STAR MIKE TOLD: ‘YOU MUST PREPARE FOR THE WORST’
COMEDIAN Mike Doyle had just come off the phone to his son’s doctor. He’d been told to ‘prepare for the worst.’
At that point, his son was being described as the ‘sickest person in Wales’ with coronavirus. Things were not looking good.
Then came the phone call.
Mike, who’s originally from Carmarthen, said: “The doctor said to me on the phone: ‘You must understand your son is critical and you must prepare for the worst’. I just thought, I couldn’t tell Jane that night.
“The thought of losing him, I just could not comprehend that. I could not accept it.”
The much-loved entertainer’s son Tommy Doyle was diagnosed with the virus at the beginning of the pandemic back in March last year, having returned home from working on a cruise ship as a lighting engineer.
He began experiencing severe chest pain and an overall “rotten” feeling. Tommy was taken to intensive care, put on a ventilator, and spent four weeks under sedation.
He marked his 31st birthday in a coma at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Mike said: “He was not feeling at all well and you don’t know straight away that it is coronavirus. There were not as many people with it at the time back in March last year.
“He was feeling absolutely rotten and his chest was so bad. He was coughing and I’d never heard a cough like it.
“He went to hospital in Gwent and they said they had to have a second opinion and they sent him to the Heath in Cardiff and his health deteriorated and deteriorated. He could not breathe.
“He tested positive for Covid-19 and they put him on ventilation for over a month. At one point he was the sickest person in Wales.
“It was so traumatic, I can’t begin to tell you. Between myself and Tommy’s mum, Jane, we would ring the hospital four times a day to keep up to date with his progress. Every man and his dog were praying for Tommy. I had people contacting me from churches in South Africa, America, Cape Town.
“A guy up in Liverpool, David Gamble, rang me every day. Ray Bevan, a Christian pastor from Newport was ringing me from South Africa. When things like this happen, you’re on your knees.”
Mike explained his son’s long road to recovery and the lasting severe impact the virus was having on his life.
He said: “When I picked him up from hospital it took us 15 minutes to get him from the wheelchair to the car, and then 20 minutes from the car to the house when we arrived home.
“He had the help of a physio and speech therapist and could not talk for weeks and weeks. He had to learn to swallow again. It took him a while to get back to where he was, but he has made a remarkable recovery.
“He’s about 90% back to where he was now, I would say, just over a year later.
“The only long Covid symptoms he has is feeling very, very tired. When he does anything he gets extremely tired.
“I feel so, so sorry for the people who have lost their loved ones. You cannot see them in hospital and they are without anyone they know.”
Inspired to help the NHS and give back to those who helped his son, Mike, who now lives in Cardiff, has recorded a song written by Vernon Hopkins called The Face of Kindness, in dedication to the NHS, thanking them for all the tireless work during the pandemic.
Mike said: “It’s really interesting how this came about.
“Vernon Hopkins contacted me with the song that he had written and I listened to it and heard the lyrics and I thought, goodness, with the year we had and the experiences through Tommy in hospital, if I could make a good job of this it will be a good way of saying thank you to our brilliant NHS and the fantastic nurses at the Heath in Cardiff. They saved his life.
“I was told to prepare for the worst. He was just 31 years old and we thought we were going to lose him. I thought singing and entertaining is what I do and this would be a good way of saying thank you.
“I told the record company that I don’t want a penny for it and I will give any royalties to the NHS. I owe them so much, and that will be my way of saying thank you.
“This song feels to me like a song of hope. We have all been through some sort of trauma and this is a song to give us hope. We will get out of this. We will be back.”
■ The Face of Kindness is available on itunes, Spotify, Youtube music and many other music platforms.
“
He tested positive for Covid-19 and they put him on ventilation for over a month. At one point he was the sickest person in Wales. It was so traumatic, I can’t begin to tell you Mike Doyle
IN the past four years since launching her own business, Beth James has only ever taken one working day off.
In fact, it would be fair to say that since leaving school at 16 as a straight A’s student to forge her own path, the 30-year-old simply hasn’t stopped.
Formerly a veterinary receptionist before starting afresh, over her career Beth has tried her hand at everything from cattle herding to gun dog training to helping run the smallholding where she lives with her dad and two sons in the Carmarthenshire village of Llandyfaelog.
And while the pandemic has posed a problem for many businesses, Beth’s successful pet food company has continued to go from strength to strength, alongside home educating her boys.
Founded in 2017, TP Feeds now sells dog and cat food to retailers across the UK. At its heart is Beth, a one-woman team – owner, marketing director, purchasing officer, web designer, customer service manager and any other title you can think of.
Beth said: “When I first set up the business it felt like an admission to tell people that it was just me, not a big company, not staff in an office or a lot of people working for me or anything, it felt like a confession if you like.
“But I managed to convince myself that I needed to admit that because at the end of the day people buy from people, they know who they’re buying from and they know the story of who they’re buying from and it’s that personal touch. But it did feel like a confession that I wasn’t a big company.”
While easygoing and happy to chat, it doesn’t take long to tell that Beth is the kind of person who will just throw herself in headfirst to whatever she’s doing.
It turns out it’s a skill she’s carried with her from a young age when at 16 the Bury Grammar School pupil surprised everyone by taking on a farm role despite having never been inside a milking parlour before.
“I’ve been working since I was 16. I went to a very posh grammar school for girls and I did well in school, straight A’s.
“And much to my headmistress’s horror I decided not to carry on and do my A-levels. I got sick of the sort of conveyor belt of academia, having it shoved down your throat constantly, told that ‘this is what you should be doing, this is the route for you – you’re an intelligent girl, you must therefore become a doctor or a lawyer.’
“I wanted to enjoy life, I wanted to be happy, that’s the key, to do something worthwhile and something you’re going to enjoy and that you’re going to wake up each day wanting to do it, not just because it’s going to put money in the bank,” she said.
“Bearing in mind I went to an inner city grammar school I became a relief herdswoman on a big dairy farm milking about 220 cows. I worked there for about nine months doing an apprenticeship but worked my way up until I was in charge of the young stock and quite often in charge of milking.
“I started there as an apprentice. I’d never worked on a farm before, I’d never seen a milking parlour before. I just went there and got stuck in but that’s pretty much the story of my life. Once I get an idea in my head I just go for it and I will throw myself in wholeheartedly. Brave, crazy, stubborn, call it what you want.”
Beth was barely 18 when she and her father Ryan made the decision to move from England to their native Carmarthenshire to take on their own smallholding business.
While Ryan’s first “purchase” was a Tamworth sow swapped in exchange for a bottle of whisky, since then they’ve taken on cade (orphan) lambs and goats before now owning their own flock of sheep.
It was around that time that Beth also took on a project of her own, gun dog training, alongside helping as she still does now with the administrate side of the farm.
Despite quickly gaining a name for herself in trials and competitions it’s something she has less time for now, although she did take in a dog for training whilst heavily pregnant and preparing for an imminent C-section with her youngest son before strapping on her newborn and heading straight back out the door.
It was adapting to motherhood that inspired Beth to shake everything up and start afresh with her own line of pet food.
Beth, who was also working as a veterinary receptionist at the time, said: “I had my first child
TP Feeds as well as helping run her dad’s smallholding and home educating her two sons. and I was on maternity leave and I was thinking ‘what’s the next step, where do I go from here?’
“I had been working at a vets for a while before that and decided I didn’t want to be going back to a fulltime nine-to-five job.
“I didn’t want to be leaving my child five days a week. Even before I had him when I was working in that job I was sat there thinking ‘is this my life?’ Is this what it is now just every week for the rest of my life? That’s not a life, that’s not living.
“Having run a previous online store selling all these different foods, small brands and big brands, you get a good sense of what the good recipes are and what dogs actually benefit from.
“More often than not it’s not the big brands. I wanted to create a brand that would be simple, straightforward, tells you how it is, can explain it to you, is very personable and not at a ridiculous price which most of the premium brands are.”
Today, Beth and TP Feeds sell to independent stores across the UK. As someone who avoids the big country stores, supermarkets and pet shop chains, she knows everything there is to know about who she sells pet food and treats to.
She prides herself on the recipes she has brought to life; even the most basic has meat as its first ingredient compared to many competitors, all tried and tested by her four own labradors.
“In the past six months I’ve taken on another seven stockists,” she said.
“When I started my first orders went out to retailers, her so I had three retailers to start with. I like to work with independent stores because you’ve still got that ethos that carries through. If you want to sell to the big country stores, chains or supermarkets you instantly lose that connection, you’re just another brand on the shelf.”
Asked whether she was nervous about the launch, she laughs: “I just cracked on. There’s no point doing anything by halves and if you’re launching a new business there’s no point in creeping up and saying you’ve got a new business, you’ve got to come on the scene and tell people who you are.
“This last year has been bizarre for everyone but I’ve still grown. From my first year to my second year I had 210% growth and then the year after that another 70%. Last year during Covid we saw 12% growth. This year we’re aiming for about 50% growth and that’s not taking into account the fact that I’m expanding.”
That expansion is a new branch of Beth’s business offering raw meals and raw diets for dogs. It is a fast-growing sector of the pet food industry and she is keen for her product to be as sustainable as possible by using wool insulation and packaging that is all environmental-friendly and re-usable.
And if that’s not keeping her busy enough, Beth is also a single mother who permanently homeschools her two boys, 5year-old Teilo and Cybi, 3.
She said: “If you’d asked me before I had kids about home educating I would have said it was just for hippies and kids that had been kicked out of school and had no other options.
“I would never have thought of if as an option.
“I realised how early they go to school in Wales and I was just, like, I’m not sending my three-year-old off to school. The concept of home education popped up while I was researching and it all made sense.
“The more I looked into it the more I thought it fits into our lifestyle and how I believe children should be raised and educated and how they can keep that love of learning.”
After a decision that even took her by surprise before she started researching it, Beth now lets Teilo have a say in what he’s learning by picking a different topic every month. This month it’s electricity, which will see him make his own circuit boards, while last month it was Japan, learning about the festivals and culture and perfecting his Katsu curry. And that’s not taking into account the kickboxing, ballet, science club and cricket he does on top in normal circumstances when he’s not helping to look after the animals.
So with all that in mind, how does Beth do it all? Unsurprisingly, there’s no magic trick, just a lot of hard work and determination. Beth said: “I live life at 100mph. If someone gave me an hour and said I could do anything I just wouldn’t know what to do. I tried to have a bath once, a relaxing typical bath that you see on the films. I’m not sure I know how to relax, I like doing things and being productive.
“We went away for the bank holiday weekend. My father came with us as well and we just went up to North Wales to a cottage for the weekend. I had to close the business on the Friday, which was a big deal. If I’m not there I can’t send out orders so it was the first time I’ve ever closed the business on a working day. It’s not the done thing.”