How Did All This Happen?. John Bishop

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      My education became disrupted as I entered the final year of junior school due to an operation I had on my left leg. At the time I was playing a lot of football, and the GP suggested quite reasonably that the pain in my leg must be ligament damage. As a result, his treatment was rest and a compression bandage.

      However, the pain became unbearable after a few weeks and, despite the rest, there seemed to be no improvement. As I was unable to walk, my mum had to wheel me up and down the hill to the GP practice balanced on my bike, to ask if there was any other possible explanation. On many occasions they made the mistake of saying no, until she insisted I be referred to hospital.

      Eventually, the referral to the hospital was made. I remember the day the ambulance came to collect me. Just as it arrived, I was sick, either with fear or illness. I don’t recall very much of what happened after that, apart from being prepared for surgery with my mum and dad standing either side of the bed, and my dad leaning in to kiss me on my forehead.

      This was at a time when we were years past kissing: goodnight was a nod to my mum and a handshake to my dad – I’m glad to say that my family is so much more demonstrative now than we were then. One thing I have learnt from my travels over the years is that the British approach to displaying affection needs to improve. Now, when I see my mum and sisters and female family members or friends, we always kiss – although London-based females confuse me easily with the one or two cheek thing. Personally, after one cheek, if you are going again, you may as well throw the tongue in.

      Eddie, my dad and all male family members get a handshake. Indeed, after a night in a bar with a few dozen Romanian miners (which I will come to later), I always shake hands with any male group I am in. It’s good manners, it breaks down barriers, and I think it shows some class – which is something you don’t always expect to learn from men who spend most of their time down a hole.

      Lying on a hospital trolley about to be operated on and having both parents kiss me on the head made me start to think something was wrong. Which it was. Upon arrival at the hospital, my leg had been X-rayed and checked by the aptly named Mr Bone. Mr Bone had diagnosed a condition called osteomyelitis, a bone infection which he said was akin to having an abscess inside my left femur, the size of which, he informed my parents, was a huge cause for concern. He then advised my mum and dad that the next 24 hours would be critical.

      In his words, he was operating to try to save my leg, although he told them if the operation was at all delayed and the abscess burst, then it could potentially become systemic. After that, there was a real danger I would die.

      His plan was to try to drain the poison out of my leg, although he felt that the damage caused was already such that my leg would probably never grow beyond its current size – I was 11 at the time. It would then either be such a hindrance that I would want it amputated, or I could live a decent life with a built-up shoe.

      Of course, I knew nothing of this when my mum and dad kissed me.

      Luckily the operation was a success, but I did require a month in hospital and six months with a walking stick, followed by visits to the physiotherapy unit for a further three years, till they were satisfied that the leg was growing in tandem with the other one. I quite enjoyed having the walking stick, which I used to throw for Lassie to chase until I realised she would never bring it back. There is nothing more pathetic than chasing your own dog for your walking stick, when you need a walking stick to walk.

      When I was eventually signed off by the physiotherapy department some three years after the operation, I knew how lucky I was. The final sign-off meant that they believed I was fixed for life, and in reality I was: I have never had any problems with my leg, and after the rehabilitation period I was able to do everything as if it had never happened. Yet I knew that not everyone was that fortunate.

      During my time in hospital I became aware of a boy in the same ward as me. He had visitors, but he never really noticed them as he lay looking at the ceiling. Sometimes his mum would just sit on a chair next to his bed and cry; other times, she would come with a priest who would administer Holy Communion, but all the time he just lay looking up, communicating using weak flicks of his eyelids.

      His name was Kieran, and when I was able get out of my bed I started going over to him with my cartoons. My leg at this point was attached to a drip, which was pumping antibiotic fluid directly into the bone, with another bag to collect the putrid, black-red infection as it drained. I was not able to move all over the ward, but I could make it to the other side of the room to his bed – it only took me around 15 minutes. When the nurses saw that I was visiting Kieran, thankfully they moved his bed next to mine.

      Kieran and I became good friends, mainly because we were the only ones in there for more than a few days and because we were very close in age. I would read comics with him or just talk, or show him things. Gradually his winks were accompanied by grunts, and it was clear he was on his way back from the damage that had been caused when he had been knocked over by a van whilst out playing.

      When I left hospital I was genuinely sad to be saying goodbye to Kieran. We kept in touch and, during my frequent visits to the hospital, I called in to see him on the ward and later at his house, when he had been deemed well enough to be transferred home, near Warrington. When my hospital visits ended and I had no reason to visit Warrington, our communication reduced to the odd letter or card, and a very occasional phone call, although his speech still had some way to go to be fully comprehensible and his handwriting looked like it had been a struggle to complete the words.

      Then, one morning, when I was getting ready to go to school, my dad opened a letter over breakfast. I recognised the handwriting as belonging to Kieran’s mum. I could see from his expression that my dad had a message to pass on. He handed me the letter. Kieran had died. Despite his improvement he hadn’t been strong enough to ward off normal infections and had lost his fight for life.

      Kieran had died as a consequence of an accident that could have been avoided. As always with these happenings that can ruin lives, there would have been many nights spent by all involved wishing that those split-second decisions that had put Kieran in front of that van had been different. Like my school friend in the swimming pool.

      I was 17 and, once again, I was reminded that nothing in life is guaranteed.

       CHAPTER 5

       TEENAGE KICKS

      I have teenage boys now. I look at their life and not only do I not understand them because they are teenagers and their job is to be incomprehensible to their parents, but also because their life is nothing like the life I had at their age. When I was a teenager, we did not have any form of communication apart from talking either face-to-face, being on the house phone or writing. Admittedly, the letter-writing side was in reality limited to notes around the classroom, usually involving a very poor caricature of the teacher with enormous genitals. Which now seems rather odd. Why would it be funny to suggest the man in front of you had a huge cock? But, for some reason in a world before YouTube, it was the funniest thing we could think of.

      Valentine’s Day cards were the only other time I recall writing to communicate. They were things to be prized, and size certainly mattered. During my teenage years I would give my girlfriend a Valentine’s card that was the size of a Wendy house, or padded so it was like a duvet in a box, although admittedly a duvet with a doe-eyed teddy bear on it. I wouldn’t for a minute suggest that I was in any way more romantic than any other teenage boy, but from an early age I learnt that you have to invest if you want something, and an impressive card, in my mind, stood you in good stead for a fondle.

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