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He has always been a man of a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and never one to refuse to an extra drink. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.

Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and instructed him to avoid flying. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Morning Rolled On

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.

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

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us guide him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer all around, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.

Positive medical attendants, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

It was already late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?

The Aftermath and the Story

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling has definitely been good for my self-esteem. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.