Family – Skat's Chat

Is ‘someone up there’ really looking down on me….?

It is a while since I have written a blog and that’s partly due to being busy with our new home, meeting new people, partly a lack of ‘inspiration’. Prompted by a note from Dr Michael Ward of Swansea University, who setup the CoronaDiaries Project of which mine is part, I did think about doing one more blog about the pandemic. The two-year anniversary of my first blog seemed a good time to revisit the topic. However, events of the 5th of March 2022 prevented me from writing that blog and are the inspiration for this one.

The simplest way to start is to reproduce the ‘incident report’ sent by Mark, one of the Run Directors (RD) of Delamere Parkrun, which I ran on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday morning….

Ian Skaife collapsed around 1.2 miles into today’s run at around 9:15. He was immediately attended to by the following: June who was just in front of Ian and heard him fall, June’s partner Matthew, Nikki who was a little behind but did not see him fall. Nikki is a medical nurse (an unknown passing runner, not in Parkrun, who was also a doctor was in attendance and stayed until the paramedics arrived).

Around this time an unknown person called an ambulance.

Nikki reported there was no pulse and Ian was not breathing. Between herself and June and advice from the unknown doctor, they opened his airway and administered CPR for perhaps the next 15 minutes or so. Ian occasionally restarted breathing for a short while, but Nikki did not detect a pulse at any time she checked for one.

Shortly after the incident, perhaps at 9.20 the tail-walker (Liz) arrived who called the RD Andy. I was standing next to Andy when he received the call. At 9:22 I made a call to the Forestry Commission(FC) office. They collect the AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) and drove to the incident – the main FC contact on the day was Liam at Forestry England. I left on foot to the incident and was joined by marshal Katherine who is a medical doctor.

The FC team arrived at the incident at around 9:30 and on arrival immediately deployed the AED once. This was successful in initiating a pulse. Very shortly afterwards the paramedics arrived by which time Ian was conscious and had achieved some sort of satisfactory stability.

I arrived at the scene around 9:37 and called Ian’s ICE (In Case of Emergency number) from his wristband at 9:39. The ICE is his wife Alyson Skaife who informed me Ian was with his son, Mike Skaife (now at the finish), who Alyson then called. Mike appeared at the incident perhaps within 10 minutes.

By 9:50 Ian was on a stretcher, breathing himself and able to talk and knew where he was. The paramedics had been joined by air ambulance paramedics, though the helicopter had to land around a mile away (as we are in a forest).

At around 10:10 Ian left the immediate area in an ambulance to be taken to the helicopter which left with Ian around 10:25 for Stoke Trauma Unit.

Even now as I read the report it almost brings me to tears. I have no memory of the day other than arriving at Delamere and parking the car. I made it to the start where I met up with my son Michael. I can remember talking to a Crusader, a lady with a Superman top wearing a blue tutu and a couple of nuns! Alyson had to tell the nurse in A&E that I wasn’t hallucinating as the run was fancy dress to celebrate the 9th anniversary of Delamere Parkrun’s first event.

Mike had helped the paramedics get me into the air ambulance – apparently an older lady was nearly blown over after not getting out of the way as the helicopter took off from the crossroads where the traffic had been stopped. Alyson had been working at a pharmacy in Gobowen when she got the call from Mark and left immediately and drove to Mike’s in Northwich where they drove together to Stoke. It was the second time in almost 10 years that Alyson & Mike had sat in the family area of the hospital waiting to see if I made it. For those who don’t know what happened in 2012 you can read my blog from 2019.

https://skatchat.wordpress.com/2019/10/06/the-long-story/

I am relying on what Alyson & Mike have told me happened after leaving in the air ambulance as my next memory is waking up on Sunday morning in the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU). The junior doctor had written me a note telling me that I was in Stoke and they diagnosed that my heart stopped due to blocked artery and they had started me on some more medication. Alyson had written on the end of the note ‘Middlesbrough won 2-0’!
Back to A&E ‘Resus’ where I kept saying ‘Did I come in a helicopter? and Mike answered yes and I said ‘What a shame I missed that’. Over and over again! They decided to scan my brain for a head injury, but the image hadn’t changed since my last one in 2013. Alyson was pleased that I hadn’t been running in Oswestry as a) the defibrillator is not as close (note 9 April 2022 – having volunteered there yesterday I know this is not true as there is a portable one at the start), b) the ambulance service in rural Shropshire is not as responsive and c) they might have taken me to Shrewsbury Hospital which, although I wouldn’t have been in the recently sanctioned maternity unit, doesn’t have a good reputation. If they didn’t have my scan from 2012-13 goodness what they would have made of my slightly mushed brain!

Stoke is also where I had been diagnosed with angina in early 2021 so they were aware of that. I had been signed off after a ‘stress test’ in July when I went on the treadmill wired to an Electrocardiogram (ECG). Although I was due to have another test this coming July, as one of the A&E doctors remarked I had done my own stress test and failed spectacularly.
Alyson & Mike stayed with me until early evening and weren’t offered any drinks or food and didn’t want to leave me in case another doctor came with information. Eventually I was admitted to CCU and they sat with me there a while.

CCU is a ward of bays in a circle around a central nurses station. It is not a quiet place as we were all wired to heart monitors with electrodes attached to several sticky pads over our chests reporting to a central screen. Alarms were going off each time a lead came loose, and I was confused as I thought it was mine that was setting them off, so would try not to move. Also on my chest were two large sticky pads from the defibrillator used in the forest. The device made sleeping difficult but I was grateful just to be there. Alyson visited me later in the day and I started to learn more about what had happened.

Alyson and Michael had gone back for my car on Sunday morning as it was still parked at Delamere. Alyson parked outside the administration offices and saw Liam who had taken the AED and he was pleased to hear how well I was doing. He admitted than when he first got there and saw the medics working on me he didn’t think the ending would be good. Alyson thanked him on behalf of all of us, and only this week I emailed him to tell him how well I am doing. Often people who help others never find out what the outcome is, and that is a shame.

Alyson visited me later that day and brought my phone in so I was able to message friends and work colleagues to tell them what had happened to me. Mike was frustrated that only Alyson was allowed to visit me due to Covid-19 restrictions, and our other son David – who had been rowing with his club in Bath and left ready to come up when Alyson called him on the Saturday morning – had to make do with a Zoom update on the Sunday evening. Since the pandemic started we had been having a weekly call often with a short family quiz. I may have been able to join on my phone that evening, but was very tired and sore.

The soreness was something that, when the nurses asked me how I was feeling, I told them I was grateful for. It showed that Nikki, June and Matt and the unknown doctor had done a good job. A few weeks previously Alyson had attended a CPR and defibrillator use course, and told me that it was physically hard, and not something one person could do for more than a few minutes. Alyson had also text June & Nikki to thank them for what they had done. I sent an email to the ‘Core Team’ of volunteers at Delamere who I know well having volunteered there many times over the years. These ‘Hi-Viz Heroes’ as we call them in the Parkrun family are the reason events are free every week. I told them in the message that I was well and thanked them for what they had done.

On Monday Alyson came over in the afternoon but didn’t get to see me for long as I was taken down to what is called ‘The Lab’ to have a stent fitted. This was something that I had been due to have last July, but they decided my blood vessels were ‘perfect’. This time the situation had changed, so it was a case of putting one in to be sure. As it turned out my temperature was too high, so I was back on the ward after Alyson had left.

The next morning my temperature was fine and my bloods were ok, so I was back in the lab and this time the stent fitting was successful. As Dr Gunning my consultant said ‘that’s the plumbing sorted, all we need to do now is find a good electrician to sort you out…’. Alyson visited me later in the afternoon after tutoring pharmacy students at nearby Keele University. After getting up at 5am to travel there she said the work kept her busy, and took her mind off what was happening to me. She had also been very busy, as people often are when someone is in hospital, having to phone family and friends and taking calls from people asking how I was doing.

The ‘electrician’ turned out to be Dr Baynham who came to see me when Alyson visited on Wednesday, by which time I had been moved to a nicer room on a nearby ward. The room had been a ‘day room’ before the pandemic where patients could sit and watch TV and had panoramic views overlooking the helicopter landing site. It was converted to a 3-bed bay and was light and comfortable.

Dr Baynham said the plan was to give me an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) which would deliver a shock should my heart fail again. There were possible side effects such as infection, and it giving me a ‘shock’ when it wasn’t needed, but overall it seemed a good solution to my issue. I needed an app on my phone to send data from the ICD back to Stoke – Alyson was disappointed that it wouldn’t allow her to turn me off and on.

The procedure was planned for Friday afternoon confirmed at the ward round Friday morning. The device was fitted at about 3pm under a local anaesthetic. Due to the blood thinners I was on the surgeons struggled to get it under my collar bone in a ‘pocket’ they cut into my chest muscle, but eventually they managed. An X-Ray about two hours later confirmed it was in place with wires to my heart, and by 8pm my discharge letter and medicines were ready. Alyson came to pick me up and drove me home for 10pm. I slept in my own bed.

For the first few days home I was very sore and couldn’t sleep well on either side. This was both from the bruising to my chest and ribs from the CPR and the scar and the device under my left shoulder. I was also very weary from the whole thing, and this added to my ‘usual’ fatigue from the brain injury. I often have a short 40-minute nap during the day, but now needed one morning and afternoon. But it felt great to be home with Alyson.

The NHS had done an amazing job in the 5 days since I was admitted. I underwent two procedures, and the surgeon told me the ICD cost £30,000 (not sure if that is the cost of the device only or for the surgeons, operating theatre and nursing care). The care of all the nurses, doctors, pharmacists, physios, catering and cleaning teams was fantastic.

I sent WhatsApps to June and Nikki from Parkrun telling them that I was home and what had been done to me. I also said I was very grateful for the pain I had in my chest which showed that they did a great job! I said that without them I am certain that Alyson, Michael & David would be planning my funeral. Both sent gracious replies and June said although it was her slowest time for a Parkrun as they all took an hour and 14 minutes by the time they got back to the finish, ‘it would always be a personal best (PB) for a different reason..’ It had only been her 3rd run, and she nearly didn’t go, as it is her partner Matt who was the runner. I said that I hope that what happened wouldn’t put her off doing another!

The following weekend we had planned a trip to some cottages outside Scarborough in the north east where we have been many times. I felt strong enough to make the journey but as I can’t drive for 6 months Alyson had to do it all in our new all-electric car (the story of ‘range anxiety’ is for another blog!). We had planned to do the Parkrun at Whitby (Alyson is also a member of the ‘Parkrun Family, having done 35 since she took it up a couple of weeks before her 59th birthday). So at 9am on a Saturday two weeks after my incident the RD gave the usual pre-race briefing and when she mentioned that they had a defibrillator people start to laugh. Alyson shouted ‘It’s not funny! My husband needed one two weeks ago at a Parkrun!’ It went quiet and someone asked ‘Is he ok?‘ to which she replied ‘Yes, he’s over there watching the start..’.
Alyson enjoyed the run which was down a disused railway but reflected afterwards that the surface was hard paving, much less forgiving than the forest track at Delamere.

Last weekend we were also away at a large house with 18 of Alyson’s family and on Saturday morning a group of six went to Ross on Wye Parkrun. Five to run and me to watch. Alyson and Mike both ran in this one. However, this time no one laughed when the RD mentioned that they had one portable defibrillator at the start, and another was in the nearby sports centre. I was chatting to some other ‘tourists’ at the start, and one older guy from Leeds who, when he asked if I was running and I told him my story, announced ‘Oh I had one fitted 12 years ago and have run lots of times since including a few marathons.’
I have been told that I should be able to resume ‘normal exercise’ eventually, but am not sure I will ever do a marathon given the furthest I have ever run is several half-marathons and the last of those was the 2006 Great North Run! However, it gave me some hope.

I am not sure Alyson feels the same, but I have promised that I won’t go out on my own – as I had thought of doing the week before my incident when I fancied a quick jog up to the woods in our local area…

The final ‘twist’ to the story is that this weekend we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We had booked a trip back to Paris to stay in the same hotel in the Place de La Sorbonne down from Notre Dame, where we went for our honeymoon and revisited on our 25th. There is a Parkrun close by and we had planned to do that one…it doesn’t bear thinking about what it would have been like if I suffered my cardiac arrest there – not with two failed O-Levels in French between us!

Something that Nikki replied after I shared the blog about my brain injury has stuck with me. She wrote ‘What an amazing story! I think someone up there is looking down on you!’ Another friend wrote ‘You know my thoughts on God, but you are a special case so I will pray for you’. A university friend who I will call Speed wrote ‘God clearly still has work for you to do! Thank God for all the prompt medical help you got.’

Even Alyson and her sister, neither of whom attend any church, in talking together when we were away in Ross on Wye concluded that God really didn’t want me joining him just now as that is twice I have tried and twice he has sent me back!

Since we moved from Crewe, a year ago this week, where I had been deeply involved at my local Methodist church and held various roles at circuit, district and attended the annual Methodist Conference, I have not found my ‘place’ in Oswestry. This is partly a deliberate choice as I wanted to take some ‘time out’ to discover the area and people. In September I met our local minister Rev Julia in her manse garden for a long chat. She was wonderful and encouraged me to work out what I wanted to do. This despite being very busy with pastoral care of 23 churches and knowing that, as in all places Methodist, there is a shortage of willing and experienced people for all the roles. The local churches have been very welcoming, despite numbers being down and attendance less during Covid. I have certainly not been to many services or joined local house/prayer groups, and even my attendance at the online Methodist Central Hall Westminster (MCHW) setup during ‘lockdown’ has been patchy.

Perhaps I am being given a ‘message’ through what has happened, and I definitely have more time to think things over, as I can’t just take myself out in my car without Alyson coming with me. I attended our annual ‘Covenant Service’ in January at which Methodists say a prayer which has these lines in it.

Your will, not mine be done in all things, wherever you may place me, in all that i do and in all that I may endure.
When there is work for me, and when there is none: When I am troubled and when I am at peace. Your will be done.
When I am disregarded: when I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;
The Methodist Worship Book P.288 (Modern Form)

The more traditional version is even more ‘stark’ with the lines ‘…Put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you..’

With all the cards. messages, calls and support I have had, I certainly don’t feel disregarded – quite the opposite. But in this season of Lent as we look towards the suffering of our Saviour Jesus on the cross, even though I am not doing a formal lent study, maybe I need to take some time to consider my place in the local area, my family and church, and commit to doing something positive.

I am definitely going to sign up for a CPR course and use myself as a living example of what can be done. I will commit to raising some funds or donating to any Parkruns who need to get a defibrillator. But beyond that I will try to find something in the coming months or years to take the place of the work I have done in the past for my local church and community.

I will continue to volunteer at Parkrun events and be a ‘Tail Walker’ who follows the slowest person so that no one ever finishes last. To be fair to the core Team at Delamere it might be some time before I turn up in my new branded orange Parkrun shirt – my old one having been sliced down the middle by the paramedics! And I will definitely update my ICE barcode wristband which currently says ‘ no medical conditions’!

Coronavirus week 39 – Advent hope or Christmas cancelled?

It is 20 weeks since I did my last blog, or ‘CoronaDiary’ as it was named for the Swansea University project that it became part of. It seems a long time ago but serves to show how time passes quickly after I decided that the time had come to stop, with things apparently starting to ‘slow down’, ‘getting under control’, ‘living with the new normal’ or any number of ways of describing life in late summer/early autumn. There was also a possible vaccine in development.

I started several times to write another instalment as events and key points in the story of this year were reached, but each time my enthusiasm to finish them waned. Due in part I suspect to not wanting to repeat the same themes I had visited before, but mainly due to the fact that we too were doing some of the things we hadn’t been able to. We were fortunate to be in a situation where we could take a week away to each of the Norfolk coast, Cornwall and North Yorkshire. In addition we enjoyed days out walking around the Cheshire countryside and Alyson managed some open water swimming at a nearby lake in Shropshire. The project I am working on with the accountancy practice in Sale was reaching the critical ‘go-live’ point, and Alyson was getting more NHS 111 home-based call centre shifts.

Deaths – a change of measure but still increasing quickly..

I had set myself the target of writing another blog when the official figures for the number of coronavirus deaths reached the level they were at my last blog, as the government reassessed them, just after I published it, in light of some ‘mis-recording’. On 12 August, the total fell by 5,000 overnight from 46,706 to 41,329. Until then a death was recorded for anyone who had tested positive for Covid-19 at any time, regardless of the cause. So someone who had died of a heart attack or in a car accident but had a positive test 10 weeks before was added to the virus statistics. It would take another 11 weeks to get back to 46,513 at the end of October – an average of 71 deaths per week. Just over 7 weeks later we have surpassed the grim figure of 60,000 to reach 68,307 – an average of 3,113 per week. The other measure of all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the certificate is likely to be over 80,000 by the end of the year.

Key events I could have written about…

There have been some major issues and milestones in the time since my last blog. Ones I have had strong feelings about are;
– The exam results ‘fiasco’
– The on-going story of migrants drowning whilst crossing the channel, and my idea of requisitioning unused cruise ships anchored off the south coast to give them decent accommodation.
– Introduction of the tiers system of restrictions
– My (and many others) perception that GPs are hiding away
– Schools and universities returning to full-time teaching
– A study I read on how the virus circulates indoor via ‘aerosol particles’
– ‘Circuit-breaker’ or second national lockdown
– President Trump catching Covid-19, US Election & refusal to accept the result
– Announcing the vaccination program earlier than planned on the day the report into the Home Secretary Priti Patel’s bullying behaviour was published.
– The seemingly endless Brexit negotiations/deadlines and extensions.

So why now…

The recent excitement over the new vaccines, the hope that brings of a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, allied to planning for a small family Christmas get together was shattered by yesterday’s Government Briefing. Our Prime Minister, the only one in the World known mainly by his first name, Boris announced a new ‘Tier 4’ for London and the South East plus severe restrictions on ‘Christmas bubbles’ and the time they are allowed to meet. It seems like another one of the many ‘key points’ in the pandemic, coming as it does with the fact that a ‘new strain’ of the coronavirus that is much more effective at transmission is circulating and spreading rapidly through the population. The disease is called Covid-19 because it was in late December last year that the WHO office in China reported a ‘new type of pneumonia virus’ being reported in the area around the city of Wuhan. Whilst there is still some dispute about where it originated, the virus has been traced back to cases in mid-November. The first anniversary of the discovery of what we now call SARS-CoV-2 seems like a significant event to record in my blog.

For those with an interest in the science, the new variant is being referred to as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01 and the more detailed description of the mutation is as follows;

This variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). The shorthand for this mutation is N501Y, sometimes noted as S:N501Y to specify that it is in the spike protein. This variant carries many other mutations, including a double deletion (positions 69 and 70).
US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Emerging Variants Briefing December 2020.

It is this variation in the ‘spike protein’ that scientists think accounts for its ability for increased transmission by better binding to cells in people who get infected by the virus. It remains to be seen if the symptoms are more severe or if it is resistant to the vaccine, but the early signs are ‘hopeful’. What will certainly be the case is that the number of infections will rise and given the pattern up to now, many people will need some treatment in hospitals. This is the factor that may lead to ‘Lockdown v3.0’ and more damage to mental health and the economy.

In recent weeks I have been leading four sessions on the season of Advent with our church Bible study group and there are some themes which resonate with the current situation. As we approach the end of an extraordinary year and try to look forward to 2021 it seems an opportune moment to write down my personal thoughts and feelings. This blog has always been for my own reference, but I continue to be grateful for all the comments it attracts as each one is published.

Advent – the season of waiting – 2020 theme ‘Hope’….

It is only in the last few years, after 50+ years of being part the ‘Methodist Tradition’ through my church membership, that I have understood the ‘true meaning’ of Advent. For many it is ‘just the few weeks before Christmas’ but it is so much more than that. It is a time of ‘waiting’ and ‘anticipation’ during which we are called to lament/repent for all that has gone before and wait for the arrival of the long-promised ‘Light of the World’ to arrive in the form of a small child. Our fellow Christians in the Church of England, or ‘the Anglican Tradition’ recognise this in a more formal way. In the build up to Christmas they don’t sing ‘traditional carols’ and for them Christmas starts on the eve of the 25th December. It lasts for 12 days until Epiphany on the 6th January.

This year in the ‘real world’, the commercial one and the one that the church has hijacked from the original pagan ‘winter festival’, after all the upheaval of Covid and the challenges and illness and death, there has been a desire to ‘go early’. When I worked in retail pharmacy we would have started to plan for all the Christmas stock arrival earlier in the year. Indeed, during my time as Managing Director of our ‘Pharmacy Sundries’ subsidiary company, January would see me and the sales team attending trade fairs in the UK and Frankfurt in Germany, to meet suppliers from all over the globe to purchase, and in some cases ‘design’, the gifts our stores would sell during the ‘Christmas Season’. Stock would be ordered, shipped from China or India or wherever the suppliers were based, duty paid, containers received and unloaded at the warehouse, and delivered to the shops by a small fleet of vans ready to fill the shelves. There was always a tension between the warehouse wanting to get stock out (and our small company to invoice the larger one!) and the shops saying it was ‘too early’. In the end together with the retail marketing team for the shops we agreed a rough policy that, whilst stock could be delivered during September the, ‘big reveal’ would happen after the solemn celebration of Remembrance had taken place on November 11th. After that it was ‘all hands on deck’ to shift as much as we could. On a really good year our shops would be calling the warehouse in the second week of December pleading for us to send more – the items we had chosen that they were sceptical of selling were flying off the shelves. In the last week it might get to the point that shoppers were so desperate for a gift that even the stock we had left from previous years would look like the ideal gift for a family member!

It seems that a lot of people after the year they have had decided to ‘go early’. There was a rush to put up Christmas lights and decorations not just earlier but in bigger volumes than before. Around our estate there are so many whole garden displays and inflatable characters they can probably be seen from space! Goodness only knows what the electricity bills will be like in January. Shops have sold out and many Christmas tree growers have shut as all the stock has gone. There is an understandable desire from people wanting to celebrate and have something to look forward to. I confess to liking it, but it can get a bit wearing listening to hours of the old pop Christmas favourites from the 70s and 80s.

The theme for the Advent study we chose this year was ‘Hope’ which seemed appropriate for the year and is one aspect of the season along with joy, peace and love. As churches we have readings about John the Baptist and the Old Testament Prophets foretelling the arrival of The Messiah, the story of Mary and the journey towards Bethlehem. Many of us light four candles (and many ministers refer to the classic sketch on The Two Ronnies!) coloured red in an Advent wreath of holly, lighting the fifth white candle in the middle on Christmas day to represent Jesus. .

In many of our times of study we referenced the difficult times we have had during the pandemic. We would lament people we have lost, pray for support for those going through difficult times, missing friends and family contact, particularly those who know people in care homes or have not been able to attend the funeral of a family member. We have given thanks for the key workers helping us through difficult times. More recently we have given thanks for the God-given skills of the scientists for developing the vaccines, the hope that brings and the ability to start ‘looking forward’ in anticipation of a better 2021. Many of the Christmas cards we have received, had a handwritten note to reflect this hope too.

Watching Boris, Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer and Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Adviser on Saturday evening announcing the new ‘Tier 4’ measures, and limiting even more the Christmas travel and bubble arrangements, it would have been easy to find a new low of depression, and lack of optimism. Sunday morning’s news headlines on television and in the print media could be summed up as ‘Christmas Cancelled’. During the summer and into the early autumn with infection rates falling, deaths levelling-off to a figure that we could probably live with, health services opening, people going back to work and children to school, things appeared a little brighter. Despite having to take a lot of measures on our holiday in Norfolk and again when we went to the lodge in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, and the early figures for the ‘second wave’ seeming not to be as high as the first, my optimism was still there.

It was whilst ‘attending’ (via You Tube) the live streamed service from Methodist Central Hall Westminster (MCHW) on Sunday morning that I decided to write this blog. MCHW of course is now in Tier 4 so the chances of a few people attending the church physically on Christmas Day has gone. The reading was about Mary and her willingness to carry the child that would become our Saviour. We sang Joy To The World and O Come All Ye Faithful and accepted the challenge from Rev Gordon to take up whatever challenges we will face in the coming months. Both Gordon and Rev Tony who leads the service said that although we were in lockdown, Christmas itself wasn’t cancelled. Tony said he had received a humorous text about there being ‘only 370 more sleeps to Christmas’ but he wanted to state that wasn’t true. I posted the image below on my Facebook page on Monday and it attracted many likes…

The commercial ‘winter festival’ may have been curtailed and many would not be able to see family and friends, but nothing is going to stop Christmas being Christmas for Christians. It brought to mind this tweet from earlier in the week reminding us that other religions had their celebrations ‘cancelled’ at even shorter notice – in some cases the evening before the big family gatherings.

Admittedly, some replies pointed out that Easter was ‘cancelled’ at the start of lockdown and, as happens on social media these days, there were plenty of racist comments, but the point was the same one I had made the night before Eid. ‘Imagine the uproar if they cancelled Christmas…’

The most striking interview I saw on Sunday morning was with Rev Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. It appeared to me that the leader of our national church was shaken by the events of Saturday and, like many of us, struggling with an inner voice that was saying to him ‘I am really not sure that my faith is strong enough for this…’. But he found another inner voice and rallied to assure us that Christmas would indeed happen on the appointed day. He also talked movingly about the ‘hole in the celebration’ left by those who can’t be with us, either because they have died or are alone in a place we can’t travel to. He encouraged us all to celebrate the great festival by remembering those who have died, talking about them, and for those who are isolated to pick up the phone and speak to them. He encouraged the vulnerable not to attend church but to call one of the many phone numbers with services, carols or prayers being broadcast.

Some of the many people with a spare place at the table are the family of our school friend Clare who died in November aged just 61 from motor neurone disease diagnosed five years ago. Clare is the first of our contemporaries that we have kept in touch with for over 50 years to go. It is as much a sobering reminder of our own mortality as it is sad. It was also our first (and probably not last) ‘virtual funeral’, we watched the live stream whilst listening to the music chosen by Clare herself on You Tube.

As I sang along watching the service from Westminster to O Come All You Faithful I remembered the Christmas of 2016 when my dad died. We were celebrating at a cottage on the North York Moors with Alyson’s family. Dad was on end-of-life care in a nursing home nearby, and died the day we were leaving the cottage. You can read about that in the blog that I wrote at the time . I asked the minister if we could sing the hymn at dad’s funeral as he was a long-time member of the church choir and hadn’t managed to sing it that year. Rev Ruth said that it was a great idea and all we needed to change was the last verse usually sung on Christmas Day from ‘Yea we greet thee born this happy morning’ to …that happy morning..’. Alyson’s dad who was 90 and not in good health gave a short speech during Christmas Day lunch suggesting that this might be the last one he had with us. He died later that year in October.

So we had two Christmases in a row with spare places at the table. Such is the ‘circle of life’, we have lost Alyson’s mum since, but this year we have two small boys born to our nieces since. They represent the joy, love and hope of the Advent season.

Final thoughts and looking to the future…

There will be three households with us on Christmas Day, but only four people – Alyson and I, and our two sons who are single-person households. We will social distance as much as we can and maybe even eat outside. Other than that we have several ‘Zoom’ catch-ups planned with other family members and friends. We had one last weekend with my brothers and cousins (my older brother lives in San Jose California, 6 miles from the global Zoom HQ so was supporting one of his ‘local businesses’!). We have had one ‘virtual Christmas party’ with the head injury charity I am a member and trustee of. Ready-made meals were delivered along with a box of crackers, hats and gifts. We played charades, told jokes from the crackers and even tried to sing some carols. A great time was had by all who attended.

I heard from another friend that the company he works at had a ‘Zoom office party’ that started at 8pm and for some people went on until 6am. Apparently, the ability to drink and not have to drive home led to some problems with people saying and doing things that they would regret when reading the ‘chat’ the next day. So it seems a virtual party can be as good or bad as a real-world one!

I like to think I have always been generally an optimistic person, trying to see the positive in both situations and in people I meet. Alyson thinks I am a bit too laid back and even naive, and reminds me that earlier in the year I was still hoping that we would be able to get a sunny holiday overseas and was one of those who said it would be all over by Christmas. I try to find hope in the vaccination program but recognise that our governments record for ‘ramping up’ the testing capacity could induce pessimism that our ability to vaccinate the estimated 16.5 million people aged over 60. To get this done before Easter, considering the five weeks to achieve full immunity, will require an average of two million vaccinations each week. There have been half a million people vaccinated in the two weeks since 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person on 8 December. We need an eight-fold increase in that rate if we are to reach the Easter target.

As I reflect on the end of a very strange and difficult year, my faith is strong, and my optimism remains at a high level. The hours of daylight are increasing from today, and I am looking forward to 2021

A Tribute to my Uncle Wilf – a hero of The Evacuation of Dunkirk.

It has been said that a person only truly dies once somebody mentions their name for the last time. When we visited the Tutankahmen Exhibition in London in February, I remember this phrase coming up as we walked around. Many of the pharaohs erased the names and monuments of their predecessors in the hope that people would forget them.

Uncle Wilf would have been 106 if he was alive today. I never met him or even knew of his existence until about 15 years ago. But this blog is to keep his memory alive. My mum showed me a letter she had received from the Museum of D-Day Aviation in Shoreham about her brother Wilf. This blog is published 80 years to the day that Wilf died. The researcher at the museum found that Wilf was a member of 43 Squadron and he wrote

43 Squadron was a front line fighter squadron flying Hurricanes and rated the best, and was to give cover during the Dunkirk Evacuation.Your brother was killed flying back after another sortie – the third that day – by a sneak and chance attack by German fighters and his Hurricane N2615, crashed 4 miles south of Shoreham. His body washed ashore at Shoreham on June 15th…..his body was sent for burial at the family’s request to Middlesbrough

We have just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Dunkirk Evacuation between 26th and 31st May 1940. We don’t know how many sorties my uncle flew during that time, but we know that only 9 days later he was dead. He was just 26 years old.I never knew why my mum would get upset on Remembrance Day but I think it was because she remembered the sacrifice of her brother. When we were clearing my parents’ house after dad died in 2017 I found a note of a talk mum had given to her local church on Remembrance Day when she spoke about her brother Wilf. She had written

I have in my possession a little book that was among Wilf’s returned belongings and given to him in 1931 by the leader of the Young Men’s Class at our church, called ‘The Greatest Thing in the World’….It is based on 1 Corinthians Chapter 13: The Greatest Thing being LOVE…I never heard my mother utter a word of bitterness, and just after the war my brother who was 17yrs old died suddenly of painless pneumonia. She used to say ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.’ It was only when I had sons of my own that I realised how she must have felt. When they went to university/college I missed them but reminded myself that at least I wasn’t sending them to war.

I am one of those sons, and I had talked with mum a few years before she died, about the letter from the museum. She started to cry. She told me that she loved her older brother and looked forward to the times he would come home from the RAF and play with her. She called him ‘my Wilfy’. He bounced her on his knee. It must have been difficult for a seven year old to comprehend what had happened when she learned of his death. Then to lose another brother a few years later, a week after her 12th birthday, was hard. I am not certain but I think her dad, my grandad who I also never met, died as a result of being gassed in the Great War. All three are buried with grandma at a family plot in Linthorpe Cemetery. After mum died we took dad to try and find the grave, but didn’t succeed. I have found a document in mum’s possessions about it and know the plot number so will go and put flowers on it one day.

Wilf left Middlesbrough and his job as a ‘Storeman’ aged 16 to join the RAF as an Aircraft Apprentice, or as a ‘boy’ 5ft 3ins with a 31 inch chest as his record states. By the time he was commissioned as an 18 year old man he had grown in height by 2 inches and put an extra half inch on his chest. I have a copy of his service record or ‘Service and Discharge’ as it is called. This was all the family got as there were so many killed at that time, Commanding Officers didn’t have time to write details of how their men died. I am not sure grandma ever knew, and it was only mum visiting the museum, on the way to a holiday, that led to the research being done. I know she didn’t get anywhere at first and it was only on receiving a follow-up letter asking for more details, that the story came to light.

Wilf was trained as a Flight Rigger, someone who worked on the airframe and cables, not the engines. He rose through the ranks and started a year’s pilot training due to a shortage of pilots as the build up to war started. He passed the training on New Year’s Eve 1939. He was with several other squadrons in Hornchurch in Essex and then Manston in Kent. In the run up to what would become The Battle of Britain he was posted to 25 Squadron based at North Weald, Essex, using a new type of radar for night interception. As losses of fighter pilots became high, pilots like Wilf in lighter bomber squadrons were moved to fill the gaps. Wilf’s final posting was to 43 Squadron based at Tangmere in West Sussex where later Wing Commander Douglas Bader would be stationed in 1941.

I am now the keeper of Uncle Wilf’s possessions and there is also Bible inscribed ‘With best wishes from mother to Wilf 1930‘. I suspect it was for his 16th birthday, or perhaps as he left to join the RAF. Mum’s family, like my dad’s were Methodists and worshiped at Woodlands Road church. Mum and dad met at the youth club and were married at the church. We hoped to visit Shoreham to see the rose that the museum promised to plant in Wilf’s honour, but that will have to wait until next year – once the current ‘war’ against Covid-19 has ended.

Rest in peace Uncle Wilf. We will remember you.