🔗 Share this article

This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. At family parties, he is the person chatting about the latest scandal to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players over the past 40 years.

It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but appearing more and more unwell.

As Time Passed

The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

Upon our arrival, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind was noticeable.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted DVT. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.