My song today is ‘Walk Hand in Hand with Me’. This was a popular song by Johnny Cowell in 1956. The biggest-selling version recorded of the song was sung by Tony Martin that reached Number 2 in the United Kingdom and Number 10 on the ’Billboard Hot 100’ chart in 1956. The same year, it was recorded by Andy Williams, whose version hit Number 54 on the chart, and by Ronnie Carroll, whose version reached Number 13 on the ‘UK Singles Chart’. A later recording by ‘Gerry and the Pacemakers’ reached Number 29 on the UK chart, Number 10 in Canada, and ‘bubbled under’ at Number 103 on the Billboard chart at the end of 1965.
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As many of you know, I was run over by a large vehicle at the age of 11years. I was almost killed and was left with multiple life-threatening injuries that included a damaged spine, a collapsed lung, a crushed chest with all but two ribs broken, and both legs and arms were broken in several places each. Having my twisted body wrapped around the main drive propellor shaft of the vehicle beneath the under-carriage when it knocked me down and ran over me, essentially left me in a mangled state. Most bones in my body were broken and I was unable to walk for three years because of my damaged spine which left me with no feelings beneath my waistline for the first six months of hospitalisation.
When my spine was working again, because one of my legs had been broken in many places on and near the knee, I needed almost dozens of operations on my left leg, with each operation breaking and resetting the leg to make it straight.
During my 9 month-period in Batley Hospital, my spine started transmitting signals to my brain and my legs again, where immediately following my accident, all feeling beneath my waist had been lost. This led the doctors to tell me and my parents that I would never walk again. I left the hospital and returned home unable to stand or walk. I missed the next 18 months of schooling as I need more operations on my legs. I had dozens of operations to straighten my left leg, and I started to engage in exercises that would improve my balance, as one of my legs had been left three inches shorter in length than its mate and I was determined not to wear a built-up boot with steel leg supports down each side. Two years after my hospital discharge, I could barely stand with the different lengths of each leg, and I was still unable to walk. It would be a further year before I started to hobble around.
Over the next year, I even cycled daily before I could stand properly or walk, and whenever I fell off my bike (usually at road junctures where I needed to stop), I would fall to the ground, where I would lay until some stranger came along and either placed me back in the saddle of my bike or took me back home.
When this song first came out, I was almost 14 years. It would be a further six months before I was able to hobble about unaided, but until then, my sisters Mary and Eileen would either push me in a home-made bunker to a friend’s house on the estate or sometimes I would place an arm around each of their shoulders and they would act as my human crutches as they ‘walked hand in hand with me’. As with all brother and sister relationships, we might occasionally fall out or have cross words with each other, especially as I was the oldest in the family, and I still naturally expected to get my own way. Whenever this happened, my sisters, Mary and Eileen would plonk me down to sit on a low-level wall and then run off home laughing their heads off. I might still be sitting on that wall if my mother had not made them return for me.
That was the moment when it dawned on me, however much they loved me, and me them, I had better get myself walking sooner rather than later, and not have to depend on them again! Since early 2013, I contracted terminal blood cancer. There then followed another two cancers; an aggressive skin cancer that spread from my forehead to my neck, face, shoulder, and throat. I have also developed rectal wart cancer, and I had lymphoma. In addition, I have had a dozen operations, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and numerous hospital procedures.
When I was still able to walk a little distance, six or seven years ago, I occasionally walked one mile around a park in Wakefield with my sisters, Mary and Eileen. I was happy for Mary and Eileen to accompany me during my walks despite my growing immobility, but only because I now carry a mobile phone in my pocket and can call my wife, Sheila, and ask her to come and fetch me should they get it into their heads to run off and leave me again!
Love and peace
Bill xxx