Message in a bottle (from Corked Hat)

[OldBrownShoe]

I count myself lucky enough, as do some other Foffers, to have been in regular contact with yonder Corked Hat over the years and to number him as one of my most special friends. As you may know he has not enjoyed the best of health in recent times and he also announced that he was unlikely to be posting on here or on Facebook any more.

We continue to email each other however and his missives are often exceptionally well written, good humoured and deserving of a wider audience.

The following one received today is typical. I have his permission to reprint it here.

"...When I used to watch Coronation Street which seems now to have been in the same era as when the man came round to light the gas lamps outside our house each night, I used to observe, if not in horror, then in bemusement, how people would blithely walk into their neighbour's homes without as much as a knock or invitation.
The thought of leaving your door open in Battersea or Wandsworth thus allowing anyone to walk through it, would leave you in untrammelled dread, and the chances of you surviving the night with your best china still there in the morning were remote. Indeed, the chances of you surviving the night in one piece, was always odds against.
And yet here was Len Fairclough walking into the Ogden's living room as though he possessed some divine right to be there. Ena Sharples, it seemed, had access to every house on the Street in the same way that a prison warden had to each cell on his block.
Here in the Bush people rarely lock their doors during the day and only in recent years did they start to lock their doors at night.
Now I don't wish to impart the idea that everyone in town is cordially invited to walk unannounced into anyone else's house. That is not how it happens, but certain people know, or think they know, that they do not have to be invited to enter my house.
In my case, this coterie of visitors include the Reverend Barry, Sonny the Blacksmith, Dusty the Shepherd, The Oxbrows, Cliffie the Plumber and anyone from Meals on Wheels.
Jeannie would have hated this invasion of what she would have perceived to be her hard fought right to privacy but without these neighbours I would have sunk into oblivion. It was at their concentrated unison that they drove me to hospital where I spent a week learning how to walk again.
Today, for the first time since I left hospital, I ventured alone into our main street. I have been to the doctors since my discharge but I was driven there and back by Barb Oxbrow,
I find myself in our local store where I exchange banter with Ruwy the owner whose AFL team, Richmond, was beaten by my team Carlton, with the last kick of the match in yesterday's game. He is always so cheerful and philosophical in defeat that I almost feel guilty that his team has lost.
My mobile phone rings and I stand next to the cereal shelf in the corner to answer it.
It is someone from the hospital – in days of yore she would have been called the almoner, but today has some long winded title that I cannot hope to memorise.
I should preclude what is about to be said by stating that I am feeling better today than I have for a very long time. I find that I am doing more round the house and here I am for the first time in a month racing my gopher up the main street to undertake a bit of shopping.
Yes, I am on a myriad of pills and yes I do have two doctor's appointments and one out-patient's appointment inked in for the next month, but I am confident that the care that has been bestowed upon me has had some welcome effect.
This lady from the hospital, however, tells me that my case has been reviewed and a decision has been made to provide me with community nursing care at no charge. I can expect a house call from said nurse within the next few days.
I have never requested such assistance – having read my book you will know that community nurses and John Henry have an uneasy alliance and the last thing I need at this time is a kaleidoscope of memories propelling back to those horrendous days when Jeannie was so ill.
Someone, however, has decided that I am no longer fit enough to care for myself and to exacerbate matters; I apparently do not possess the financial wherewithal to pay for it.
I attempt to explain to the lady at the other end of my Nokia that I am feeling much better now and such community nursing may be considered superfluous.
We must appreciate at this juncture that we are dealing here, not so much with a human being but more of a programmed robot recruited directly from the North Korean army. You have  more chance of taking a bone away from a Pit Bull than getting anyone employed by the Government to understand reason.
Thus on Friday, at a time to be determined, the community nurse will be arriving on the doorstep of Craven Cottage in the Bush.
I am reminded of the old Stanley Holloway ditty where he is released from hospital feeling like a million dollars only to have everyone who meets him telling him how bad he looks and how he must be within one wheezing last breath of carking it.
You will unearth from all this that I am no longer in control of my own life. I have a forty year old brain in an eighty year old body and as thankful as I am to have maintained all my mental faculties they have no purpose in how I conduct my affairs.
If I had any aspirations of joining my old mates on their fortnightly trip on Friday week they have been thwarted by the fact that one of my doctor's appointments falls on this day. I missed their last trip last Friday, the first I have missed since I joined the club in September 2010.
I will confess to you although I am not publicising the fact, but the reason that the medical profession are keeping such a vigilant eye on me is that they have discovered some imperfections in my kidneys and that being placed on a dialysis machine is a real possibility. I may also need to have another heart operation because the mitral valve that was repaired in 2000 shows some degree of disrepair and a whole new valve may have to replace it.
The only positive aspect in all this is that my diabetes is under control and my hemochromatosis has all but cleared up.
Whether I wish to endure more operations and medical procedures is debatable. I made the choice early on in life that I was going to live life to the full and it is now not appropriate for regret. I made the choice and now I reap the product. 
I am thrilled and uncontrollably proud to have lived to see my beloved birthplace in all its resplendent Olympic glory. I shed tears of unashamed joy that Great Ormond Street Hospital where my daughter Wendy, spent so much of her babyhood, was featured so brilliantly in the opening ceremony. For a small Island nation languishing in the North Sea I honestly believe that Britain has much to be proud. It is unfortunate that this success has prompted a legacy which has also contributed to its downfall.
If it all ended tomorrow, I would have no regrets. I was married to the most wonderful woman for thirty years. For someone who didn't even make it to a Grammar School and left without one exam to his name and  barely past his fifteenth birthday, I haven't fared too badly.
I had a call on Friday from the Brisbane Advertising Association saying that they needed my contact information because they wanted to make a proposition to the person who was their inaugural winner of their Lifetime Achievement Award. What an immense honour that was, and being the inaugural winner that is an accolade that I can never lose.
University teacher – owner of one of the most successful advertising businesses in Australia -  writer of three published books with another on its way – winner of the HK McCann International Award for Creative Media Excellence – Producer and Creator of two TV Programmes – and Guest Speaker at over thirty seminars and conferences. Not bad for as kid whose school kicked him out and whose teachers said would never amount to anything.
So as my favourite French singer would have it. "Non, je ne regrette rien" and I mean it.
Of course there are things that I wished I had done and things that I wished I had not done, but nothing that I truly regret. There is not much I can do about it now anyway.
Keep in touch – I don't propose to check out just yet..."      :down_under:

[Fernhurst]

Thank you for posting OBS.

I find myself wondering if Corked Hat, Finnster and The Traveller had played together what a wonderful half back line that would've been!!

Undoubtedly the best since Freeman Hardy and Willis.

[Tomo]

Thank you for posting this mate, I have always looked up to Mr Corked Hat and I always appreciated all of his posts. I will be sad to no longer see him post and it's sad that it's under such circumstances. The man was a genius and it feels as if another great poster has gone. Let's hope that his condition improves and perhaps an update from him in the future to let us know he is fine would much suffice.

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[bog]

Thanks OBS. A top man and so good with words. Makes my bleating of my aches and pains seem somewhat trivial. How many times we hear of school leavers being told they wil never amount to anything. Talk about offering confidence at a very important time.

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[ScalleysDad]

I guess you will be mentioning this thread in your next email. Please pass on the very best wishes from the west country.

[epsomraver]

makes good reading to know he is on the road to recovery.

[The Equalizer]

Wonderful stuff OBS. Please pass on my very best wishes when you next speak to him.

Tom

[cebu]

Thank you OBS for passing on CH's email to us all - please be sure to send our warmest regards to him with hopes of an improvement in his all round physical condition.