Chapter 2

After leaving school for the last time I had a break of five weeks before I was due to start a business apprenticeship at a local factory. A few days into this break, I was walking home from a visit to a high street tailor where I'd been measured for my very first suit, something that my forthcoming job required, when I first heard and then saw Mrs. Jacobs, a near neighbour. What I heard was a heavy wheezing and after a brief visual search saw her lying on her lawn clutching her chest.

I ran swiftly to her and asked if I could help but she was unable to reply as she struggled to breathe. To my untrained eye she appeared to be losing conciousness. I put her into the recover position, the only bit of first aid I could remember from my school's training. Trying not to panic I attempted to think of the best way to help. The only solution I could think of was to call for an ambulance. This was still 1967, well before ordinary people like us had telephones at home, so usually whenever I needed a phone it entailed a long walk to the nearest public telephone kiosk, a journey which, ironically took me past the ambulance station. Sensing that this would take too long, I had a thought and looked around to see if there were any telephone lines attached to any of the nearby houses. A quick burst of relief came when I saw one heading to the house two doors up. That feeling was tempered when I realised that the house was Mrs Alcock's. I shouldn't have been too surprised as Mrs Alcock always thought of herself as above those around her and was usually the first at or with anything considered fashionable. Unfortunately she was also the worst culprit regarding my family's continued ostracism. I knew that she considered me the spawn of Satan for just surviving polio. Still I thought I had little choice so I ran to her door praying that someone was in.

A very shocked lady answered the door and it took a lot longer than necessary to get her to use her phone, even to the point where I had to block the door with my foot to prevent her slamming it in my face. Once I was sure that she would make the call I ran back to Mrs. Jacobs. I had no idea what to do but thought I'd still be best to be near her. In what seemed like hours but in reality was only a couple of minutes I saw the ambulance pull out of the station and head our way. It didn't even have time to switch its siren on before it pulled up outside. Two ambulance men came up to me. The first checked on Mrs. Jacobs whilst the second questioned me. Once he realised I knew very little he joined his colleague. It didn't take them too long to realise that she needed hospital treatment and were soon loading her on to a stretcher. I was told that it was almost certainly a serious asthma attack and asked if I wanted to come along. I declined but said I would see if I could get hold of Mr. Jacobs and tell him what was happening. Not wanting to hang around they left me to it.

I didn't want to pry into their house so I asked a few of their neighbours who'd appeared about the same time as the ambulance, if they knew how to contact Mr. Jacobs. A couple had a vague idea where he worked but none knew for sure. Not being prepared to leave the unlocked house unattended, nor wanting to miss Mr. Jacobs when he arrived, I sat down on the doorstep and commenced what was to be a long wait. When he finally arrived I could see the puzzlement in his face even before he was close enough to speak. From what I had learnt over the years it was predominantly the estate's women that had reacted badly to my illness, including Mrs. Jacobs, so that I as a person didn't bother Mr. Jacobs but the fact that I was sitting on his doorstep obviously did.

After I finished explaining what had happened, Mr. Jacobs wanted to rush off to the hospital immediately, but as he was so obviously a manual worker and one whose job entailed getting very dirty, I suggested that he might want to get cleaned up as the hospital would probably not let him in as he was. He saw the sense in my suggestion and with a brief thanks he headed inside to do just that. Feeling that my role was now over I headed home hoping that Mrs. Jacobs was all right and that nothing I had done or not done had exacerbated matters for her. As I walked past Mrs. Alcock's I couldn't help but notice her staring out from behind her net curtains.