The Answer

Laying flat on me back strapped to a stretcher in a speeding ambulance:blue lights flashing, siren yowling as we raced towards Brackenheim Hospital, was not the way I’d intended to spend Pfingsten/Whitsun/Pentecost/Spring Bank Holiday or wotever you choose to call it, but…….

I spent three days: Friday May 7th to Sunday May 9th, sharing compereing duties with Dieter at the Venner Folkfrühling, an absolutely guv’nor music festival, indisputably one of the best, if not the absolute best, festivals I’ve ever worked at. I was on the lovely little island known as the Mühleninsel, whilst other events took place at a variety of venues: the stage of the Gasthaus Linnenschmidt, its beer garden, the church, the streets of the town etc.

On Monday I had it orrff to Vince and Christine in Hildesheim. In order to avoid the usual start-of-the-week blockages (travelling along the Autobahn on a Sunday you pass dozens of lay-bys, and service areas, all chock-a-bloody-block with lorries unable to continue their journeys due to the no-driving on a Sunday regulation for vehicles not carrying perishable goods, and at first horn’s honk on Monday morning they swarm onto the road like ten-ton tortoises causing tailbacks bleeding miles long) I drove on country roads. On Tuesday Shirl came to Hildesheim by train, we met her at the station, and casually, en paassant, I mentioned that due to a tickling in me throat, I feared the onset of a wee bit cold.

Yeah, okay, I’ll return to the “speeding ambulance” jazz in a minute.

The reason both his doting parents were ensconced in the gassy flat, which Lisa the cat allows Vince and Christine to share with her, was that Wednesday was his birthday. As always, Christine had baked a delicious cake, and that evening cooked an equally delicious Vince’s-special-birthday-scoff; a few of their friends arrived, and we all had a jolly time. Unfortunately in the night, the “wee bit cold” turned into a somewhat bigger bugger: a few sniffles and sneezes were irritating, but the worst was a nacking corrff making its appearance in the middle of the night which, by morning, was shaking me, the bed, the room, the immediate environs, and succeeding in totally obliterating the appalling noise created by bulldozers, cranes, chain-saws, jackhammers, and the continual thump of workmen busily constructing a vast new building directly next door. Needless to say, I was family-forced into spending the day tucked up in bed, and being spoiled rotten with plentiful mugs of steaming Rosie.

Two days later thanks to a lot of tender loving care (TLC as lovers of acronyms[LOAs] prefer to call it) I was feeling fairly fine again, and on the Sunday (to dodge the heavy traffic) we sett off home. Vince tried to delay our departure, but I had a couple of urgent appointments Monday, so we had no real choice – we had to leave. Me “wee bit cold” had done a double-swift vanisher, taking most of the hacker with it, though a few rumbling chest coughs and the very occasional body-shaker did now and then surface; otherwise I was convinced I was back to normal…ho,ho,ho…famous last an’orlthat.

Right, now I’m getting to the “speeding ambulance” jazz,

Suddenly, at about one of the clock on Sunday morning, I was convinced that the old bastard with the scythe and egg-timer, who ALWAYS TALKS IN CAPS, was looming at me bed-head, had thrust out a bony arm and made a grab: an iron band clasped me chest in a griplike vice, me throat shut-up shop, and I was completely unable to breathe.

Now, it is perfectly obvious to me, and everybody else able to think clearly, that if, and when, this sort of occurrence occurrs, the most important, absolutely vital thing is not to get into a two-and-eight, but remain serenely calm, collected, cool and simply relax to deal with the trouble – which, ov kosst, I did…well, almost did…well,would certainly have done had I not fucking Panicked !!! flipped me lid, and gone into a flat fear-filled spin. I attempted to speak, but merely a squeak, like a terrified termite farting in a colander emerged. The old bastard with the scythe and egg-timer, who ALWAYS TALKS IN CAPS tightened his grip upon me windpipe and squeezed harder. Shirley, reluctant to be excluded from the panic, rubbed me back and said: “Stand up.” Probably sound advice, but not feasible when one’s weak legs have turned to jelly and impossible to explain why one is not following the advice when no air is entering or leaving because one’s throat has become tight as a fish’s arse. I managed a choking gurgle, repeated me terrified termite farting in a colander squeak, and hoped that would in some way explain my predicament. When she repeated: “Stand up.” I realised it hadn’t.

I grabbed me asthma puffer from the bedside table, puffed and tried to inhale, and some four and a half weeks later a measly thin trickle of air found its way past the horrifying grasp of the old bastard with the scythe and egg-timer, who ALWAYS TALKS IN CAPS, he, frustrated at not fulfilling his purpose, released me trachea, and pissed off to scare the shit out of some other poor sod.

Although a modicum of calm had replaced my initial gasping, choking, and thrashing about with bulging eyes, and the terrified termite farting in a colander squeak was almost sounding like my ‘Obson’s, I was worried that there might be a repeat chorus. so Shirl hied it to the dog, and called Emergency Services. Ten minutes later the frontdoor bell rang, and she led three hulking great brutes in combat uniforms up the apples: a short chat, a listen to me lungs, and we were away. I cleverly remembered (despite the lurking panic residue) to shove me reading specs, and the wonderful book “Sunnyside” by Glen David Gold, which Vince and Christine had given me, into an overnight grip along with me pyjamas and wash-bag. Minutes later I was laying flat on me back strapped to a stretcher in a speeding ambulance:blue lights flashing, siren yowling as we raced towards Brackenheim Hospital.

Shirley said that as we left, all the neighbours threw open their windows, and wanted to know what was going on.

I was decanted from the stretcher in the ambulance to a bed,wheeled into Emergency Ward 10, and immediately got a needle attached to some plastic looking thingy stuck in me arm. “What’s that for ?” I asked.

“Blood” replied a dour Doc, proceeding to drain me left arm of the precious stuff, as he, at the same time, asked me all sorts of questions about my general health; then away to the X-ray room, and after that down a long corridor to a waiting ward. Unlike British hospitals which have mile long wards with umpteen beds, I’ve never been – either as patient or visitor – in  German hospital which had more than three beds per ward. The one I was being wheeled into was empty, blimey, it was like being a private patient, though it was gorn three in the morning before I could enjoy the privacy, as there were further visits from the dour Doc who was still gathering information about me.

As was to be expected I coughed all sodding night, and slept hardly at all, but at least I was able to do it in private. Then it was time for the dour Doc to visit, and relieve me of even more blood! I began to suspect that the speeding ambulance had taken a wrong turning and we’d landed in Transylvania, however a quick butcher’s out the burnt showed me the gently waving in the breezes, treeses of Brackenheim.

Shirley phoned early in the morning, then arrived at about eleven o’clock, and had to spend the next several hours in the hospital as G-Town was celebrating its annual May Festival, all the roads were blocked off, and the bus was unable to get her home until half past five that evening. Vince phoned a coupler times, offering to hasten to my sickbed’s side, but though I was highly tempted to accept his offer, it would have been sheer selfish indulgence – there was nothing he could do, it was just great that he phoned and I could rabbit with him.

My sojourn in a “private” ward ended abruptly, and noisily, at about two in the morning: the door flew open, the lights flashed on, and amidst cries of “…left-hand down a bit…to me…back a bit…forwards…right-hand…”a bed was wheeled in accompanied by two worried looking women, and the night staff. The old geezer who’d just arrived was extremely Mutton so soon my once-private—ward was loudly echoing….

One of the nurses asked: “How are your…”

“WHAT ?”

“THE NURSE ASKED HOW YOUR…”

“EH ?”

” Do you feel as if…”

“WHAT ?”

“DO YOU FEEL AS IF….”

And so on, and so on in unceasing raucousness, as everyone continued to speak in booming MODERN GOTHIC.

Obviously I was right cream-crackered having coughed all night, then had me little bit of sleep DISTURBED BY THE OLD FELLER’S DEAFNESS. And the various members of the medical profession who arrived to ply their trade upon me (nicking more of me blood)  kept yelling at the poor old sod, I’d already sussed it, so after a couple of yells, I’d shove in me own twopennorth: ” Excuse me doctor/nurse/wotever, if you stand in front of him he’s able to read your lips.”

Inevitably they’d then move even further behind him, as if they thought that, like friendly policeman Johnson, he could watch the lips from the one eye stuck in the back of his loaf, and off we’d go again: “Have you ever had…”

“WHAT ?”

“I asked if you ever had…”

“EH ? “

” Oh, fer fucksake ! Stand IN FRONT OF HIM.” I’d plead.

Vince phoned and we a long, interspersed with coughing, chat; then Shirl –who said she’d be in at three in the afternoon, arrived at two. As she left the house, one of our neighbours asked how I was, she replied that she was about to go to the hospital to find out, and he said “I’ll give you a lift”adding that he’d spoken to the others and they’d all decided to come a-visiting. Shirl had visions of the remaining five families who live down our alley all turning up at once, streaming in through the hospital doors carrying countless bowls of gorgeous, aromatic Turkish delicacies. ” No, no,” she said, “that’s very kind of you, but he needs peace and quiet at the moment.”

“Alright, but as soon as he feels better…”

Next day I was allowed home.

As the great Dylan Thomas once wrote: “…THere’s no real beginning or end and there’s very little in the middle…”

But it does explain why I’ve not been answering your emails.