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Our family friend has always been a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. At family parties, he would be the one gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.

Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Morning Rolled On

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind filled the air.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, despite the underlying depressing and institutional feel; decorations dangled from IV poles and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on tables next to the beds.

Cheerful nurses, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so unique to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

When visiting hours were over, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and festive TV programming. We viewed something silly on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

It was already late, and snowing, and I remember feeling deflated – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.