I was the doctor told me born two minutes after 11 am on the 11th November 1961.
It was my father who delivered me and told me my mother wouldn’t keep quiet through the one minute silence to mark the end of war.
I have grown up what would happen to me when I was 64 and now I know.
This arrived last night as part of a series of procedures I am having to help me recover from a difficult year since falling off a bike in November 2024.
Thanks NHS for the best birthday present you could give!
My mother and father were both medically qualified in Gower Street, the Middlesex Hotel in the fifties is now no more but where I’m getting operated on is the UCH – its successor!
In my 63rd year I have founded myself in the hands of the health service that I grew up with, a Doctor’s son in Shaftesbury Dorset. Now I am a patient but a few hundred yards from where my parents got engaged. And what a relief! Did they know it was my birthday?
What a present!
Anyone who knows anything about self-catheterisation will know how happy makes me. To be in the hands of the NHS with the offer of neurological back up to help my lower body function properly is something special.
On the 9th December I start the help to stop episodes I have where I am literally speechless!
To get the operation so soon is both unexpected and a relief! To get neurological support so comforting.
And the operation on the day, right down to the hour! To be a lifesaver (as it seems) on my 64th birthday! To have a song in my head these last 60 years (nearly)!
The song
The song came out when I was 5, in the summer of 1967. I remember it being played in my primary school to help us understand what growing old would be.
Here are the lyrics. Old age being a time for scrimping the money to go on holiday in the Isle of Wight. There is a lot to be said for growing old gracefully! Call this a pension song!
When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine,
birthday greetings, bottle of wine?If I’d been out till quarter to three,
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four? OohYou’ll be older too.
Ah, and if you say the word,
I could stay with you.I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside,
Sunday mornings, go for a ride.Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four?Ev’ry summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear.
We shall scrimp and save.
Grandchildren on your knee;
Vera, Chuck and Dave.Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say,
yours sincerely, wasting away.Give me your answer, fill in a form,
Mine forevermore.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty four? Ho!
