Reflections of days gone by part I

After listening to Roger Whittaker sing streets of London, and it brought back many memories, some of which were at the time distressing, and seemed never ending.

This made me realise that we always take things for granted, but it does not always work out the way you expect.

Sometime in the mid 1980s, my wife was in a very serious road accident, which left things on a knife edge for what seemed an eternity.

She ended up in hospital for around three years, in which time she had umpteen operations to rebuild her leg and foot, and the doctors having to fight on two occassions to keep her alive.

This was hard to take on board, not just for me but also the children who at the time were 5 and 8 year old.

But within that time these two children grew up fast, and shared many jobs which would normally have been done by others, but they did it without me asking or telling them to do it. Claire simply took over

At this time I was a University College Engineer, on call 24 hours a day for breakdowns. I was also doing and Electrical Engineering Course at home in my spare time, so sleep simply did not always happen.

I worked on my electrical course from 3 till 6 am each morning then got the children ready for school, and did the packed lunches, although Claire took it upon herself, to take this over somewhere along the line, so for a 9 year old she was truly amazing  

After being there for two years, the hospital said that she could come home for Christmas providing she behaved herself.

The thought of this made myself and the children very happy, although the cooking would be done by me, and although I had cooked from my years in the scouts, the thought of doing a Christmas Lunch filled me with fear.

She asked if I could take her shopping to Marks And Spencer's for some presents, so I agreed.

Just as she walked out of the Shop door she felt dizzy, so I managed to get her onto a concrete traffic bollard for a rest, but she fell off onto the pavement.

The children gasped in horror and everyone walked on by. That was everyone but a gay gentleman, who I heard later was called Joyce.

He came over put his basket of flowers down as supported my wife and talked to her, while I rang for an ambulance.

I never saw this man again to say thank-you, but someone in my workplace said that they would find him and thank him from us all

Janice was taken back on her ward and given a blood transfusion and then we got her home in time for Christmas.

A nurse on the ward who we gathered was actually gay herself, or so we were told, said. It says something when so called "normal people" walked by yet, this gay gentleman went out of his way to help you, but it also proves a lot.

Yes it did prove quite a lot to me at the time, and to Janice later when she recovered 

I have never felt anything about gay people, we are all on the planet together, and we are all different, but this man proved to others that he was no different to them, only he did his best, while they all walked passed.

I guess on that day he was our Angel who came along to help us in our time of need, and I have always considered him as that ever since

I later heard that he got very embarrassed when someone said thank you.
I also heard later that the same man had suffered from abuse by others, something I found hard to accept.

But this proves that you should never judge a book by its cover, or a person by the way they look.

Janice went back into hospital for more operations, but today she is my rock and guardian angel