In an earlier autobiography, ‘By Such Things we are Formed’, I gave an account of my life up to November 2016, just after my heart attack, but before the operation to rectify the problem with the plumbing around my heart. Since then, my life underwent several significant changes until about two years ago when it began to settle down into what I now believe to be a pretty normal existence for a 65-year-old in the affluent West in the early 21st century.
As you’d expect, there have been some major changes which have nothing to do with my health: in a nutshell, I retired from full-time work, which was the biggest single adjustment to my life since 1975. Since the completion of the earlier biography, I have been remembering incidents and anecdotes which I would have liked to have included in the initial book but didn’t, hence this second journal. Here, I will place on record my journey through and beyond the bypass operation that I underwent in February 2017 interspersed with some of the many tales and anecdotes accumulated over the years. In doing this I hope to be able to explain to the reader (and possibly myself) who I am, and also to explore why I am who I am. And so, the odd-numbered chapters provide a chronological account of my life whilst the remaining chapters are just a random collection of thoughts and musings.
Since the operation, I have once more begun to keep a diary, but unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, this time I am more diligent in recording my actions each day. Of course, this makes for a supremely boring read, since I rarely feel sufficiently motivated to write down my inner feelings and thoughts, just the day-to-day activities I undertake, but I hope it will help me to continue to recollect my life history and should spark memories of my feelings at the time of writing.
An aside. Apart from my daily diary (kept since October 2019), I also maintain an Excel spreadsheet in which I record what I feel are memorable events in my life. This started off in 2006 when I saw my work colleague, Sharon, counting down the days prior to her holidays. She said that she always liked to have something to look forward to which I could fully understand. I began doing something similar, but my file recorded many more, smaller events that I was anticipating. These would include holidays, of course, but also meals at the pub, business trips away and even the day that I’d finish for Christmas. I found this ‘anticipation’ file very cheering, and I maintained it until I finished work. Gradually, I found myself including things retrospectively, and once I retired, I added many entries after re-reading old diaries from my childhood. I found some of my diaries fascinating. I discovered many things that I’d misremembered or forgotten altogether after so long. Sometimes, I’d read about a day’s events and have no recollection of them at all. I suppose it’s just as well, or this journal might have been twice as long. This goes to show that memories are imperfect and not to be trusted. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t always warm and sunny in the 1970s after all?
Occasionally when writing this account, a random memory of some event or an observation has sprung to mind. They’re not part of the main story, but instead of ignoring them, or trying to shoe-horn them into a specific narrative, I’ve just jotted down the thoughts as they occurred (like the one above). I’ve named these ‘asides’. A more accomplished writer might call these ‘soliloquies’, but that’d just be pretentious.
Before I get too far in this biography, let’s add a bit of context. My first memoir was prompted following conversation with my daughter Emily who asked me just after my heart attack how I was going to spend my time whilst recuperating and unable to do physical things. My non-committal response was met with, “You must write your autobiography” and so that was me told. When I mentioned this idea to Sharon, her response was, “Of course you must. What a great idea! You love writing, you’ll have the time and it will take your mind off work”. With her usual clarity of vision, she realised that without some distraction, I would have worried about what was happening in the office which may have hampered my recovery. She was remarkably accurate with this forecast as I shall later recall in chapter 3.
In late October I sent Emily an electronic copy of the first draft for her to review and she returned it with no alterations or suggestions. Following this, I spent a further couple of weeks re-checking the document and making the odd improvement or correction before I declared it finished. Unknown to me, however, Emily and Laurence had decided to have the first draft manuscript made into a hardback book which was given to me as a Christmas surprise. So now there are two versions: the hardback book, complete with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, and the Mark 2 electronic version. The book was a wonderful gesture, and I shall treasure it for life. It would have been too complicated to include pictures within the initial book and so I subsequently produced an accompanying book which contains a collection of photographs which help illustrate what I failed to adequately describe through the written word. In 2023, Laurence, gave me a functioning website as a birthday present and so the Mark 2 version of the biography can now be found here complete with photographs at appropriate points.
Astoundingly, in what feels like the blink of an eye, a further seven years have passed, and I now find myself once more ‘confined to barracks’ for a number of weeks whilst recovering from an unfortunate mountain biking accident. Seven years is significant for me (see chapter 16 in the first biography) and so it now feels like an appropriate time to produce the second instalment. I won’t just be relating the events that have occurred since the operation (I will endeavour to leave out the boring bits), but in addition I want to reflect on who I am and what factors have played a part in moulding my character.
Once more, this biography comes with a caveat: this is for me, not you, dear reader. If you are reading this, you probably already know me, but maybe not in the same way that I know myself. It may be that you simply know a different version of me. Your version may be perfectly valid and true but may possibly be one that I am unable (or unwilling) to see. Either way, this is me filling in the gaps of my life to date and exploring events that have influenced me. If you find it interesting, that’s great, but if not, I really don’t mind. Well, perhaps just a bit.
Chapter 2 – Why am I the way I am?