Sort of thinking about, you know, the future and perhaps the possibility of having another stroke, have you thought about that? Is that something that worries you at all?

Mmm. Mmm. Aye. Thought about it. That’s why I’m working hard at the fitness level of things. Really, really a lot more conscious about diet. You know, my diet wasn’t bad anyway. My diet was not bad. Fairly healthy diet. Moderate drinker but I’ve cut out a lot of sugar. In fact, I’ve cut out sugar entirely. I use a sweetener now, as opposed to sugar, put it that way. Very, very conscious about 5 portions of fruit and veg a day things. That kind of thing. Very, very conscious about sugar on the likes of shortbread and things like that. Biscuits, you know. I’m a great lover of chocolate biscuits, which I’m struggling to cut out, you know. But I’m very, very conscious of that and trying to, and this has all come through, through the hospital, through the, again, the talks we get from dieticians, pharmacists, these kind of people, you know. It makes you so much more aware, it’s made me so much more aware of how things works, how your body works how your, your, your arteries can clog up, you know. I’ve always been pretty fit and I’m, that’s what I’m working towards again, allied with a healthier, healthier diet, healthier than was the last time but it’s, as I say, it wasn’t bad before. It wasn’t bad at all but it’s better now and it’s going to be better. Aye.

Well, I used to enjoy smoking. I knew there was risks involved. So it’s not like I was completely in the dark of the risks that I was taking because I knew I was taking risks at the time it seemed like I enjoyed it, so I smoked and that was that. You just take chances, I suppose, in life.

And how did you find having to give it up?

Well, the first 3 weeks I was basically oblivious to what was going anyway around me. Just lying on my back in bed for 3 weeks, so I didn’t miss them at all then. I wasn’t able to smoke then physically, so it wasn’t like that I really missed the thought of it or anything, it just wasn’t a possibility. It was quite easy to give up at the time.

Do you have any advice for anybody else that, that is still a smoker?

I’d say it’s not worth it, no. It’s easier to give up smoking than live in a wheelchair’ I know a couple of the people I was playing football with that night gave up smoking afterwards as well, just because of the shock and, and the fear in what they saw. They thought, ‘No, it’s not worth it’ so maybe in some ways, it did some good to some friends and maybe it’s been something that’s made it less likely that their health will be damaged.

Well, I was a smoker actually, I thought, I know this, sounds like you’re justifying yourself really, but I don’t drink alcohol obviously and I used to say, ‘You’ve got to do something naughty’ which is a pathetic excuse really but when I had the stroke and became paralysed, I stopped smoking, because you can’t ask, actually ask for a cigarette, ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ when you’re in intensive care, paralysed. And it was such a traumatic experience, I didn’t even think about a cigarette and actually I didn’t want one and I stopped and I was delighted. I thought, ‘Wonderful, I’ve stopped smoking, great, why did I ever bother doing that?’

But then, as it happens, in August of that year, I was put back in the hospital again very, being very ill with, they thought it was epilepsy but I think it was a migraine. And I thought I was going to die actually. The, what was happening to me was making me so ill at the time I literally thought I was dying, and, this is a piece of kind of self destructive negative behaviour really, which is when I’d, recovered enough in the hospital ward and that was in the days when you could, they had smoking rooms in hospitals, [takes deep breath], I remember thinking, ‘Right, that’s it, I’ve had enough, I’m sick to death of hospitals and all this stuff, I’m going to do something defiant. Which is a defiant negative thing to do, which I admit is highly unintelligent and I went into the smoking room and actually sitting in the smoking room was an alcoholic who had, I’d listened to them stand around his bed and tell him if he didn’t stop drinking, he was going to die, and he was going to die. And I looked at this alcoholic and I said, ‘Have you got a fag, have you got a cigarette?’ [laughter], and he gave me one and I sat smoking with this, he was a street drunk and I said, ‘I’m a recovering alcoholic actually’ and I don’t think he believed me but I started to smoke again and I wish I never had, you know, and I really want to stop and it really annoys me. It really, really annoys me. Yeah.

When I see somebody smoking, then I feel, I feel oh this man is smoking for his, how stupid he is, why is he smoking? There is nothing in smoking. Sometimes I feel like that because smoking can cause your heart, could cause your blood pressure, could cause all that.

So what, what message do you have for, for other people when you see engaging in behaviours like smoking and other behaviours that could lead to stroke…

Yeah, yeah.

..for example…

I just.

..what, what message do you have for them?

Actually I wanted to go somehow if somebody could film me and show it to the public on the television that this is the result of smoking, look at this man. This is a result of the smoking.

He can’t walk. He can’t he can’t walk. He can talk so they should show, show it on television to advising people not to smoke. It is a silly thing to do. There is absolutely no reason to smoke.

Smoking does not help in anyway. You think, Oh it control my nerves No it’s all nonsense. Smoking does not control your nerves and all that.

It is just habit that you are smoking. You are unnecessarily killing yourself. You are spoiling your lungs. You are spoiling your heart for no good reason. The smoking doesn’t help you. Same as the drinking it doesn’t help you at all.

No, no, no. You’d think that, Oh I’ve got so much pain. I, I lost so much of my money. I’ve got so much worries so I must drink. No this is all nonsense. This smoking, drinking cannot reduce your worries.

It can’t. It can give you a temporary escape that is all.

I mean, I don’t drink, I have, don’t drink hardly any now, I have a, you know, couple of pints but not a lot. They said don’t drink too much, [my friend] says don’t have too much, I have, I have 2, if I go out, I have a couple of pints. They said you can have 2 and a half, you know and people say, ‘Come on, have another’ ‘No, I don’t want one I’ll just keep to two.

And how do you find your GP?

Oh, shes lovely, yeah. Very good.

And has she given you any information about stroke?

Not really, no. You just get weighed and they take your blood test and what was the other thing? There was another thing oh, I had to take a urine test only the once and it was alright and blood tests and my blood pressure. When I started to go there, oh, it was sky high’ and but then again, I told, I said to them the first time I went, they said, ‘Oh, it’s very, very high. I said, ‘I never slept last night. So uptight at going, you know. So they gave me a machine home with me and I had to do it myself night and morning and write what the things were. She said, ‘Oh you’re perfect at home. It’s just when you come here [laughs]. But the last time I went, they said, ‘yeah, I wish my blood pressure and that was like yours [own name]’ she said, she said, ‘I’m so, so pleased so, yeah, it’s good.

I think in terms of health, I did swim and I used to jog, I told you that before but no, not more, no. I don’t think so. Partly because I’ve had a problem with my knee as well. Which has caused some sort of a problem with that and it’s not been able to as much now but we, no, and of course my wife can’t too much walking. She can walk a bit, so we don’t sort of go out, you know, long hikes if you like, we don’t do that because that’s too much, you know, and even to go to [the local town] sometimes I’ll walk down with her or sometimes I’ll take the car down there and shell walk down and I will wait for her down there, you know and perhaps if she feels good, shell walk back. If not we have the car, I know its only a mile and a half, a mile and a bit from here but with walking round there and duh duh duh sometimes it’s too much so we don’t. No, I don’t do enough in terms of exercise, I know that and I keep saying, I’m going to go back swimming, because swimming even though my knees got a slight problem here I could still swim, so I’m going to try and do that. So I’m trying to look after it in terms of food. She my wife always gives us good food, decent food, and we don’t have any rubbish, you know, sort of junk food, junk food, we, I think we, pretty well in terms of that. But health wise, I think I’m alright at the moment.