£20 proved every storm cloud has a silver lining
AT A time when we have been beset by storm after storm, I am reminded of the Great Storm of October 1987. Famously, BBC weather presenter Michael Fish announced that there was no hurricane on the way. that month, my parents were on a coach holiday on Guernsey. When Mum paid for it she also included £20 for travel insurance for the two of them. Dad complained about her ‘wasting money’ on something they ‘didn’t need’. Unfortunately, their stay on the island coincided with the Great Storm.
On the day they were due to leave, all the ferry sailings were cancelled due to the storm. Dad took ill that day and had to be taken by ambulance to hospital, where it was confirmed that he’d had a stroke. the rest of the coach party left the next day, but my parents were on the island for a further three weeks before Dad was stable enough to be transferred to our local hospital. the hotel they were staying in was due to close for maintenance work. However, it stayed open, with Mum being the only guest. Each morning, she took a taxi to the hospital to spend the day at Dad’s bedside in intensive care. She then took another back to the hotel for her evening meal. I would ring her at this time every day. She later told me that was the only part of her day that ‘felt like normal life’, and how lonely and isolated she’d been on those evenings. She admitted she often thought: ‘I’m never going to get off this bloody island!’ When they did leave, they were transported by ambulance to the airport for a flight to Birmingham, accompanied by medics. On landing, an ambulance was waiting to transfer Dad to the hospital — where he stayed for a further three weeks.
Mum would say how kind everyone had been to her during this time: the hotel staff; taxi drivers; hospital staff; airport staff; etc. Fortunately, the (wisely taken out) travel insurance footed the bill for the extended hotel stay, the taxi fares and the flight. Mum reckoned the cost must have been in the thousands, and always said that it was the best £20 she’d ever spent.