A hand to hold

I was at Dr Phil Hammond's gig at Colchester Arts Centre recently (Thursday 13th April 2017). Phil's a GP.

And a comedian.

And a journalist.

And an author.

And a commentator on the NHS.

Anyway, this isn't about him... nor me. It's about the gig and someoe in the audience.

 

I'll just tell you about the gig first. The arts centre, an old church. Full to capacity. A bar, but no drunkenness.

Phil, himself, said, right at the start, that the show was going to be about intelligent kindness and love, including self love.

Two halves to the show; the first half about Phil's biography as an illustration of what he called SYOSO (sort your own self out), the second about SEOSO (sorting each other's selves out, including the publlc services).

 

I made couple of notes. Even though Phil used a slide show, I didn't think I could treat it like a lecture. No-one else was.

During the first half:

• His life story, but with lots of self-deprecation, one of the three critical elements described in George Mikes’ English Humour for Beginners - understatement, self-deprecation and plain cruelty.

• Medical tips (get vaccinated, protect your skin from sunburn etc)

• His uncle’s fuck it philosophy (80% of the time it will work to just say “Fuck it”)

• Suicide and the importance of talking

• The importance of a good death

In the second half:, SEOSO:

• Lots of anecdotes, relatives' use of reminders (mantras maybe).

• Anger makes you angry, love makes you lovely.

• Sustainability and transformation plans; something like the “service turning private” (can’t quite remember what he said, but you get the gist)

• The 3 Ps; pleasure, passion, purpose

• The importance of self love, that which makes self care possible.

• Self care, that which makes self-love possible
  

• And the CLANGERS

Now, the CLANGERS: He talked about the soup dragon, but his main message was the 8 behaviours recommended for resilience, though he didn’t mention this word at this point.

1. Connection – authentic, meaningful, kind, loving encounters (short and long term). Social connections.

He told the story of the hugs that he had tried to encourage some of his audiences to do at previous gigs.

An old man approached him at a subsequent gig and said that he hoped Phil was going to get them hugging again. It had been some years since that man had been hugged and he had returned hoping for more.

 

I can’t say that he was meaning to encourage us to hug each other more. I have tried this myself by writing “Please Hug More” on a poster at work relating to how the Bear Hugger (a device for warming cold, not dead, patients up) should work, I have not received a single additional hug from my work colleagues as a result.

He showed a  photo of two hearts hugging. I cannot find the same photo anywhere

 

I think of the church practice of shaking hands with your neighbours and wishing them peace (aaaaarggghhh-awkwardness followed by warmth and relief that it had gone ok.

 

2. Learn - Carry on learning and doing stuff for its own sake.

3. (Be) Active, or pro-active. Exercise well. Not trying to run a marathon or impress by doing an assault course when you are best off walking a walk or breast stroking in odd places.

4. Notice stuff (be mindful). This means different things to differenet people. A clinical psychologist I know said to think of it as taking a picture. Alternatively don't miss the kingfisher through watching the ground at your feet.

I am not criticising looking at ones feet. When in crisis, it's hard not to. We also have to avoid bags of pooh.

5. Give back. The pleasure is in the giving. A difficult one for some this. Who to give to? What to give? Start with thinking about it and noticing when you have given without forethought (your time for example).

6. Eat well. Eati mindfully. Know what you are eating. Maybe create what you eat, where you can.

7. Rest and Relax. I had learnt this one as "Boundaries" e.g. work-life balance, but they aren't far apart. I heard someone refer to work life integration this week. "I am walking the dog, bu thinking about work". I sometimes relax when I am at work, and I sometimes fail to relax when I am at home and should do. It's not meant to be easy.

8. Sleep well. Quantity and quality. How hard it is, but great it would be, to deliberately go to bed earlier, and then get up earlier and better rested.

Now, did I say I’d gone to this gig by myself? This isn’t unusual for me. I have often gone to things on my own (I remember being in a cinema in Bilbao, Spain with one other person, a man dressed in a raincoat. It was daytime and a sunny day at that- I’m not sure why I was going to the cinema on such a day, but I was.  The man was at the front. I made sure I was at the back. Perhaps he was much like me. We could have had coffee).

 

I am not sure what film it was. Almodovar maybe.

 

I remember that Bob Dylan was playing a gig at the bullring in Bilbao. Sold out.

I sometimes go places on my own because that is what I want to do.

 

Now, back to Colchester Arts Centre. I was one of the last in (I’d been messing about in my flat listening to the Kings of Leon) I hadn’t got a seat. I leant against one of the church pillars rather than climb across other members of the audicence.

Phil was getting us to participate in chanting. The chanting they do on the NHS protest marches, not Gregorian chanting.

And he asked us to hold hands with the people next to us.

Aaaaaaaarggghhh!

The nearest person to my left was the other side of the bar and I had had a long discussion with her about standing up at comedy gigs – which I don't think you should ever do.

To my right was a whole row of people sat down on chairs, with one empty seat, mine obviously.  Closest to me was a young woman. I never got a look at her face, but I’d enjoyed her laughing, particular at the Hunt’s a cunt chant (Phil never acutally got us doing this one, but we knew we were all doing it internally), and I just knew she was either a GP, or a higher trainee. Emergency medicine I reckon – though I don’t think Colchester have higher trainees in Emergency medicine, so perhaps I was just demonstrating familiarity bias.

So, what did I do?

 

I just put my hands in my pockets.

I though I’d got away with it.

Then I felt this little caress on my right forearm, and then a tap.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

Aaaaaaarrrggh!

I took my hand out of my pocket and slowly agreed to connect my hand to hers.

Humpf.

I continued to look straight ahead (it was dark but she might not have noticed me continue looking straight ahead, I don’t know.

It was nice hand though.

Warm and moist, without being sweaty.

I hadn’t held hands for years. Hand shakes don’t count.

So, what did I do?

I squeezed it.

Obviously.

No doubting.

I’d squeezed it.

Still looking ahead.

I can’t remember what the joke being  told was now.

And what happened?

She squeezed it back.

 

A reflex I suspect.

The joke over. I think he told us, as if hypnotized that it was time to stop holding hands.

 

We parted.

No tears. No sadness.

I put my hand back in my pocket.

I carried on looking ahead.

But…

I was warm inside.

 

I cannot remember the joke, though it had been funny.

 

I do remember the squeeze.

I thanked her before I left. She didn't bat an eyelid. It hadn't meant anything to her.

 

She would be holding hands again soon.

Having driven to Colchester on my own, I drove back on my own. I thought about Phil, this amazing doctor with all these other strings to his bow. I though about my career. I’d been a GP. I’d tried my hand at journalism. We’re all commentators on the NHS. I’d tried comedy. I’d even tried writing a book. I’d imagined being a Royal Marine, a Spanish interpreter, a rock drummer.

 

I still think of being a rock drummer.