My brother in law has never telephoned me in the forty or more years I have known him. He has become increasingly deaf and I am by no means the easiest person to understand and hardly move my lips, I think this might go back to school when I was an inveterate subversive and disrupted classes from the back. My voice is not great either so we communicate by email regularly up to twice a week. About Palestine among other things, I send him the Jewish Voice for Peace he sends me stuff from the Indie and tells me I should stop reading the Guardian. We sometimes disagree quite violently and furious emails zing back and forth. When my old man was alive he would also send clippings to us both, a lot of obits from East London papers, another comrade had bit the dust, when you are 92 I guess it is expected. I send him obits from the Guardian of any old comrades.
I admire him immensely he paints, makes pots, still campaigns as much as his dodgy pins will allow and is as engaged in 'the struggle' as he ever was when he was a young pioneer and fought Moseley in Cable street. An admirable old warrior.
The other morning I lifted the phone and heard his angry voice yelling. 'You are my first hope and my last! They've got me here against my will and they won't let me go home. You know about human rights and they are abusing mine so get me out of here! You help immigrants now help me!' all at top volume and though I yelled back 'WHERE ARE YOU BARNEY?' many times he couldn't hear me. 'I've got to go I'm running out of money on this phone.' The phone went dead and I was left in bits,
I was on the landline to a good mate at the time and she had heard my yelling half of the conversation and she halted any temptation for me to indulge in full scale panic. She suggested I try his local hospital first before I sent for the cavalry.
He was there and I talked to a nurse who told me he was very angry but as he had nobody to look after him he couldn't go home. In fact he had demanded his clothes and sat on his bed all day and night demanding release I rang the only other relation I knew and he said he would visit. I can't drive much because of my shoulder (the young have no conception of the aggravation of us oldies with bits falling off and only a bus pass as compensation !)
I met, on the phone a new - to me- niece who seems to have an admiration for him equal to my own and tells me that he sends her kids cuttings of a political nature and she was visiting him too. I finally went with my partner by train on a Sunday. He received her well and yelled a greeting over the ward. She was delighted to meet him as I have been bigging him up for all the time I have known her, she wasn't disappointed.
His son returned from holiday and rescued him and Barney sent me an email pronto so we are back in touch and I will visit him at home soon. But I think that being stroppy is an excellent policy in hospital, it gets you noticed if not loved and your swift ejection is guaranteed!
I used the same technique when I had a stroke though in a less dramatic way and when I left a few nurses congratulated me on my independent stance. True I got out extremely quickly with many glares from sister but I feel it is a mistake to succumb to the system.
So well done Barney! I'm proud of you.
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