Synopsis
The story tells of my life as an actress and writer. It delves back into my family history and describes the individual family members. My colleagues, whom I have asked to read this book, said they couldn't put it down. Well, this is all well and good but a miracle happened to me which I found both wonderful and frightening. I was writing about it in tears and found it tremendously hard-going and, at the same time, uplifting.
One of my biggest problems was that I wouldn't be believed when it came to telling my story but it really did happen and changed the course of my life completely. I became a different person, more thoughtful, loving and kind. My faith in God became very precious to me and has sustained me up to the present day.
1. Edge of madness (The ramblings of a maladjusted mind)
(Fernhurst Ward) St James Hospital, Portsmouth
June 2001
Midnight Thursday
The pain was so intense, it was searing through my body. I turned over and raised my hand to my forehead; it was wet with perspiration. The sheets and bed were soaked. The sweat was just pumping from me. I sighed, Oh God, am I going to die? I didn’t really think I was .. and yet?
“Are you alright, Jean?” It was the young Italian nurse.
“No, I m not.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Am I going to die?”
“Just let yourself go, Jean.”
“I can’t.”
“When your time’s up, it’s up.”
“Not necessarily. You can postpone it.”
She gave me a strange look and disappeared. I rolled over onto my back and gazed at the ceiling. How can they tell you to give up? They should be encouraging you to fight. Didn’t they understand? I wanted to live. I was going to live.
I felt a pain in my chest, just above the heart. My first thought was to press the buzzer. Then I thought, What can they do? A voice was telling me, God helps those who help themselves. I put my right hand on my heart and closed my eyes. I felt a burning sensation flowing through my fingers. (I’d done this before). Would it work again? I waited. There was a ball of flame where my heart was; it seemed to travel down my left arm. I waited until it reached my fingertips. I got out of bed and grasped my crutches. I tried to walk up and down; it didn’t work, I was too exhausted. There was a tremendous pressure on the lower part of my spine. I felt something was about to happen. Suddenly there was a whoosh! All this water seemed to gush from me. I pinched myself. I was still here. The bottom hadn’t dropped out of my world. I got up and stumbled back to bed. I collapsed across it. I’d done it again; the pain in my chest had disappeared. Something or someone was telling me what to do.
I closed my eyes and drifted into oblivion. I gripped the small wooden cross in my hand. God, don’t let me go. Please! Don’t let me go! I had no choice - I went.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Some cornflakes, please.”
Marion shook them out of the box. “How’re you feeling?”
Not too bad.
“You look alright.”
I grinned. “That’s what the Bishop said to the actress.”
She smiled, somewhat remotely, I thought, and looked beyond me. I was used to that look, wistful but sad.
“Let me carry that for you.” It was George, one of the patients. He picked up the dish and carried it to the table. “Can you manage with your crutches?”
“Yes, thank you.” I sat in the chair and raised the spoon to my lips. I swallowed the mouthful of cornflakes, not tasting them. I thought back to the night before. I was being moved this morning to another hospital St Mary’s Rehabilitation Unit. I wanted to go; I wanted to get out of this place. I wanted to get on with my life. They’d promised to help me walk again. Would they? I wondered.
I’d been in a wheelchair for five years. I was suffering from osteo-arthritis of the spine, among other things. It took me an hour to get changed, packed and ready. I looked round at the other patients and smiled.
“We’re going to miss you, Jean.”
“I’m going to miss you, too.”
The ambulance arrived. The patients gathered round ready to say goodbye. A tear ran the length of my cheek. There were a few damp eyes around. They tell me I make friends very easily. I like to think this is so and that I have a great capacity for love. A chaplain once said to me, “Jean, you fall in love with everyone and everyone falls in love with you.” (I wear my heart on my sleeve and consequently I get hurt). Similar to a lot of people, I suppose.
Looking back now, life to me has been one long, constant, battle; one crisis after another. But the fact is I am happy and I think it is true to say that I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I’ve loved it here at St James’s Hospital. The staff are wonderful and so very kind. The patients are pretty great, too. There is a wonderful camaraderie. Everyone mucks in and helps each other; no-one is left in the cold. You are welcomed into a warm circle and there you stay until you are well enough to leave. The ambulance came and I was bundled into it. Half an hour later I had arrived.
I was born with a deformed spine (a curvature they call it). Many people suffer from this and it is quite a common occurrence. It’s just that some people suffer more than others. I suffered. God, how I suffered.
My parents first met during the latter part of 1932. My father was twenty-one and my mother just nineteen. They met at a dance. My mother noticed he was sitting a dance out across the hall. She signalled for him to come over. He told me he thought his luck had changed. To use his own words, I shot over. He picked himself off the floor and straightened his tie. He introduced himself. She told him that a young soldier had been pestering her all evening and she was afraid. Would my father be kind enough to see her home? He acquiesced.
It was the beginning of a very passionate relationship. So much so that I appeared thirteen months later, followed intermittently by six other little daughters. Me being the eldest, Jean Eleanor, then Shirley Anne, Joyce Margaret, Diane Patricia, Marilyn Vera, Sandra Lyn and then last, but not least, a lovely little blonde angel by the name of Janet Linda who unfortunately was born with Down’s Syndrome almost twenty-two years later.
I almost forgot to tell you the most important part. My father’s name was Ronald Leslie Arnold and my mother’s was Vera May Meads. He was born one of eleven children on February 16th, 1911, and my mother, the youngest of a family of six, September 10th, 1914.
They were married at Portsmouth Cathedral, August 7th 1933. My father was six foot tall, blond, blue-eyed and handsome. He rose to be very high-up in the Navy. But that is a story for a later date. My mother was also very beautiful, but that is no idle boast.
