When I came home after the bypass, I was a bit shaky really because once you get home, it’s nice to get home, but all of a sudden you realise you haven’t got the support of that hospital round you [laughs]. You suddenly realise that you’re on your own and the first few days it was rather daunting.

But it was certainly quite an experience that all of a sudden you’re home, but you haven’t got the support of the hospital services around you. But you learn to cope with it and, slowly but surely, the confidence returns and you realise that you’ve got to get on and do the best you can, and that’s exactly what my partner and myself did.

How did you build up that confidence?

Well as different things happened. I mean, I was very, very weak, very, very shaky but every day I went outside and I did a little walk and walked back and then we moved the table here and we had a little dance practice and a little sleep.

And we just kept working and working to build up my strength and of course, meeting people and my children coming over and seeing me, the support of the family and everything else.

It was all wrapped in together and, slowly but surely, the confidence returns and you get more and more ambitious and then after a month you suddenly realise that you can drive again.

So jumping in the car and driving around gives you a little bit more confidence. So you keep building and building, as long as you’re positive.

And then for the next few days of being home was very, very emotional and because you can’t do very much, you sit and everybody doing everything for you, they’re running up and down and every time I moved, “What would you like?” my wife would stand up and [laughs] run for it. And then about three days later I thought, ‘Well why don’t you go to work and I’ll be fine. Because I knew that if she’s not here I will do things for myself. And another friend of mine who also had a triple bypass a year earlier and he came to see me and talked to me about the thing I was going through is normal you know, that you will feel a pain, you don’t want, you can’t walk, you don’t feel like to eat and so this is normal but it get better and, and support from families and friends I think that was the biggest help and encouragement to move on and do that. And then about four/five days later I started walking up and down in the house. It was so cold I couldn’t go out for about six weeks and I was so desperate to go and walk. And then as the thing got better, I think about four or five weeks later I went to walk for forty five minutes and I went from [Village] to [Town] and back which is about just under three miles and I felt brilliant. And then I slept for two hours [laughs] because I was exhausted.

So from then on, you know, it got better and better and the next, my aim was to go and play golf and I remember going to check up in hospital and say, “Everything’s fine we don’t need to see you anymore, you are discharged from hospital,” which was the more really a reassurance and give me more confidence. And I came home and just carried on, you know, as a normal life walking and lots of walking and doing things, not sitting down and feeling sorry for myself and that’s something you must learn to do. You know it’s a wonderful world out there, you need to make effort and believe in yourself and you go and do things that you want to do.

But my goal was to play golf again and they told me in the little book, the heart booklet, which I’ve read, that at six weeks I shall be able to not play golf but I should be able to walk on the course.

So at six weeks I started walking on the course again. With my wife mainly and wed play nine holes, or shed play nine holes and when we got to a green and I’d putt and then slowly but surely I’d sneak another golf club in and play with a [inaudible].

And after, just after six weeks I started to hit the golf ball again, although people have said, you know ‘careful of your chest. But the people in the rehab said, ‘it’s a swinging movement rather than a stretching. Don’t lift, people kept telling me, ‘don’t lift bags of cement and don’t pick up slabs.

I have no intention of picking up slabs in fact I told the surgeon that if anyones going to pick up a bag of cement, I’ll let the wife do it. [laughs]

So I had this goal to play golf again and at six weeks also the rehab people called me and said, ‘start the rehab again. So I’m back into the rehab now, which is I’m only going once a week now for twelve weeks and I think again that’s absolutely essential to do all this.

But it was that goal and they said, ‘at three months you should be able to play golf. And at three months I started playing golf and I’m round to playing fourteen holes now, out of the eighteen, including going up the hill that used to worry me.

You must give yourself something to look forward to and something to do within the capabilities, your capabilities of doing it and I think that is as simple as that. That’s all I can say and you have friends and you appreciate friends and you try and live the life you did before.

But you can’t do it suddenly; you’ve got to do it gradually. You’ve got to float around like some injured bird for a little while until your wings have healed and then you can go out. Plenty of exercise within reason, even if it’s only slow walking. Slow walking and then you get faster, you get to be able to speak to people for longer periods and you get to be able to pick up where you left off. I did.

I made myself do it but I didn’t overdo it, when I was tired I went to bed. Not set up but laid out, went to bed so that every part of my body was relaxed. I didn’t care what people thought I went to bed whenever I felt like going to bed and maybe for just an hour and it was enough and then you get up and go again. It’s just plain common sense I think.

These friends who had been looking after my wife were coming up to see me were quite astonished I think to find us walking. We didn’t realise that, didn’t study the book accurately to realise that it said after so may weeks I think it was, or days, as your programme progresses, try to introduce a little incline into your walking.

Well [laughs] my wife did read it and she decided that she would drive me up to the top and wed walk along the tops but I had some friends who came and goodness knows what they were expecting to find, these are work people, but I was halfway up the main hill and they recognised me and couldn’t believe it.

They said, “weve come to visit a patient, weve come expecting to find you all stretched out and feet up,” and I was doing my walk, because weve got this magnificent area around here, this is a fabulous place for walking but it’s hilly. So that was the rehab.

Well as I say, I drank a lot of water. I decided that I was going to drink water to get whatever was in my system out of my system and I was drinking ten glasses of water a day. So that’s something.

The one mistake I probably made on reflection is that I decided to cut back on the food intake in terms of the saturated fat and so on, dairy products early on. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have waited about a month and that would have helped my body to recover quicker probably.

But it did recover quickly and it wasn’t long before I was walking the streets and walking a little bit further each day. Not taking my dog because he might pull on my chest. So walk, walk, walk. And walk a little bit further each day and if theres a slight hill, be careful. But walk, walk, walk. Drink water, eat the right foods, be patient, be confident and push on ahead.

Did you find that you stayed positive emotionally during that time?

Most of the time I was. Theres times when you get a little bit down and you know, you wonder what’s the future got for you because you’re not sure, because it’s the first time you’ve gone through this experience. So you, I wouldn’t say apprehensive, but just wonder what lies ahead, of course you do.

But having gone through this stage, theres nothing really to worry about. So yes, you have your days when things aren’t quite so good; a little bit of pain here, a bit of pain there. But you just get on with it. You’ve got to get on with it, lifes got to go on.

But now I’ve had my operation and my scars funnily enough are first class, they’ve virtually faded. The surgeon how he did it I don’t know, because when I was admitted to the local hospital, after I came out, the charge nurse and the doctor said, ‘I’ve never seen such a good cut. It really, really is a good one,’ she says. And I agree, it’s fading so good, I can’t believe it. So I’m happy about that.

Did you put anything on it to help it? Has it just faded on it’s own?

It just faded on it’s own, I do nothing. This is one of the reasons I want to go abroad. I think a bit of sunshine would help it a little bit more and that’s what it needs now is a bit of sunshine now, and I’m convinced that it’ll be virtually undetectable, not completely. But there again, that’s the penalty you’ve got to pay for having blocked arteries I suppose [laughs].

And your leg, sometimes the leg is more of a trouble than the chest, was that okay?

No, no problem at all. I did wear a stocking, a pair of tights for the first six weeks, day and night. I never took them off except to wash them and change them and it’s healed up perfectly, beautiful. I’m really, really pleased with it. I’m very, very pleased with the surgeon, theres no two ways about it.

You get very conscious about some of these things. It’s weird when you, like were about in November we go, as a family we go to the [a leisure complex] in [the lake district] every year, and it’s lovely, but I went last year and you go into the pool with trunks. Well I’m, I look like bloody Frankenstein and you just see people going [pause], looking at you like that.

What do you do, do you look at them in the eye or, or you carry, or if they catch you, it’s things like this. I’ve just got to carry on but, but you do feel so self-conscious of it, you try not to but it’s worse because with being, still relatively put on a lot of weight on from the running point of view, I’m still relatively thin, by comparison to, to most people and, and the, the scars have what’s the phrase, is it gravelled up or grained up or whatever they’ve, they’ve become quite proud and, and the skin, so they stand out.

And you’ve got this big one there, down there, your tracheotomy, theres these, four chest drains, theres two there either side, you know. And you’ve got from there down to there and that’s fine, that’s actually healed up you can’t see it, but from there to there it almost as thick as me, me finger.

The scars?

Yes, so of course you [laugh] you’re walking, I mean if I saw somebody like that you’d just go, even if it was, I would have mine, Oh bloody hell what’s up with them, you know and you just like, and you just feel. The kids don’t really comment on it now they just go, that’s where you’ve been sore yeah, things like that.

I mean initially when I came back I sometimes do forget she wanted a hug and cuddle, shes one of those crawling all over you. She couldn’t because physically, this is after the bypass, well you’re in real pain, and just a little nudge here were like, and it was painful and they’d be upset if they hurt you, so you have to be very careful. I mean my son is the most adorable loving creature you could ever see.

It’s quite surprisingly is, you’d almost think I hate gender stereotypes because most people say the behaviour he exhibits are female and that hes so loving, he gives you a kiss but if he gives you a kiss he asks for a hug as well. If you just give him a kiss and walked away hed be upset, give me a hug as well.

But if I’m hurt, if I feel as I’m, say the scar, hed go and kiss the scar, I’ll make you better, hell come and kiss and hug and then go away again. So that’s what I get from them, you know the hug and the kiss and they’ll actually touch the scar and kiss and walk away again.

It was initially, now I play with them now and will lift them, although my wife looks down at, because they are the ‘bag of cement effect. And I was a bit protective of me chest, especially this dead, dead patch.

My one little granddaughter, shes a wriggly bum, she sits on lap and theres arms and legs going all over the place and you get a poke in the eye and shell, shell sort of put her head back and would bang on this. So there was a bit of wariness about that. But we spoke to the surgeon and he said, ‘well after three months, all where hes, hes cut down and separated the breast bone, and I’m actually put together with titanium loops.

He said, ‘at three months’, he said, ‘that’s absolutely solid now. He said, ‘you know you can’t get through that, you can’t damage it. And at two months even it’s pretty well knitted. That was when I was really starting to sort of move about and play more golf or at least started to swing. And he said, ‘you know you can’t get through that.

Well I think at cardiac rehab you see all the people who have the same problem. [laughs] Some of us had it for the first time, some for the second time;

Some of us had stent, some of us had surgery, some of us still waiting, so there is a good mix, a good mix of age, a good mix of experience, a good mix of you know of physical limitations and, but as a group, yes it was quite enjoyable. [laughs;

Particularly that I don’t, I’m not, I used to swim and play tennis in the past and I stopped that quite a long time;

I don’t know why it was probably there was no time and my only exercise I do is walk in the corridors of the hospital and going up and down the stairs to see patients or running for an emergency and that was my exercise. [laughs]

Theres no time.

So theres not time in between. I wish to go back to swimming again and the tennis. Hopefully. In the future.

So the benefits of the cardiac rehab was having someone in a similar situation to you?

Yes, yes and then you also can do some things you know all together. You know you can see somebody who can do it, somebody who can’t do it, somebody who’s tired. So you can see in reality how, how life can affect you and then you can see whether you are lucky or unlucky. [laughs].

And how did you feel?

Well I felt it is quite, I really enjoyed it. Yes, I really enjoyed it.

Can you tell me about the cardiac rehabilitation that you went to?

Well it was just, you used to go for a talk at first, when you first started, just tell you what were happening and how your heart were recovering and your tablets, what your tablets were doing to help you recover and then we did a physio for one day a week, you went for a morning.

And we did circuit training for all different sorts of exercises so you went one day a week for that and that went on for about 40 weeks I think it was and they recommended that you did a bit of exercise, besides that exercise you were doing at rehab. So I used to go for a walk, take the dog for a walk or just cut grass.

I didn’t dig garden because I hadn’t to do any heavy work you know, any hard work. I used to just cut grass, walk up and down a few times, sit down, have a rest. It used to take me half a day to cut grass and it’s only a small garden so plenty of time and just take things easy, don’t rush things, just take it nice and easy. I haven’t any problems, I haven’t any twinges or ought like that you know.

I felt I could rehabilitate myself, which I did. I didn’t want to be; I didn’t want to be mixed up with other peoples reactions and feelings. I wanted just to have my own and sort my own out and right or wrong I did it. But no, the doctor asked me and I said, ‘no, I’ll do it’, I said, ‘I’ll do it myself. I didn’t want any help to climb the mountain because if somebody fell down I’d fall down with them. I’d rather do it myself.

Did you use the heart manual? Did he give you a heart manual?

Oh Yes, yes I read it. Yes that’s very helpful, I think all these manuals, all these leaflets and questions and answers that other people have gone through before you and experiences of doctors as well, it’s good to read because you can pick out something that goes with what you have already said or done and think.

You think, ‘oh yes that’s right, yes it’s right there or well that’s a good thing, that’s an idea,’ and you read these things and you do get ideas and you do get inspiration. I can only say that from these different things and you get so many different aspects of these things. It’s not, it’s never black and white is it? [I’ No]. It’s never black and white.

And you, and you, you felt it was better for you to just use the heart manual[R’ Yes, I did]and work through that week by week?

I found that very, very useful especially when you first get over the operation, are getting over the operation, you do need rest. You do need exercise but you have to be clever about it. You need the exercise and you need the rest.

And I used to just lay on the settee, which wasn’t here then, it was in the other house, and just read and get really involved with it and then ask myself questions and then think, you know, oh yeah well yes that could happen and perhaps that’s what happened to me, and you either agree or disagree but it gives you something to do.

It’s obviously knowledge because without books you wouldn’t have any knowledge would you unless somebody talked to you forever. Yeah, I think the leaflets and the books, which I always read are very helpful. Sometimes you wouldn’t agree with them but it depends on your own experiences wouldn’t it, it just depends.

There is a cardiac rehab and I initially went through that in terms of some of the exercises but again that’s, you see that’s the weird thing in that, I’d go there and of course I’m almost half the age of most people on it and they’re doing the exercises. Well I’m like, you know, it physically wasn’t, although my heart was, was, obviously you’ve got to be careful, I’m governed by my heart and what my muscles and brain can do, but I, I moved through it reasonably well.

The first few weeks not so, because I was still recovering from the chest and so I was getting intense pain, I was having to sleep sitting up. So when they did for example the floor exercises and say, ‘Lift your body off the floor’, I couldn’t get up again [laugh]. I’d have to roll over on my side, because it was so painful to move your body that way.

But in terms of the other ones, like lift, lifting your knees up and what, I mean, I can go for ever and a day at that. But again it’s comparing, I think, understandably generally within the medical profession you get a range of people to you, you tend to discuss the general the norm.

Well from a physical point of view, as I say, I was well outside the norm, there were those who were pretty ill before they come in, there were those who were, physical attributes that make them great athletes or whatever, you know. So I’m probably going to be a little bit different to the norm and, and these are some of the areas that I were.

So as I say from a personal point of view, I’d like to have done more. And I did go to a gym then you see and started doing, I joined a local gym, I started doing more there.

One of the frustrations I had was driving and let me just talk about that a little bit because they recommend you shouldn’t drive for four weeks. In fact most people wait for six weeks as I did and if, six weeks even I found problems. I found problems at road junctions looking to the left, looking to the right, the pain on the chest.

So there is a problem there and the other thing is safety belts because the safety belts going right across your chest when you’ve had an operation and it’s still, it’s sore. So I got round this by using a soft cushion, which reduced the pain a bit and by using clothes pegs on the safety belt because you’ve got to wear a safety belt.

So that does help but yes, there was a problem and I’ll never forget, seven weeks after the operation driving 120 miles and I was glad to get to the end of the journey. So there is a problem there but again, be patient, be confident, it’s going to get better and it will get better.

Going back to work, what was it actually going back those first few days?

Well it was a bit strange because I start now to coming back to, to what’s the normal routine is waking up early and coming late and you know it was quite exhausting to start with. And I think the, the stress and the strain was a bit, you know I start to feel the stress from the day one because I have to, to be on my toes most of the time, I have to think twice before I do anything and you know the, I was a bit slower than I used to be because I have to check everything twice before I [laughs] do anything;

And then as time goes by, start to pick up and come back to normal. Because every day you work and you do the work, you get more confident and then you feel that much happier.