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This individual has long been known as a truly outsized character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he would be the one discussing the most recent controversy to catch up with a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of assorted players from the local club for forty years.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, with a glass of whisky in hand, his luggage in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Worrying Turn

By the time we got there, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. Other outpatients helped us help him reach a treatment area, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at festive gaiety in every direction, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?

The Aftermath and the Story

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has gone down in family lore 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. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.