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To
begin at the beginning...
A high flyer
was I. Was I? I shall never know now. No self-vaunted Icarus was I, flapping
higher and higher on phoney wings, only to crash to destruction when the
deceit was uncovered by the harsh sun of scrutiny. No: by dint of the
steady wing-beats of hard work, dedication and loyalty, I was rising and
being lifted from time to time on the up draught of peer approbation.
So: how did I lose my feathers? Why did I crash? Why did I have to learn
to walk again?
How is it that such destruction can be visited on someone in broad daylight,
in a civilised society, in his own home, in the midst of a caring family
and, at work, under the gaze of a solicitous employer?
And what
did I lose? I lost a home which was still being carefully built up and
consolidated; I lost my wife and, effectively, my daughter; in time I
couldn't sustain my job and retired prematurely; financially, in today's
(2003) values, I have lost over half a million pounds, while each year
I receive in pension about one third of what I could reasonably have expected.
But of greater worth, a worth which can not be measured in cash, I have
lost a swathe of my memory; memory of a time when life was very good;
when I had a wife whom I loved and who was yet young; when work was very
rewarding and successful; when my daughter was blossoming. Do you know,
I cannot remember how she used to talk when she was little; the things
she said; bath times; bed times; Christmas; picnics and holidays; ponies….
I can barely remember the Sunbeam-Talbot that was the family's pride,
or taking my mother and in-laws for 'runs'. I am fortunate in that I have
a former work colleague whom I meet from time to time, whose reminiscences
remind me of the highly successful and rewarding times we had as vital
players in a cutting-edge project that was a world first, otherwise that
memory would also be lost.
So, how
did I lose so much? How did I lose it uncomplainingly, trustingly? Surprisingly,
and sadly, I lost it at the hands of, or perhaps more accurately, I had
it all stolen by, the very people whose prime intent and professional
purpose was to care for me. I lost it through the intervention of medicine
and psychiatry.
There is
only one way for you to understand the extent of my loss - the actual
loss over the years and the potential of what might have been - and that
is for me to take you sufficiently far back in my life and career to find
a convenient staring point. So how about 1947? I was 21 years old, in
transition between life as a Petty Officer Radar Mechanic in the Royal
Navy, and life as an undergraduate electrical engineer in the University
of Wales at Swansea.
Three years and an Engineering Degree later saw me, in 1950, make what
was for me a very desirable move to the Lake District in Cumbria - scene
of several pre-war family holidays - to work in the embryonic nuclear
industry. My radar training and experience, combined with my degree, fitted
me for the very fascinating and often novel world of measurement. I was
becoming an Instrument Engineer. First promotion, and 1953, and I was
part of the team destined to run the world's first nuclear power station,
Calder Hall - which at the time that I joined was just a large hole in
the ground! An exciting time of very hard but fascinating and rewarding
work, and of personal change - of marriage in 1955, and parenthood in
1956, and a second promotion.
The Works developed and expanded, as did the science and technology, and
my responsibility - which led to a further promotion at the end of 1960.
Thus, in what turned out to be an exceedingly crucial year, 1961, at age
35 I had the grade of 'Principal', and a salary (2003 equivalent) of £50,
000. I had been to France as an advisor during the commissioning of their
first power reactor, and to Stockholm to address an international conference.
I had a career, a home and a family, and the probability of more children.
And with a further thirty years of potential employment, who knows how
my future might have blossomed?
To mention
'diarrhoea' in the context in which I am writing may seem an unnecessary
and unpleasant irrelevance: unfortunately, it became very relevant. We
lived in Seascale, and in the late summer of almost every year the notorious
'Seascale Bug' would strike, bringing stomach upsets, sickness and diarrhoea
to the populace at random. When, thus, in 1961, I started with my episode
of the 'runs' it just seemed as if I was one of that year's unfortunates.
But this was no ordinary visitation of the 'Seascale Bug'. Soon it seemed
as if the whole of my inside had turned to fluid - the mediaeval term
'the flux' was probably very appropriate. Day after day after day it continued,
defying all the usual nostrums and quick-setting cements that were commonly
effective. My 'samples' yielded no known bacteria. My weight dropped by
over a stone; the lavatory pan was my boon companion.
Then, one day, a visit to my G.P. produced something new, something different.
My medical certificate sported the letters C.A.N. in place of the usual
'enteritis', and a prescription which, when dispensed at the local pharmacy,
produced a bottle of black and green capsules coyly hiding behind the
label bearing the legend 'Librium'. Now, remember, this was 1961; Librium
was brand, spanking new; the word 'tranquilliser' was not in common parlance.
No warning bells rang in my mind - and why should they have? Like most
people, I believed implicitly in the medical profession, in what they
said was wrong with me, in the ways in which it should be put right. The
average layperson has no base from which to query or dispute the medical
opinion; one's view is often met with the slightly tolerant smile that
seems to say, " The patient has an opinion, humour him and it will
go away".
I promise you this: there had been no discussion concerning my nervous
state, nor was anything said about Librium, its purpose or its side effects.
I had to deduce, yes deduce, that C.A.N. meant 'chronic anxiety
neurosis', and that I was 'on' a tranquilliser. You may wonder at the
lack of communication. All I can say is that I was very debilitated and
unsure of myself, and that the doctor in question was very reserved, almost
taciturn, and did not open himself to discussion. One former colleague
at work even now reminds me of the response that he got when suggesting
an alternative to his continuing treatment; whatever he was then
told was prefaced with the put-down "We in the learned profession...".
(I must emphasise that I am not recounting this to denigrate in any way
the doctor in question, who was immensely appreciated in the community
both as a person and G.P., but simply to emphasise something to which
I will no doubt return many times in this account and the other parts
of my 'story', namely this communication gulf between medical professional
and lay-person).
So, dutifully, I took my Librium in complete and blissful ignorance of
the most common side effects - of confusion, drowsiness and inability
to control voluntary muscular movements - and physical dependence!
How, I wonder, would my employers have reacted had they known,
for the Department at work of which I was head was responsible for every
one of the measuring and safety devices in the whole nuclear power station
of four reactors and eight turbines?
No doubt everyone has those events in their lives over which they groan
internally and long to extinguish the event and its consequences; this
is one of my most desperate, as must be that of anyone who has started
to take an addictive substance. How many clocks would be put back if given
the chance? My anguish is made all the greater with the 20/20 vision with
which all hind sight is blessed, and the knowledge, gained some 25 years
after the events, of a newly identified parasite that can inhabit the
lower gut and produce uncontrollable but self-limiting diarrhoea.
Such a parasite one can acquire from polluted water or milk, or from animals
- a route that the family hobby of riding and horse-work made readily
available. Cryptosporidium is the name of what it is now believed
was the cause of my illness - one of a group of parasitic protozoa.
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