This is the story of my husband's life so far.  It has been a very eventful life, as you can see!  I thought it was a story worth telling and I have so enjoyed putting pen to paper on his behalf.

He has read this through and is happy for me to post it for you all to read!

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MIKE'S STORY

My husband is called Michael William, we all call him Mike. He was born on the 17  May 1951 in a private hospital in Bristol and had problems with his blood. He would have had a blood transfusion if he had been born elsewhere.

His parents, called William (Bill) and Winifred Evelyn (Winnie) had married at the ages of 25 and 21 in 1940 and had waited almost ten years for a baby to come along. They had both been born in India and came to Britain during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. They were delighted when Winnie fell pregnant in 1950.

When Michael was born they were so happy with their little boy and he was doing well until he was about 18 months old. His health started to decline and he became ill and was taken into hospital. It was a hard time for his parents and after a few days the doctors grew worried and told them that Michael would not live through the night. It was an illness of the gall bladder which created the condition of jaundice.

In those days, parents were not allowed to stay at the hospital 24/7 and they were told 'Go home, your son won't last the night.' I can't imagine what parents of today would think of that! Nowadays, parents can sleep in the hospital near their children, hold their hands, comfort them and be there all of the time. How times have changed. I am so pleased that lots of things are better nowadays than in the past and this is certainly one of them.

They were distraught! What were they going to do? Waiting ten years for a child and now he was dying? They were both practising Catholics attending the church of St Joseph's, in Fishponds. They asked their Priest to bless a medal of the Virgin Mary and then returned to the hospital and put it under Michael's pillow. I am sure they did not sleep that night. It must have been the longest night of their lives.

The next day they went back to the hospital to find that Michael had amazingly, survived and they cried tears of joy. The doctors pronounced it a 'Miracle' as they had not expected him to live. 'Your love has brought him through.' they said.  Winnie always said it was God who saved him and her faith in God never floundered.

When Michael turned five years old he was sent to a local private Primary School called Grace Fields. Having been educated privately in India, Bill and Winnie wanted Michael to have the same experience. Michael was a quiet, happy little boy. He liked his primary school very much, although he doesn't remember much about it now.

At that time they lived in a house in Fishponds in Kimberley Crescent. Michael had a large garden to play in. When Mike was six or seven he was into Davy Crockett, which was an American TV programme of that time and had a fur hat with a real fox tail which he often wore. He also played Cowboys and Indians with his friends. His friends in the street were Stephen and Janet (brother and sister) and Ann.

Unfortunately, Mike was not strong and had another illness when he was eleven years old and spent six months in hospital. It was the same illness of the gall bladder which gave him jaundice and with that came fatigue.

This is Mike's memory of that time:-

"I remember going into the BRI (Bristol Royal Infirmary). My consultant was Professor Read, who had a daughter the same age as me. He was very concerned about me and was a very nice man. I was not put into the children's ward, but in the men's ward. I was very yellow and my skin itched badly. I did not feel really ill, but I was obviously very unwell and felt very tired and weak. I missed taking the 11+ exam. I had to take it when I was well again at another school, Dr Bell's in Fishponds, but I didn't pass. I was in the hospital for six months. The time dragged, it was very boring. The food wasn't very good.

They took a piece of my liver to check if it was infected, luckily it wasn't. It was a very invasive operation and they left behind an awful scar on my stomach, which has been remarked on by every health professional seeing it every since. Whoever did the procedure did a very bad job of stitching me up afterwards."

Mike recovered. Bill and Winnie were told that Michael should not go to football matches or do games at school as it may excite him and make the illness return. In other words, he had to live a quiet life. Therefore, Michael was excused games and PE from then on at school and never participated.

At the age of twelve, Mike started at Clarks Grammar school, which was a private, paying school. This meant a long bus ride into the Clifton area and a long walk the other end to get to the school. He had lots of friends at the school and was reasonably happy there. One of the games teachers at Clarks Grammar school did not like him because he was not allowed to participate in games and used to pass snide comments every time he saw him. Hard to believe, but that is true.

It was very sad for Mike and tragic for his mother when his father suffered a massive heart attack and died when he was 49. On the morning of 19th February 1964 his dad was walking to work when a lorry driver saw him clutch at his chest and fall to the ground. He was dead on arrival at Cossham hospital. Mike was just twelve years' old and had not long been at Clarks Grammar school.

The school let Mike stay at the school until he left, with his mother paying half the fees. By the time Mike was 14 years of age, Winnie had married again to an Irishman called Chris. This was not a good idea, it was not a marriage made in Heaven. Under Chris's influence, Mike eventually left school at the age of 15, having taken no exams whatsoever. I always thought what a waste of time it was, being sent to private education and having nothing to show for it, exam wise. He could have easily gone to a local comprehensive school for two more years and passed some 'O'levels, but Chris wanted Mike working and bringing in a wage, so that was that.

The atmosphere in the house with Chris in it was not a good one. He was overbearing and domineering and nothing at all like Mike's happy, quietly spoken father, who was a real Gentleman in every respect. I have always felt so sad that I never met him, I am sure I would have liked him. Apparently, he had a good sense of humour like my own dad and was a very hard working man.

Mike can remember that, strangely, he didn't have any interviews for his first job, it was just arranged for him. He doesn't know who did this.  Possibly the Head master of his school.  Mike just turned up for the job on a pre-arranged date!

That first job was with a Shipping Company, Whitwell Cole & Company in Baldwin Street in the centre of Bristol near the docks. He spent a lot of time visiting ships which called into the docks, speaking with the Captains and running errands. This meant a lot of walking. Mike enjoyed it very much.  A ship called the 'Aristides,' from Greece, was a regular visitor to the Bristol docks.  Mike got to know the Captain who took him out for a meal in a restaurant, one lunchtime.

The Swedish Embassy had an office in the same building as Whitwell Cole & Company on the ground floor and Mike sometimes ran errands for them. 

Mike then had two more bouts of the illness when he was in his late teens. He was again hospitalised each time for six months. He lost two really good jobs because of it.  

"I had a job working with British Oxygen which was well paid with good prospects of promotion. I was disappointed when I lost the job through my illness. I also lost a job at Bristol Wire Rope. Fortunately, in those days jobs were very easy to come by and I soon got another."

At that time, his mother and stepfather were told the illness would go one way or the other. In other words, get better or get worse. A scary prospect, as people can die of jaundice. However, his illness improved and he settled down. They were told at that time that only three people in Bristol had this disease, Mike and two old ladies!

When Mike was 20, he couldn't stand living at home any longer, so he left home and rented a bed-sit in Bedminster. This wasn't an easy decision as his home was a beautifully kept bungalow and his bed-sit was not. His mother was beside herself as she doted on him. She was perhaps a bit too possessive, but under the circumstances it was understandable. Mike spent nine months in the bed-sit, only returning home after his uncle came to ask him to go home for the sake of his mother's health. I always said I would not have gone home, but Mike decided to. The atmosphere in the house did not improve, however.

In 1973, I was working in a solicitors office and at mid day I used to help Janet, the switchboard operator, whilst she took a lunch break. One day, she received a call from someone and said to me 'Have a word with Mike.' 'No, I don't know who he is.' I replied. Not one to give up, Janet told me about him and she thought we were suited so another time when he rang up, she passed the phone to me and I spoke to him. I liked the sound of him and he seemed really nice.

I spoke to him a few times on the phone and then he asked me out for a date. I was 22 and he was 23. So we had a blind date, although I had heard his voice, which I'd fallen in love with. I find certain voices very attractive, they make me weak at the knees. So an attractive voice and a good personality is more important to me than good looks. Although Mike was very handsome in his own way.

We started dating and, as Janet suspected, we got on very well. We were engaged after a year and married after two. Our first house was in Whitehall just up the road from my parent's home. It was quite a big house with three bedrooms and nicely decorated, although it was over seventy years old. Chris, Mike's stepfather, called it a 'Hovel' although he said that to Mike, not to me. I think he was eaten out with jealousy as he never had a home of his own, even when he was married to his first wife. He had always rented. I did not like Chris! He was the sort of man who thought his own opinion mattered, but not that of anyone else. This did not wash with me, although I never argued with him.

We had our first handsome baby, a son when Mike was 27 and I was 26. We called our son Ian and when he was a year old, we moved out to Kingswood which is in the suburbs to a semi-detached house. It had a large piece of land adjoining the back garden which was made into alotments, with lovely views over the extensive countryside. We lived there, happily, for 26 years.

When Ian was a year old, Mike had another bout of jaundice. It was very worrying for all of us. Would he get better, would he die? Or would he lose his lovely local job, where he was happy?

Again, he was ill for six months. The company he worked for was fantastic. They paid him full money for three months and then half pay for three months and kept his job open for him. I would say, God was looking after him. By now the illness was more widespread and several people in Bristol were suffering from it, which happens when the population expands.

In 1982 our beautiful baby daughter, Faye was born to complete our family. When she was 20 months old Mike's stepfather died and Winnie was again on her own.

When Mike was 30 years old, he started having problems with his foot and when he was 35 he had to have an MRI scan on his head and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It was terrifying! We had no idea what the prognosis would be. Would he be dead in two year's time? Would he gradually decline over the years and die young? We had no idea what to expect. We decided not to tell his mother about this and to keep it secret as he was her only close relative now. We decided to take it day by day, which was the only thing we could do. Mike was very pragmatic and carried on life with no fuss, after his first, initial shock.

After a couple of years we realised that Mike's MS was not deteriorating like MS could, it only affected his foot. We relaxed a little as we felt it was not something to be terrified about. What he had was what they called a 'dropped foot.' To Mike it felt like dragging a heavy log around with him all day and he suffered from fatigue. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons he needed to rest, as he worked full time from Monday to Friday.

When he was in his fifties we found out that he could wear what is called a 'foot up.' It fits into a laced shoe with a piece of elastic and the elastic pulls the foot up from the floor. It is a wonderful invention and he wore that for many years.

He always worked in offices, sales mostly and during his working life he had lots of jobs. He was made redundant six times, mostly finding another job within the one months' notice given to him by his employers. This was hard on someone who was not strong, but Mike took it all in his stride, never got depressed and never grumbled. I was so proud of the way he handled his disappointments. It is not easy having to start a new job, learn a new company's ways of doing things and a different product, plus having to prove himself over and over again for each new job.

He was unemployed three times. Once for eight months, once for three months and once for a week, when he took a temporary job to keep him going. He never, once, let it get him down. Fortunately for us, his mother was very kind and gave us as much help as she could. She was a wonderful mother to Mike and a wonderful mother in law to me.

In May 2006 we moved from our house to a second floor apartment. We were now mortgage free. It was a beautiful, two bedroom flat and had a nice view into trees where we could watch the birds, mostly Chaffinchs. We were there for five years. It was everything I could wish for.

Mike was a Director of the complex and worked very hard, in conjunction with the managing agents and five other directors. He managed to get a bank loan for the complex to buy the freehold. It was a 15 year loan. It meant the complex now had security. If the complex owned the freehold, no one else could come along and buy it, and charge us heavy fees or carry out expensive works which we couldn't afford. It was a good thing to do.

In his early sixties, Mike needed to find part time employment as his MS was making him tired and working full time was hard on him. He found a part-time job near where we lived at that time in the National Health Service at Cossham Hospital, a five minute walk from where we lived. He was a receptionist for the X-ray department. He enjoyed this role and still keeps in contact with some of his colleagues.

In November 2011 Mike's mother died at the grand old age of 95 and we all miss her so much.

Mike's foot was getting worse and he could not drive a geared car any longer as his left foot kept slipping off of the clutch. We bought an automatic car and that helped, but I was afraid of him falling down the stairs so we moved to a two bedroom ground floor flat in 2012. Around that time he was introduced to the Dyna ankle brace which meant he didn't need the 'foot up' any longer and this new brace worked well for several years.

We didn't settle into the ground floor flat. I was especially unhappy there so we looked around for something else. We found a slightly larger one bedroom apartment very close by, but off of the busy main road and have been happy there ever since. We had moved three times in six years! We have a private outside space and small garden where we grow shrubs and plants and can watch the squirrels, birds and foxes. Mike loves to sit in the sun reading.

Mike retired at the age of 65. Before he retired he wondered if he could find any voluntary work and he found a local job in Citizen's Advice very close to where we lived, working two part time days per week. He started the job just as he retired. He could have claimed expenses for his petrol, but he never did.

The job entailed talking with people, face to face, who had diverse problems, and helping them to find a solution. Often, just advising them about the benefits the government provide. He helped many, many people during his time there and was in that post for ten and a half years and really enjoyed it, moving out to the Yate office when the local office closed down. We meet up with some of his ex-colleagues occasionally for Sunday lunch and others he keeps in contact with by e.mail. (He finished at the Citizen's Advice Bureau in September 2023).

He still does a voluntary job, but it is far less stressful. He works one morning at Age Uk helping seniors (OAP's) to fill out forms to apply for benefits and sorting out other matters. He enjoys it.

About a year after we moved into our quiet ground floor flat, Mike's walking was getting worse and he had a couple of falls. He had resisted using a walking stick, but now it was time. He has used a walking stick ever since.

In 2018, at the age of 67, Mike had another bout of jaundice. I was very worried about it, he was older now and he looked very frail. He went into hospital for eight days. I put out requests for prayers on Wattpad and this time, it was not six months until he recovered, but three. I was truly amazed, this was a first! It was hard going looking after him, but the prayers and good wishes of my Wattpad friends pulled him through! It was like a miracle to me. I can't begin to say how grateful I was for their support.

When one of the Directors here moved away, leaving just one Director remaining, Mike took his place and became a Director of our little complex. I think that was in 2019. We have just twelve flats here and we have achieved quite a lot over the ten years we have lived here. Lately, he researched and found the very same intercom system as the original, which was now failing at 32 years old. He found an electrician and had the new system fitted at a much lower price than offered by our managing agents. Also, when they could not find us decent cleaners he looked around and found some, although they did not work out, we now have a lady who is very experienced and hope she will stay with us long term. It is hard work when the managing agents are incompetent. None of them seem any good, so it is important that someone keeps an eye on things, especially financial matters.

For someone who has not been strong and has had a lot of health issues, Mike has accomplished a great deal and worked extremely hard on behalf of others. I am very, very proud of him. He is one of the most unselfish people I have ever met.  I adore him.

Mike will be 73 years old next month and does not need to take any medication whatsoever, although his walking gait is not good and he has trouble with a painful corn on his foot, which needs regular treatment.  He also has a tremor in his hand which makes it hard for him to eat sometimes. This is also connected to his condition of MS.

 He is remarkable!

3 April 2024                                                                                                                                

Written by Pat, his loving wife.