Someone once told me that life is what happens while you are making other plans so I must have spent a lot of time making them because Ive lived enough for two people. Then again as I write this second attempt to put my life into perspective, its against the backdrop of my second fight with cancer and this one isn't going away.
I still remember the day in 2022 when I was given a year to live. Everything became horribly painful to face and yet weirdly wondrous at the same time. Visits by family (we have 4 kids and 12 grandkids) became scary occasions for me because I became prone to bursting into tears with the sheer weight of the diagnosis. I had to discreetly nip to the bathroom to quickly get it out of my system, but gradually, like anyone with cancer, you find a way back into day to living otherwise it crushes you. Crying is a valve and a useful one for me, but for someone of my generation, born in 1962 and from a forces background, it was hard to get used to and its still not a spectator sport. Although as in all aspects of life, theres a caveat; whenever Im admitted to Hospital the tangle of emotions brought on by the fact that they missed the tumours on the initial scans and yet the fact that now I have to rely on them for my life, often makes the situation overwhelming as Im certain happens to others. The Staff however are patient, kind and discreet and I thank them.
I was going to write this as a book but decided I was being a pretentious prick so Im doing the world a favour and writing a blog instead. If you find it entertaining, all I ask is that you consider making a modest donation to the Hospice at Home West Cumbria whose support I now sadly find myself in need of.
https://hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk/donate
So, before we delve into my life, lets deal with the cancer sized elephant in the room. In 2011 I had renal cancer and happily donated the part of my left kidney that was affected to research or to someones steak ’n’ kidney pie, I'm not really sure, and other than a minor nervous breakdown, I had rude health until my year from hell, 2022. Cancer came back, but not just the one this time, it brought friends and by the time I got through a painfully slow 5 month diagnosis, there were 7 of the little buggers eating away at my pelvis, stomach, right lung and pancreas. Under the circumstances 12 months seemed a trifle generous by the consultant but Im even happier that modern medicine gave me a suspended sentence that I'm still serving. Without the incredible support from Dianne however, I know id have been well and truly buggered.
Its not something Id recommend to a friend but if you do find yourself in similar shoes, dig deep, dont be afraid to cry, have hope and remember that vanilla Ice cream always works even when you feel nauseous!
So, Ive told you when it begins in 1962 but what about some context. I was born into a second generation Irish family into a 2 bed terraced house with an outside loo and no bath or other internal plumbing other than a single kitchen tap. The house was on James Street and the memories are great despite the cloud that hung over the whole family for years. I never fully understood it as a child but I was born only 17 years after the end of the war and memories of all the suffering and of course rationing were still raw. It was also more importantly only 15 years since my grandfather on my dads side was killed in William Pit the most dangerous pit in the Kingdom. As I write this, its 17 years since my own dad passed away and I still find that very upsetting to dwell on, so just how dad brought us up to not have a care in our world, feeling happy and safe, I’ll never know. The previous generation really did have a strength we can only imagine.
We didn't have spare cash in the family but we had food and loving parents and we had proper old fashioned neighbours who cared for each other. We left that house when I was nearly 6 but I have clear memories of being taken into mums room by dad to see my younger brother Jim when he was only minutes old. I can remember my brother Stephen aged 3 sitting onto the embers of a bonfire and giving his bum an unexpected roasting. I can remember my elder brother David who I followed into the Navy many years later, getting lost on the Cleator Moor to Moor Row Railway line. That was a trick in itself because all he and my cousin Peter had to do was turn back! I can remember the Motorcycle Club on a Friday night on the adjacent Dawson Street. The bikers used to give us a bag of crisps to share if we were polite so we always were. I can remember hiding under the living room window with my mum because Gypsies were knocking at the door and she was petrified they would cast a spell on her because she couldn't afford to buy their clothes pegs; I can remember the water board sending a horse and cart with a water barrel on the back when all the water had been cut off; I can remember getting a slap for hiding under the table in the parlour on the day of Jims Christening party with the dish of homemade rum butter id nabbed, and I can remember Wayne Harrison who who later became a professional footballer and who was about the same age as David coming round to play. Wayne always had a bag of sweets or crisps to share. I can also remember dad taking Dave and I to see Bobby Charlton at the Nights Club on the Moor in 1970 and thinking I was in heaven.
They are all happy memories of a black and white age when the telly finished mid evening with a rousing rendition of God Save the Queen. The week started with Sunday mass at Cleator and ended with weekend walks with Dad, something we kept up for over a decade. Ironically after watching some neighbours die distressingly painfully with Cancer in the 70’s, it became one of the things dad was always nervous about. He passed away cancer free while Ive enough to share.
When we moved to 2 Hopedene on Cleator Moors new Mill Hill housing estate, we felt rich. We had central heating as opposed to no heating and a fitted bath that dad could miraculously fill by turning a tap. The downside was bathing with 5 brothers all at the same time and knowing that the other 4 pee’ed in the bath.
Mam bought our first car, a Ford Popular for a fiver in 1969 and we were kings. It had no windscreen washer system so dad made his own with an empty fairy liquid bottle, some tubing and some careful drilling below the windscreen. I thoroughly enjoyed my whole childhood and can only hope my own children were as satisfied with theirs, but after 18 months of part time jobs in the Working mens club and serving petrol at the Forge Service station, mine was over and it was time for me to flee the nest and so I followed Dave into the warm embrace of the mob (Royal Navy).
More to come folks but in the meantime, dont forget to support the Hospice at Home if you can and of course visit our gorgeous wee shop on Lowther Street for a bottle and a chat.
https://hospiceathomewestcumbria.org.uk/donate
www.richardsonsofwhitehaven.co.uk
