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He has always been a man of a truly outsized figure. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one discussing the newest uproar to befall a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.

Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, whisky in one hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.

The Day Progressed

Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

Thus, prior to me managing to placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.

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 had moved from being unwell to almost unconscious. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.

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

The Aftermath and the Story

While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted DVT. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, 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”.