Theo's Voice

When writing Ontreto, I constructed a character who, I found out later, existed in flesh and blood, and was therefore compelled to change his name, place of birth, employment and physical appearance, etc. And, while writing The Wind Between Two Worlds I met a homeless Royal Marine veteran, who could have passed for Richard Ross, the protagonist of the novel, had it not been for his prosthetic leg.

That other cliché, truth is stranger than fiction, also holds water.

Theo’s Voice was born off the back end of the covid pandemic and in taking shape meandered this way and that for many weeks until it set upon a settled heading. Late one sunny afternoon, after a few hours of unusually challenging writing, my wife, Carol, and I were out walking in the forest when I suffered an ischemic stroke. Fortunately for me, Carol had worked in the NHS and instantly recognized my symptoms: my conversation became focused on one repetitive phrase and I couldn’t raise my arms. Carol dragged me back up the path to the road and told me to sit down on the verge, an act of which I was, only minutes later, incapable. So, she pushed me down and phoned our neighbour, who very swiftly appeared with his car and swept us off to hospital. Over the next few minutes, the power of speech and comprehension gradually left me, and by the time we reached A&E all I could answer when questioned was ‘I’m fine, thank you’, and this I said only when I knew I was being spoken to because I could see the lips of the triage nurse moving; whatever he said to me I could no longer understand, as in my head his words came across as gobbledygook. Pretty much all I did understand was that medical personnel were rushing me with rude haste to and from radiology. One half of my now altered brain suggested this attention I was receiving was a lot of fun – wow! Peter Crawley you must be special, see all the attention you’re receiving; while the other half suggested the nurses were only running because something was unpleasantly amiss which, I found out later, to be the case. In the Resus Bay, a doctor stared down at his tablet and discussed my situation with a consultant doctor at a hospital some miles away. Every now and then he would look up and scrutinize me, but he knew there was little point in asking me questions as I was by this time non-verbal. After what seemed like many hours, but I suspect was really only a few minutes, he produced a very large syringe containing a clear liquid and proceeded to inject it into a canula in my arm. All I can now recall is that my hand was curiously cold and that many people, including Carol, were watching me as though I was Frankenstein and they were hoping for some sign of life.

The syringe was around a quarter full when my ability to speak returned: ‘Hey, Doc, that feels better,” I mumbled. ‘Hey, Peter,’ he replied, ‘you’re back. Fancy that, the medicine does exactly what it says on the tin.’

And I was. And as I sat, more than a little stunned by my sudden reversal of fortune, nurses and doctors would drop by the bay and stare in wonder at this guy who had only half an hour before been admitted non-verbal, but was now verbal. Many of them told me they had never witnessed Alteplase, the clot-busting drug, working so efficiently and to such effect: I was quite naturally humbled by their observation. Over the next few days, my communication skills returned and after a couple of nights in hospital I was discharged. Over the next few weeks, I was chronically tired but over time, and just as the doctors had predicted, my strength returned. Writing, and conversation, did not come back to me quite so freely. I found I would dry up in the middle of sentences, my dictionary and thesaurus would go offline at the most inconvenient moment, and words, phrases and whole sentences that I had queued in my mind would just disappear like the morning mist. Patience had to become my friend.

Back at my desk, I began another draft of Theo’s Voice, armed now with an insider’s view of what it must be like to be aphasic. Without the doctors and nurses in the A&E Department, and those on the Stroke Ward, at St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester, Theo’s Voice would never have been written. Above all, I thank and acknowledge them.

I also have to thank Laura Hall, Jane Towers and my wife, Carol, for their proofreads and well-received suggestions. I must also thank Carol for her swift diagnosis and action, and Nigel Goodenough for responding to the call so promptly. Time, as they say, was of the essence.