Surgery and Lightning Strikes

The night before T went into hospital for surgery, we had thunderstorms. We watched the heavy dark cloud boil and counted the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The storm was getting nearer and nearer. Then there was a lightning strike and a huge rumble of thunder overhead. The lights went out and all our appliances went dead. We looked at each other. Was this some sort of omen? Then the power came back on. We checked the house. Everything seemed to be working, apart from the telephone. Slowly, the storm moved on and we went to bed with torches at the bedside. The next day, I took her into hospital.

T was having a planned abdominal operation. While she was waiting to be taken into theatre, we sent each other text messages. Then her messages suddenly stopped. And I had to wait. I paced around the house and tried to do the normal routine. But I was all on my own. It wasn’t reassuring. It only emphasised who was no longer with me.

Before, it had been me getting the operations. I was afraid, of course. Your pulse is sky high when you get onto the operating table. Everyone else is covered up in gowns and masks. They’re waiting to stick knives into you. Then the anaesthetist inserts something at your wrist and you’re out until you come round in the recovery room.

T had gone through the terrible ordeal of waiting three times for me. And all three operations were uncertain of the outcome. I marveled at her mental strength and stoicism. The hours ticked by. After four had elapsed I was almost pulling my hair out. Then a text message. She was alive and well. The operation had been a success. She’d spend two nights in hospital and then she could come home.

Eventually, the BT engineer came. The lightning had blown two master sockets inside the house, the cable at the gable end of the house and at the telegraph pole in the road. He spent an hour replacing the sockets and fixing the cable. With the landline working, I tried our three handsets. None worked. The lightning had blown those as well. But it hadn’t struck either of us. We’d both come through the ordeal. And now we could give thanks.

Long Covid - The TV Guide

Despite testing negative for the virus, I continued to feel unwell. When trying to do things, I was overcome with breathlessness and exhaustion. It was extremely limiting and made me very depressed. For five awful weeks I feared I had Long Covid. Then my breathing began to improve. I found I could do easy walks without needing to use my inhaler. I was even able to try harder walks and also easy cycle rides. I’m not fully back to normal, but I am well on the way. I don’t really know what led to my improvement. But I’m very grateful. Whilst in the thrall of the virus, I spent a lot of time watching TV drama. So here are my highlights.

My favourite TV channel is Talking Pictures TV. It’s on Freeview and Freesat and shows predominantly old films: British, European and American. I was tipped off about it by John Cooper Clarke, the Bard of Salford. Not personally, it was via an interview. He confessed that he hardly watched any other channel since he’d found TPTV. I feel similarly about it. My favourite programme on TPTV is Maigret. Every Tuesday at 21.05 they show a film of one of the novels, made for French TV in the 1990’s. The production values are good, the realization is accurate, the atmosphere is authentic and the lead actor is perfect. His name is Bruno Cremer and I think he’s the best Maigret I’ve seen. Rupert Davies in the 1960’s was quite good, but the production values were poor. Michael Gambon was fairly good too. Then came Rowan Atkinson. He was terrible: hollow, wooden and colourless. Georges Simenon describes the character as imposing and powerfully built. And Cremer fits the bill.

Other than that, I spent plenty of time on DVD’s. My favourite was ‘Pennies From Heaven’, by Dennis Potter, first broadcast in spring 1978 on the BBC (I missed it because I was working in Italy). I was astonished by how fresh, powerful and ambitious the six plays are. Using popular song and dance to explore and ironically comment on the motivations of the characters works so wonderfully well. The use of locations that I know from my childhood in Gloucester and the Forest of Dean is very evocative too. I think this is Dennis Potter's best work. The leads are all terrific: Bob Hoskins, Gemma Craven and Cheryl Campbell. The storyline involves deception, blackmail, rape, murder and prostitution, set amid the poverty of 1930’s Britain. All this darkness presents as a sub-text to the escapism of the popular songs of the time.This tension fuels the conflict (between fantasy and reality, desire and repression, delusion and inarticulacy) that drives the main characters and the narrative. ‘Pennies From Heaven’ gained audiences of 12 million when it was first shown on the BBC. Seeing it for the first time 45 years later, underlines just how safe, predictable and dull TV drama has become on the mainstream channels these days.