by Dave Spikey
I stormed off and into the lab, shouting, ‘Somebody’s got my sample, please check your test tubes!’ I stole about ten yards on Glenn and Dr Maddox and approached Darryl, with whom we’d sort of mated up, and said under my breath, ‘Lend us your sample for a minute, Darryl, or we’re in the shit.’ Darryl sussed out what had happened and gave us his sample as Dr Maddox entered. I held it up, ‘It’s here! Panic over.’ Thankfully Dr Maddox walked away and Glenn started to get his colour back.
We were in the organic chemistry lab later and by sheer chance I found a small vial of the DNA we needed for the exam, which I ‘borrowed’.
When the month was over and everyone had presented Dr Maddox with their extract and he’d run each one through the Gas Chromatography system, he appeared back in the lab, looking stern and troubled. He said, ‘No one, no one has managed to extract a significant amount of DNA. One month’s work wasted. You’re hopeless, the lot of you!’
Then he continued, ‘Well, I say “the lot of you”, but there is one exception.’
‘Oh shit!’ I thought, as he went on, ‘Bramwell and Richardson have somehow produced an almost 100 per cent extract. How do you explain your success, gentlemen, when you followed the exact same protocol as everyone else?’
I just shrugged. ‘Skill and dedication?’
Like Dr Manning, he didn’t believe me – but he couldn’t prove otherwise.
The Haematology element in the evenings was, on the whole, excellent. Keith Hyde from Manchester Royal Infirmary, who is some sort of professor now, bless him, organized it and was aided by Len Seal (‘Ron’ to us – he does exactly what it says on the sample) and they lectured us, aided by guest consultants and specialists from local hospitals. Because we worked in a pretty basic general hospital lab in Bolton, much of what Glenn and I heard was news to us. We’d read about it in textbooks, but never practised anything at all of a specialist nature.
It became clear quite quickly through attending these lectures and discussions afterwards that we in Bolton were way behind most labs in terms of the services and diagnostic testing we offered. We didn’t offer any cytochemical staining for use in leukaemia diagnosis, we didn’t offer testing for genetic defects in haemoglobin or enzymes; we did nothing other than the most rudimentary tests for blood clotting. We were embarrassingly out of touch.
Much of the problem was that we didn’t have a consultant haematologist. Our consultant was a forensic pathologist with an interest in haematology (not much of an interest, as it turned out). The senior staff in the department – although a great team – were not highly qualified. Through our studies, Glenn and I, although basic grade staff, in fact became far more knowledgeable than the senior staff, who had qualified under an earlier system, when the pathology sciences were nowhere near as advanced as they were under the ONC–HNC system.
I decided to push for cytochemistry staining and abnormal haemoglobin testing at the lab and ordered all the necessary reagents and equipment we needed. Glenn decided to concentrate on blood coagulation (which was good because I couldn’t stand it, or understand it, to be frank).
I must say that everyone was very sceptical about the new tests I was introducing, but I followed the methodology – and, stuff me, it worked! I got the techniques to succeed and I cannot tell you the sense of pride and achievement. I’d set them up on my own. Ordered the apparatus, equipment, reagents, applied the science and made it work; brought some credibility to the department.
Glenn did the same for blood coagulation, introducing assays for blood-clotting factors; and later Sean did the same in the new science of Immunology. The class of ’68 made a massive difference to the service offered by the department – and I believe to the lives of many patients.
Cadet Nurses
BEFORE THE IDEA of graduate nurses ever saw the light of day, the hospital employed a grade of nursing staff straight from school at sixteen as cadet nurses. This was a great idea and, like many great ideas, it has long since been abandoned.
Cadet nurses rotated for two years around all the hospital wards and departments in a sort of apprenticeship. During that time, they learnt rudimentary nursing skills, became familiar with the workings of most hospital departments and did a lot of mugging about. As I say, it was a sound idea because by the time they started their nurse training, they had gained an amazing amount of basic knowledge from that work experience, which meant, for instance, that if they had to take a blood sample to Haematology urgently, they would know exactly where the laboratory was, who best to deliver that sample to and a little bit about the significance of the results.
We had cadet nurses in the Pathology department. I only really remember three. One was Val and she was the niece of the great Nat Lofthouse, Lion of Vienna and Bolton sporting legend. One had red hair and was a laugh and lived on Church Road. The other was Julie and I remember her very well because I married her. Julie was tall and slim and pretty and looked great in the yellow cadet uniform. She was also very bright and had a sarcastic sense of humour, which was why, even though Ken, the senior in Haematology, called her ‘pigeon legs’, I still fancied her.
I honestly don’t remember much about our courtship, except that it was great most of the time. I was very happy with Julie. We went clubbing a lot because she loved dancing and I remember us going to see a midnight premiere of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the Odeon. We went to Southport on a day trip with (I think) Bernard and his girlfriend, and I tried to impress Julie by taking her to a cocktail bar. I’d read somewhere about Pimms and I thought that I’d be Mister Sophisticated and order one for her.
‘I’ll have a pint of bitter and a Pimms, please.’
‘Which Pimms?’
‘What?’
‘There are different types of Pimms; we’ve got number one or a number two?’
‘Two, please.’
‘What do you want that with?’
‘With it? Forget it, have you got Babycham?’
Julie lived with her mum, dad and brother Bernard on Oldhams estate. Her mum was – still is – a lovely lady; her dad was a sound bloke; and I vaguely remember some uncle or neighbour, who may have had narcolepsy or something, who would pass out on the rug in front of the fire, which led to a slightly surreal hour where the rest of the family ignored him and watched TV over his lifeless form.
We were married at Holy Infants RC Church on Friday 29 September 1972, a week before my twenty-first birthday. Sean was my best man. Because I wasn’t a Catholic, I had to have ‘lessons’ with the priest to learn all about Adam and Eve and God’s plan for us and Jesus and all that. I forget the priest’s name (Fr Barr?), but I was struck by the way that he took the Bible absolutely literally; as an actual written history of Jesus’s life.
I remember that he wasn’t impressed by me enquiring about Jesus’s carpentry skills: if, as he suggested, the Bible was a factual account of our Lord’s life, then Jesus was actually a real bona-fide carpenter – in which case, where was the written evidence in the Bible to support this? No mention of him making so much as a pencil case or even knocking his mum up a bookshelf. I wondered if He employed the same methods as demonstrated in His many miracles. ‘Water – wine. Wine – water.’ (I have him presenting it in a Tommy Cooper-style.) ‘Wood – coffee table. Coffee table – wood.’ Surprising that he still married us.
On the night of the wedding, we stayed in our new house on Cloverdale Square (a nice semi-detached for £3,300 in 1972!), after a reception at Smithills Coaching House just up the road from where I went to school. We honeymooned in Criccieth on the beautiful Lleyn Peninsula, one of my favourite holiday destinations as a kid.
Our son Stephen was born on 11 March 1973. That afternoon, I was due to play in an important game for the Bolton Hospital’s football team and Julie was admitted to the maternity ward to be induced into labour. This was timed to occur at five o’clock by the obstetrician on call, who couldn’t do it any earlier because he was playing centre half. Just before kick-off
, his bleep sounded and he answered the phone to discover that he may have mistimed the drip because Julie had gone into labour.
I sprinted across to the maternity ward, still in football kit. This was an amazing coincidence because my dad was playing football when I came into the world on 6 October 1951; no bleeps in those days. Julie had a difficult labour and had to have an episiotomy, which required many stitches. Only the obstetrician could perform this procedure – and by my reckoning the second half had only just started. She had to lie there, poor thing, until the game finished.
We were expecting a girl; I don’t know why. Maybe my gran had held a spinning needle over Julie’s bump or something, but we were so convinced that we decorated the baby’s bedroom pink, with lots of girlie stuff in there … and here was Stephen – all nine pounds, twelve ounces of him. That’s stretching it a bit, as they say.
Truth is that we didn’t have a name for our new baby straight away, so surprised were we at having a boy, so we called him David temporarily. It was Alison, a good friend of Julie, ex-girlfriend of mine and nurse on the obstetrics ward, who suggested Stephen, and we both liked that immediately.
Stephen was a beautiful baby, but he wouldn’t sleep at night. We took it in turns to get up in the night for hours with him; well, Julie probably did more than me. We tried everything and still he wouldn’t sleep. He wasn’t crying a lot, he was just, well, awake and noisy and wanted attention. We tried all the usual medications, Calpol and various recommended cures, to no avail. It was absolutely wearing us out. I was going to work dead on my feet.
One day, as a last resort, I went to see the sister in charge of maternity and asked her advice. She told me to put a bit of brandy in his late-night milk and that would send him off. I tried it, expecting a miracle – but all I got was a pissed-up baby kicking off.
Finally, a miracle did happen; a friend told us that Stephen might need a ‘comforter’, something to suck or hold at night. She said a piece of ribbon or satin often worked and we remembered that the pink blankets we’d bought for the expected baby girl had a satin edging, so we put one in Stephen’s cot and stood back and then … Hallelujah! He started crying, but then reached for the satin and started rubbing it on his nose, sighed and started to snooze again. He had the comforter for years. Even when it fell apart, we kept strips of the satin for him to use.
Stephen was a model child. He was everything you’d want from a boy growing up. Good-natured, kind and bright, and I have so many happy memories of that time. There was one awful incident that I remember vividly, which happened just as I was getting out of my car after work, not longer after we’d moved house to New Hall Lane, to a beautiful big semi-detached in a really nice area of Bolton. I heard a scream, an awful pained scream, and I knew it was Stephen. I dashed round the back of the house and there he was, with a finger mangled in between the chain and cogs on his bike. I wound the chain back to free his finger, the top of which was hanging off; Julie wrapped a tea towel around it; and we drove down to Bolton Royal Infirmary.
They looked at him immediately and the consultant reckoned that as it was still connected via a small flap of skin, he could re-attach the fingertip – but there was a problem. Stephen had just eaten his tea and so could not have an anaesthetic for some hours, so we had to sit and wait. I can’t imagine the pain he was in or what was going through his young mind; I do remember how brave he was, how he never moaned or cried or complained and how proud I was of him, especially when he looked up at me after a couple of hours and said, ‘I think it’s fallen off.’ The surgeon did re-attach it successfully, although Stephen did have some loss of feeling down one side. They say that every cloud has a silver lining – and the silver lining for Steve was that he could stop his school violin lessons, which he hated.
My beautiful daughter Jill was born five years after Stephen. We couldn’t believe our luck in being blessed with another lovely child. Jill slept through the night more than Stephen had done as a baby, but it was difficult getting her to sleep and I remember lying on the bed next to her singing ‘Nellie the Elephant’ over and over again, just like I’d done with Stephen. She did have the odd tantrum, which involved her throwing herself on the floor and screaming a lot, but I just picked her up and took her up to her bedroom, threw her on the bed and slammed the door and she stopped doing it.
I experienced another awful moment when Jill ran into the kitchen just as I was pouring the boiling water off some spaghetti. She was only a toddler and ran up to me and grabbed my leg. I jolted the pan and one big drop of boiling water was thrown out. I can see it now, watching it rise then begin to fall, and me unable to do anything as I held the pan of boiling water. The drop hit Jill on her bare shoulder and she screamed. Although I was devastated, I just thank the Lord that it missed her pretty face, because it has scarred her for life. It’s not a big scar, thank God – but it’s there.
Regrets – More Than a Few
JULIE AND I divorced when Stephen was ten and Jill was five. I don’t want to go into it too much. Mainly because I’m ashamed of myself and I don’t believe that sharing it will benefit anyone. Suffice it to say that after the first couple of years of our marriage, I became a terrible husband and I treated Julie badly. I was selfish, uncaring and immature and I behaved in a way that must have really hurt her and that I will always regret. I was never violent or abusive, but my behaviour at times was unforgivable. I’m very sorry.
I suppose you could say that it was a classical case of getting married too soon and then growing apart. After all, I was only twenty and Julie nineteen when we wed and we really didn’t have any life experience, but when things started to go wrong and we ended up arguing and fighting, I didn’t make any effort to try to make things right. I was very immature as I say, and this new vibrant world of hospital work, with all my new friends and colleagues, together with all the associated social aspects, really opened my eyes and made me want more of everything … and I neglected my responsibilities. Unfeeling, uncaring selfish idiot that I was.
I moved into a terraced house around the corner. From that moment, I’d see the kids at every opportunity – although I’m ashamed to say that, on occasions, I still put myself first. Julie had now qualified as a nurse and was working shifts, which meant that I got to see Stephen and Jill very regularly as I covered for her. I think that some weeks I saw my children more than when I was married and living at home.
Stephen and Jill took the divorce badly, I think. It would break my heart, putting them to bed at night and Jill saying, ‘Don’t go home, Daddy, stay here.’ I used to go home and lock myself in the bathroom and break my heart, cry and cry, distraught for hours, especially at Christmas and birthdays. But this was my punishment and it was well deserved. I just wish with all my heart that I hadn’t hurt my wonderful children so much, but I did.
I still did a lot of the dad things. I think I got better at putting them first as time progressed and I took them both to swimming lessons, Jill to ballet and tap, and Stephen to Cubs.
We got Stephen a Commodore 64 computer as a present one year. It was second-hand but immaculate and came in its own carrying case. I will never ever forget the look of sheer joy that appeared on his face when he opened that present. We used that computer a lot together.
Both of them did exceptionally well at swimming and took all the lifesaving badges. Jill did very well at dancing and then she grew about two foot (taller, that is) in a week and her ambitions to be a ballerina faded a touch. Steve got a remote-control car kit one year and we built it (a Mitsubishi Shogun) – and then found out that there were events where you could race them. We would go to Leverhulme Park on a Sunday and he would race his car in the novice class and I remember that he won an event and a small cup one day. That was a brilliant moment.
My children have grown up to be fine people. Julie takes much of the credit for that, as do the kids themselves. My father was always my hero – being kind, caring and compassionate – and when he died in 2001, my ch
ildren took his place.
My son because he’s such a good man. He has many admirable character traits that I’ve not. He gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, tries to find the good in everybody and is far more generous and giving than I ever was. Stephen has also always been very artistic, a trait I think he inherited from his grandfather, to whom he was very close. In fact, right up to taking his GCSEs, he was half decided on a career in design, but then he announced that he wanted to go to music college. This surprised his mum and me because he’d not taken music at GCSE level, but we’d bought him a guitar soon after our divorce and I think that he lost himself in learning to play as an aid to dealing with the break-up, although I’ve never asked him if that is the case. This is another failing of mine: I’m a bit useless at communicating with people, friends, colleagues and family alike, especially if it’s concerning a particularly delicate topic. I’ve fudged so many important conversations which leads to misunderstandings and backtracking and confusion.
Anyway, regarding the music issue, Julie wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but we decided after much discussion that if that was what he wanted, he should do it. He auditioned for and won a place at Leigh College and studied Performing Arts and took his GCSE Music. He did really well at college and became an accomplished guitarist. He’s played in a variety of bands all around the world, Irish, Mexican, you name it, and once famously got lost in a scary suburb of Moscow after winning a vodka-drinking competition held after he’d played at a St Patrick’s Day concert there! How he won the contest is beyond me (and him), as he doesn’t normally drink so much. He’s recently made the leap into playing for touring musical theatre shows and won a place at the Academy of Contemporary Music, making us all very proud of him again.