digestive system but I've been zooming around the country for work as previous entries will show and therefore was feeling perhaps a little guilty about being a lazy bugger...

It's my mate Alex's fault probably anyway - he keeps telling me he's off to the gym 6 nights a week trying to get in shape. I think if I was that energetic I'd be in shape but too knackered to enjoy it!

The traipse up to Sainsbury's and back is enough for me. Fran decided she was starving and we had to pass the chippy anyway... Perhaps I'll drive next time...