Keep On Running.......

Looking back at "Born Running", which was close to the literal truth (precocious, archetypal little Sagitario that I was, walking without any problem or assistance at 9 months, in too much of a hurry to explore beyond the horizon), I feel like fast-forwarding to a day in my adolescence. It does me some good, I think (and hope) to get this story out of me and on to "paper". I have told it many times, but I believe that I have never written it down.



I was going towards 17 in October 1967, still at school, my sister, who had been married and out of the house for 2 & a half years, became ill. When nothing could be established by her doctor on the other side of London, my Mother - who, understandably, given all of the past, was far too protective of my sister - ordered that she and her husband move to our house, where our Mum could look after her & deal with the situation, until my sister was better.
My sister, who is 7 & a half years older than me, has in reality, always been younger than me. I also undewrstand this.
And so it happened, no resistance. After a short while, my mother arranged for a specialist urologist to come to the house to examine my sister. On the day of his visit, I had to be at school, but there was an extra expectancy around the event. I report it here as it was told to me afterwards.
The specialist, a middle-aged man, arrived punctually, examined my sister and diagnosed that it was a not-serious infection. He accepted my mother's offer of a cup of tea and as he sat at the table, she said to him:
" Doctor Blandy, were you by any chance working as an intern in London Hospital in 1952?"
He replied "Yes, I was. I've been there all of my career. Why?"
"Do you remember the case of a little boy of 20 months who was brought in as an emergency with huge, near fatal scalding that Spring?"
He thought in silence for a few seconds and said: "Of course I do! It was one of my first emergencies. We were sure we would lose him. Hang on, your name is Scott! That was the name. You are the same Mrs Scott, aren't you?".
"Yes, quite right".
"My God, what happened to him? Is he well? Where is he (tentatively)?".
Next my mother said: "Well, first, do you remember how he defied each stage of the prognosis? First he would survive, but would have to spend his life in a wheelchair? Then, you had to revise that, but believed that he would spend his life physically weak and unable to stand straight, or do anything like normal children?"
Doctor Blandy remembered everything as vividly as my parents. He became a mixture of excited and apprehensive.
"I remember the day he left the hospital, smiling in his push-chair, everyone waving, and a lot of his nurses with tears in their eyes after 6 months of caring for him. It was too special to forget. How is he doing?"

My Mother told him to wait just a moment. "I'm going to show you what happened to him", went out and came back with her hands full.
"He was the first at everything in primary school. First to read, first to write, first to swim. Here are the certificates. Always the best footballer, always the fastest runner, tennis, cross-country. Here are the newspaper cuttings. West Ham wanted to give him a trial, but he has other plans than becoming a footballer. He plays 3 times a week for 2 different teams. This is some of his writing. He also plays music a lot".

And what did Doctor Blandy do? He fell back in the chair, looking hard, carefully at everything, then put his hands over his eyes and burst into tears. 15 years later, this eminent man, who was on his way to becoming one of the country's top Professors of urology, sat there in our living room and cried his eyes out, overcome by emotion and a joy that he later expressed. His only regret was that he couldn't wait long enough to meet me.
"Nothing of that tragedy that turned into a miracle by the time he left us could have prepared me for this. I am only grateful that we were brought together again today". And he refused to accept his fee for examining my sister.
A very good man indeed. That same young intern who had urged my Dad to go home and pray.


It is a beautiful story, in fact I love it. In the 1980s, my and Professor Blandy's paths uncannily crossed twice, but we were just not destined to meet in person. Once when I had an appointment at London Hospital in 1982, I went looking for him. I found his office, but discovered that he was away at a conference. Instead, I went to visit our old neighbours, who still lived in that East End apartment building, which had been the scene of the horror.
Then, incredibly, at a Christmas party in 1987 at the home of a good Argentinian exile urologist friend, we were introduced to a woman who, in the course of the conversation, turned out to be Professor Blandy's private secretary! I was totally stunned, it was so emotional. She knew nothing of my story, but as soon as she heard it, spellbound, she said she couldn't wait to tell him of our meeting, and that maybe finally we could meet face to face.
It never happened; he or I was always too busy then. But again, he got a full update on my life, which in the intervening years, had blossomed and was unlike anyone's that I have ever come across. By 1987, I was fully involved in doing whatever I could to help the 3rd world towards development, with educational projects, NGOs, linked to the the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, dealing with the aftermath of some of the world's worst conflicts, famines, victims of torture, repression etc. etc. etc. Hot, heavy and immensely enriching in all that I learned, all of the true friends I made among some of the best people this world will ever have in it. It was equally very humbling for me. None of us should ever over-estimate who we are, or underestimate just how much we can accomplish, if we really want to make things better for others.
So, we exchanged letters, that was all. Strange. But then, nothing is stranger than life itself; particularly mine. He retired. He passed away. I know I owe him a lot, but I always felt that my parents owed him even more.

Yes, I know, but this is today and this is Siberia. But whatever happens to me, they will not tame or pacify me. I cannot be caged, not for long, and this is what Siberia is attempting to do. I know myself too well, I know who I have been, what I have done and why. And that is why I know why I am suffering so much now.

Now, I suspect that my next entry to this diary has to throw light into the darker corners and open out just what I know of me, how I found out and why it is the way it is. These are fragments of MY life, not Mary Poppins. It is not all fairy tale.

I suddenly remember the last lines of a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, that I studied in 1967. With the aid of an inspirational English Literature teacher, Eddie Thorpe, I quickly grew to love Tennyson's poetry. It was Thorpe, emotionally intoning these final lines of "Ulysses", that planted what has returned from its sleep to me just now:
"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which, in old days,
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and NOT TO YIELD!".