This morning I caught a bus to the tram stop in Oldham. I was going to meet a couple of friends for lunch, finally having no immediate family commitments. As my bus made its way towards Oldham I observed an elderly couple get on and sit on the seat across the aisle from mine. After a moment or two I realised that the elderly gentleman’s profile was remarkably familiar. So I sneaked a look past him at his good lady. Yes, I was right. This was the gentleman who had been deputy head at the first school I worked at and his lady was a colleague in the Modern Languages Department, whose position as second on the department I had taken over some years later when she went on maternity leave.
Over the years since we all moved on to other things (she took over my position as second in the department when I left have my son) we have come across each other at various times. As well as becoming a well!known and respected head teacher in Greater Manchester, closer to home he was a big wheel in our local film society. We would meet at various social events. Occasionally I ran into them at the supermarket. But it had been years since I last came across them, on that occasion also on a bus going to Oldham.
We talked about this and that, a lot of reminiscing and they proudly pointed out that they are now 94. 94 years old and still getting out and about on the bus, making good use of their bus pass. Still in possession of all their marbles, by all accounts. Being good left wingers, lifelong members of the Labour Party, good activists in the local branch of the National Union of Teachers (even if we didn’t always agree on everything) must be good for a body!
They don’t get out much now, they told me. Today’s outing to a big hardware shop in the town centre was the height of excitement for this week! But still - 94, still active and totally compos mentis! Not at all bad!
We said good bye at the tram and bus interchange and went our separate ways.
I met my friends in Manchester. We had a good catch-up, ate pizza and had a glass or two of wine. One of my friends told us how she had recently had a brush with cancer without even realising it until it was all over. What she thought was an infected mosquito bite from a visit to Venice developed into a small but growing lump. After a couple of visits to her local pharmacist, then to her GP and eventually to A&E, she was advised to see someone in dermatology. That was when she discovered that there was a 18 months’ to 2 years’ wait to see a dermatologist, unless, her GP suggested, they declared that they thought it might be cancerous.
Not for a moment believing that cancer might be involved, she went along with this subterfuge. Within a week she was in hospital having the lump removed and sent off for biopsy. The results came back: yes, it was a cancerous tumour but everything was now removed. However, they would like to check up on her every six months. She felt she’d had a narrow escape!
I thought of the news that has just come out that Catherine, Princess of Wales, has completed her course of chemotherapy. And I thought of this article which I read this morning, in which a certain Hilary Osborne expresses some of the thoughts that went through my head when I saw the various photos and video clips of a very healthy-looking, glossy-haired, bright-faced recoveree. Now I’ve not had personal experience of chemotherapy but I am acquainted with several people who have and mostly they still looked pretty sick for quite a while. Maybe she had superior treatment.
Not that I begrudge her such an apparently wonderful recovery. I hope it’s the truth. And I hope her videos do give cancer sufferers some hope of seeing light at the end of that tunnel.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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