last time we see each other. Bert also knows somebody who bled to death after a tonsils’ extraction. I hope it’s the same person.
Said goodbye to Pandora: she wept very touchingly. She brought me one of Blossom’s old horseshoes to take into hospital. She said a friend of her father had a cyst removed and didn’t come out of the anaesthetic. I’m being admitted to Ivy Swallow Ward at 2 PM Greenwich Mean Time.
I have put our family medical dictionary on my bedside table so that the doctors see it and are impressed. I can’t tell what the rest of the ward is like yet because the nurses have forgotten to remove the screens. A notice has been hung over my bed; it says ‘Liquids Only’. I am dead scared.
I am unable to speak. Even groaning causes agony.
I have been moved to a side ward. My suffering is too much for the other patients to bear. Had a ‘get well’ card from Bert and Sabre.
I was able to sip a little of grandma’s broth today. She brought it in her Thermos flask. My father broughtme a family pack of crisps; he might just as well have brought me razor blades!
Pandora came at visiting time, I had little to whisper to her. Conversation palls when one is hovering between life and death.
The nurses have been very cold towards me. They say that I am taking up a bed that could be used by an ill person! I have got to eat a bowl of cornflakes before they let me out. So far I have refused: I cannot bear the pain.
Nurse Boldry forced a spoon of cornflakes down my damaged throat, then, before I could digest it, she started stripping my bed. She offered to pay for a taxi, but I told her that I would wait for my father to come and carry me out to the car.
I am in my own bed. Pandora is a tower of strength. She and I communicate without words. My voice has been damaged by the operation.
Today I croaked my first words for a week. I said, ‘Dad, phone mum and tell her that I am over the worst’. My father was overcome with relief and emotion. His laughter was close to hysteria.
Dr Gray says my malfunctioning voice is ‘only adolescent wobble’. He is always in a bad mood!
He expected me to stagger to his surgery and queue in a germ-filled waiting room! He said I ought to be outside with other lads of my age building a bonfire. I told him that I was too old for such paganistic rituals. He said he was forty-seven and he still enjoyed a good burn-up.
Forty-seven! It explains a lot, he should be pensioned off.
My father is taking me to an organized bonfire party tomorrow (providing I am up to it, of course). It is being held to raise funds for Marriage Guidance Councillors’ expenses.
Pandora’s mother is cooking the food and Pandora’s father is in charge of the fireworks. My father is going to be in charge of lighting the bonfire so I’m going to stand at least a hundred metres away. I have seen him singe his eyebrows many times.
Last night some irresponsible people down our street had bonfire parties in their own back gardens!
Yes!
In spite of being warned of all the dangers by the radio, television,
The Marriage Guidance Council bonfire was massive. It was a good community effort. Mr Cherry donated hundreds of copies of a magazine called
Pandora burnt her collection of
Mr Singh and all the little Singhs brought along Indian firecrackers. They are much louder than English ones. I was glad our dog was locked in the coal shed with cotton wool in its ears.
Nobody was seriously burnt, but I think it was a mistake to hand out fireworks at the same time the food was being served.
I burnt the red phone bill that came this morning.
