Brave Paxman behind the mask
RSOME kinds of illness creep up on us like thieves in the night, slyly and silently, to rob us of our health. It’s not until we feel their fingers stealthily closing around our windpipe that we realise, too late, what is happening. Other conditions are more akin to violent muggers springing out of the shadows.
My late father fell into the latter category. One moment he was on the phone in his job as a press officer, curating the media launch of the latest model of Ford Capri, the next he was clutching his chest as a coronary struck without warning, brutally and efficiently extinguishing his life in a couple of minutes. He was 49.
If you had a choice, which would you choose? An abrupt exit like my father’s – no warning, no time to fret or worry or be afraid – or a more lingering battle against mortality as it inched closer, taking its own sweet time?
I suppose where there’s life there’s hope, so given the option I reckon I’d plump for the latter. Which made watching this week’s extraordinarily moving ITV documentary Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson’s so engrossing.
Cameras followed the former Newsnight and University Challenge presenter through his days as he comes to terms with the disease that took him by surprise as he walked his dog.
One moment he was strolling down the pavement near his home, the next he was coming round to find a concerned stranger calling an ambulance: the presenter had suffered a nasty fall. Shortly afterwards, as he was being patched up in his local casualty unit, a consultant neurologist approached. The man came straight to the point.
“I think you have Parkinson’s,” he said bluntly. It wasn’t just the fall arousing suspicion.The professor was a regular viewer of University Challenge and had begun to notice subtle changes in the host’s face typical of early-stage Parkinson’s: less expressiveness and mobility. It’s a telltale symptom known as Parkinson’s mask.
Something similar happened to comedian Billy Connolly when he was diagnosed with the same disease. He was in an airport departure lounge and had collected some drinks and nibbles from the bar and taken them to his table.A stranger approached and introduced himself as a specialist in Parkinson’s. “I think you have it,” he told an astonished Connolly.
The professor explained he’d noticed a telltale, shuffling gait as the comedian crossed the room; a walk known as Parkinson’s shamble. Just as Paxman would years later, Connolly duly tested positive.
God knows what end-game condition will one day come knocking on my door, but I hope that I show even a fraction of the strength and honesty on display in Paxman’s film.
“I’m beaten and dejected,” he muttered at one point, but for much of the time he didn’t look it. “Wry amusement” was how he summarised his approach to his predicament.Typical Paxo. Like the millions watching, I wished him well with all my heart.