Growing up, Terry knew from an early age that he wanted to be a doctor. A surgeon more specifically. He’d watch all the medical shows on the family black and white portable and after passing his finals, felt his life was complete. He would (somewhat perversely) cut up dead animals he found whilst playing, and (rather more nicely) sew up toys that were fraying or at risk of losing their limbs.

It wasn’t, and several mistakes later, including removing a young boy’s undescended testicle without consulting the parents (or obviously the boy himself) he realised he could no longer go on living behind the facade of carrying out minor operations in nice hospitals and never really thinking he was making much of a difference.

Not having had a family, dedicating himself to his work, he decided to spend his savings on something else that he’d wanted to do, and travelled to the Far East. It was a good time to be leaving Britain, the mid Eighties, and in little time at all he knew for certain that he’d done the right thing.

Finally he found love, in a bar in Hong Kong. Love that didn’t involve scalpels or sterilising, scrubbing up or anaesthetics. Kim was her name. She even spoke quite good English, because her sister, who coincidentally had moved to England a few years earlier, sent her Beatrix Potter books on a  regular basis.

He took her around the world. He paid for everything, he was living out his fantasy, and kept souvenirs of every single place they visited, planes they flew on, restaurants they ate at. New York, San Francisco, Canada, Hawaii, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, but the love of Jeremy Fisher and Mrs Tiggywinkle ensured that Kim wanted to settle down in the Lakes, only just up the road from where he had practised, a lifetime ago at that time.

She lasted a couple of years then moved down to her sister’s. Her niece had gone away to Uni, Kim got a job in the family factory, and Terry was alone again.

Some people say he died of a broken heart – others say cancer. He tried to move on, was even planning to join an agency but had lost the passport photo on the way into town one day. But within a few months he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and could just about afford a place in a hospice attached to the hospital he had last worked at.

Terry died in 2003, leaving little but a Beatrix Potter figurine collection and a bag of untouched matchboxes (Terry never smoked) and boarding passes. The statues got a good price at auction, helped that year’s fundraising appeal, but the matchboxes stagnated on stalls at coffee mornings for a couple of years until a human magpie, attending a spring fair with his grandma (his aunty and grandfather having spent time at the same hospice) bought them. 

Kim still goes back to the Lakes a couple of times a year with family, her niece having gone missing last year. She longs for the days when Terry would hold her hand as they walked, or read to her late at night. She wishes she had some souvenirs of their wonderful trips together, instead of just fading memories.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm and is filed under UNLUCKY FOR SOME. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.