Let me tell you a story
26th January 2009: I listened to a radio broadcast detailing the Burns’ night festivities in Alloway. This was, of course, on Sunday which is the real Burns’ night, as the broadcaster insisted on telling the audience every third sentence… or so it seemed. Given my Scottish antecedents, you’d have thought I’d be out celebrating the Ayrshire Bard myself, but instead I snoozed on the settee, book in hand, a glass of wine for company. Perhaps I should have opened that bottle of Jura sitting in my kitchen cupboard.
Still, I needed to rest, because the night of nearly everyone’s celebrations – the 24th January – found me in Llandough Hospital. Not an ideal Saturday night, but fortunately, also one that saw me both free of harm and ultimately lionised for an act that brought happiness to a few lives. Let me tell you a story…
The late Doug Symonds – with his new wife Evelyn
I arrived at Llandough in the middle of Saturday evening, roughly seven-thirty: this is a time tactically calculated to leave me little time to visit with a relative. Not my usual habit, I should add, just a behaviour specific to this particular relative. You would have to meet him to get the full measure of how much a displeasure this is, and it was only because my mother goaded me with guilt laden urgings that would have done a Monseigneur credit.
As I walked through the entrance to the hospital, I met with a friend and former colleague. Her reddened eyes spoke of enough to make me pause in my stride, rather than exchange warm but fleeting greetings. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Mum and Doug,” she started before dissolving. I waited, extending a hand to her shoulder as she added, choking on every word: “Doug is inside. Emphysema. Few days left. He said, he said…”
It transpired Doug and Marian’s mum had been living together for thirty-eight years. Tonight he’d caught hold of her hand, told her that he loved her and expressed the wish that they’d married, adding his declaration of sorrow that it could not be, for he realised his time was short.
“Ring the Registrar then,” I said.
“What?” Marion looked like I’d asked her to walk naked across the car-park.
“Ring the bloody Registrar.” I added the swearword for emphasis, then adopted an NLP command mode – or at least what passes for one on a cold, damp night in Llandough, “And do it now.”
Clearly my NLP skills need sharpening, because five minutes of heated discussion later, I found myself on the phone to the Vale of Glamorgan night security desk. No, they wouldn’t give me the number, but they would ring the Registrar and get back to me. Five minutes more passed then suddenly my dodgy ring tone was catching everyone’s attention. It was a number I didn’t recognise.
The registrar apologised for taking so long to get back to me, asked a few questions, mostly concerning Doug’s prospects, gave me a list of instructions, which I in turn relayed to Marion, concerning identification matters and confirmed she and her assistant would be in attendance by about ten that evening.
We rushed up to the ward, broke the good news and then set about completing the arrangements. Marion rushed off to her mum’s house to pick up birth certificates, passports, and so on. I disappeared off to Tesco for the important stuff: Champagne, a bottle of Brains Dark, some flutes and a pint glass.
On my return, I found a nervous Doug wondering if perhaps he’d been a little hasty. I reassured him and pointed out that having second thoughts now was futile because the women had taken over and that gave the whole affair a momentum no man, let alone a frail, bedridden 80 year old could stop.
Ten o’clock arrived, the Registrar arrived, the assistant Registrar arrived, the husband of the Registrar arrived, and Doug’s nerves departed. Thankfully. He started smiling and winking and being the blade he must have been years ago. Jokes tripped from his lips like confetti, and Marian’s mum glowed with love and pride for her man.
The form filling and legal stuff took twenty minutes, the ceremony five, but the gratitude expressed will live with me forever. I felt like I did good. And I guess I did.
The next day, I picked up my mum, and the first words out her mouth were: “You forgot to visit…”
I smiled, took her hand and said: “Let me tell you a story.”
Post Script: Sadly, Doug died today. Evelyn and Doug had been married for one week and four days.
