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He has always been a man of a larger than life figure. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he would be the one discussing the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday during the last four decades.

We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, with a glass of whisky in hand, suitcase in the other, and sustained broken ribs. He was treated at the hospital and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He insisted he was fine but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; 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 mum and I decided to take him to A&E.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

By the time we got there, he’d gone from unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer in every direction, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.

Cheerful nurses, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were working diligently and using that lovely local expression so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

By then it was quite late, and snow was falling, and I remember experiencing a letdown – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

If that is completely accurate, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I couldn’t possibly comment, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.