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He has always been a man of a bigger-than-life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the most recent controversy to befall a local MP, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.

It was common for us to pass the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, roughly a decade past, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

When we finally reached the hospital, his state had progressed from 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 was noticeable.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were moving busily and using that lovely local expression so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

The Aftermath and the Story

While our friend did get better in time, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.