🔗 Share this article

This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to a further glass. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Morning Rolled On

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of institutional meals and air filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at holiday cheer all around, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to chilled holiday sides 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.

By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

The Aftermath and the Story

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and went on to get 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 involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.