Farewell to a fine old countryman

We know that nothing is forever, not even the sun and stars. Yet death always comes as a terrible shock, however old or poorly the deceased. So I was duly stunned on Friday morning when news reached me of the passing of my next-door neighbour of 23 years, Andrew Beresford.

Etta and Andrew, 2005

It would be idle to pretend that Andrew (or “Mr Beresford” as I always called him) and I had a huge amount in common, beyond the proximity of our living arrangements. We did not get off to the best possible start when he hailed me aggressively over the garden wall as I inspected the semi-derelict cottages I had just acquired. Few people could invest the words “Can I help you?” with quite so much menace.

But after an introductory period of chilly mutual misunderstanding, I began to develop a huge respect for the man and his lifestyle. He and his wife Etta kept goats, pigs, turkeys and chickens, and grew vegetables and fruit. Many country people enjoy eggs from their own hens; few also cure the bacon to go with them. A series of chest freezers allowed them to enjoy their own produce all year round. (Never believe anyone who tries to tell you that frozen food is rubbish.)

Andrew's goats

The henhouse with the finest view in England

Indeed, they seemed to have little need of shops except to buy the odd bottle of whisky. A fire burned in their grate 365 days a year and the smell of home baking regularly filled their kitchen. It was exactly the sort of life of rural self-sufficiency I had always dreamt of for myself, but will almost certainly never realise.

But Andrew also had skills that I could never dream of mastering. He was a man of prodigious strength, whose ability to drive a fence post into hard ground with his bare hands never ceased to amaze me. He had an immense knowledge of horses, having begun work on farms in the days when they were the principal source of power. He broke horses to harness and drove them in traps and carts he had built himself. He also carved beautiful walking sticks, one of which I shall treasure as a memento of his skill.

Some of Andrew's horses

Some of Andrew's carts

Above all he was, beneath his occasionally forbidding exterior, a warm and generous neighbour with a great love of children. For years I took him a daily copy of The Journal when I was not working away from home (which was, I regret to say, all too frequently). I had only recently handed on that baton to my two-year-old son, and will never forget him proudly walking up the garden path with a copy of the paper tucked under his arm, repeatedly rehearsing his line, “Ayo, Mr Beresford, I bring you paper!”

A line which somehow got shyly abbreviated to “Paper!” at the moment of delivery, but still raised a smile.

Andrew with the Hann family, November 2010

Although he was 87 and had been in poor health for some time, I never imagined that I had seen the last of Andrew. And, as usual when someone departs, there are regrets: in this case that I never told him what a very high regard I had for him. Perhaps it would have been better to put it in a column before he died, though more likely it would just have caused embarrassment all round.

So let me conclude this uncharacteristically uncynical piece by offering my most sincere condolences to his widow Etta, sons Neville and Scott, and all his extended family. Andrew, it was a privilege to have known you.

And if there is anyone out there – whether in your family or among your friends and neighbours – that you really admire, respect or even love, and you have never let them know, take a tip from me. Tell them today. Because tomorrow may turn out to be too late.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Daring to be rude about the NHS

One of the most striking changes in this country during my lifetime has been the almost complete death of respect. Parents, teachers, clergy, police, politicians, royalty; all the traditional authority figures are now routinely abused.

So far as I can see, there are only two notable exceptions to the current British “disrespect” rule: the Muslim religion and the NHS. I think we all understand why few dare to be rude about the former; but why are politicians of all parties falling over themselves to praise the NHS and assure us that it will be exempt from the swingeing cutbacks which are inevitably heading our way, as a result of the decision to spend so much of our money saving bankers from themselves?

I am a child of the NHS, though my only significant direct exposure to it was having my tonsils removed in the old Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital in Rye Hill when I was six. An experience so horrific that I was still having nightmares about it four decades later.

It then superintended the decline and deaths of my parents, with mixed results. The things that stick in the mind are my father being stuck in a private room in a spanking new hospital where no-one ever responded to his bell; to the extent that my mother once found him slumped onto a newspaper for so long that a perfect mirror image of the front page had transferred itself to his face.

Or there was the time I went to pick him up after a routine operation to be told that he was not allowed to walk to the car (though that was precisely how he would be getting around as soon as he reached home); no porter would push him in a wheelchair during their sacred dinner hour; and if I dared to push him myself the whole hospital would be closed by a strike.

Fast-forward 20-odd years to 2009, and how have things changed? Our hopes were scarcely raised when, shortly before our baby was due to be born, we found our chosen hospital covered in signs apologising for the restrictions imposed on visitors while attempts were made to control an outbreak of the norovirus.

Despite the site being festooned in banners boasting about a 45% increase in consultant numbers since it became an NHS foundation trust in 2004, my wife only ever saw one during a long series of what were supposed to be consultant appointments prior to the birth, and I never met one at all.

As for as the experience of childbirth itself, and the care of our son during a worrying few days of hypoglycaemia, we were hugely appreciative of the work of some brilliant, kind and dedicated professionals. However, this was counterbalanced by the experience of dirty and horrifically overheated wards, inedible food, surly support staff and a slow-grinding bureaucracy so monumentally frustrating that I was seriously fearing for my wife’s sanity by the time I had arranged her discharge. By which stage, we were able to take our son home with the added bonus of a hospital-acquired infection.

We agreed as we drove out of the hospital grounds that we would not be having any more children unless we could afford to do the whole thing privately, of which there is little sign; pregnancy being one of those conditions which private medical insurance curiously fails to cover.

In short, I remain unconvinced that the countless billions lavished on the NHS since 1997 have been wisely spent, or that they have made it anything like “the envy of the world” it was always cracked up to be. I for one would be prepared to respect the first politician who dared to initiate a genuinely open public debate about why this is, and what can be done about it.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.