King of Pain

Back in the '60s when I was six years old my appendix burst and I
was rushed from London to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. I went
there in an ambulance with a motorcycle escort, siren going full-blast,
which probably freaked out a lot of hippies and girls in mini-skirts as
I sped by.

At the hospital they made me well again, despite the scepticism of a
priest, who threw holy water all over me, and went on in Latin.

I spent two months there recovering, and the closest friends I made
were other long-termers, also very sick, suffering from various cancers
and leukaemias.

In those days kids who caught those diseases were handed a death
sentence, as if parts of their bodies took the natural urge to grow as
a licence to become insane.

Somedays they'd be running around the ward laughing, while others,
after radiation treatment or surgery, they'd lie curled up in bed, too
sick to even talk.

Our parents went through hell. My mother always looked tired and gaunt,
though I didn't really understand what she was going through at the
time. I think that kind of suffering is something you can't comprehend
until you're older. But she was a Catholic, and took comfort in her
belief. Other parents looked bewildered, and angry.

As their children began to weaken, some lost their faith completely,
which was a big thing back in the sixties, when it seemed that everyone
believed in God.

But I was lucky. One day a nurse pulled my stitches out and I was told
I could leave.
My last day on the ward I said goodbye to my friends, and Terry, whose
body was daubed all over with purple dye to show his tumours, gave me
one of his toys. It was a model of Zebedee from "The Magic Roundabout,"
his favourite TV show.

As I picked up the toy his mother gave me a strange look, was it
hatred? Or jealousy, because I'd grown well, while her son was sliding
into death? I don't know.

As I lay in bed at home healing, I remember thinking to myself what had
happened to those children wasn't fair. I'd had it drummed into me all
my young life that God only punished those who sinned and I thought,
"Why'd He make them suffer so much? They can't have done anything that
bad."

My parents carried on dragging me to church every Sunday and Holy Day
of Obligation as usual, but it wasn't the same anymore. As soon as they
trusted me to go on my own I went to the park and played football
instead.