I MODESTLY claim a place in the queue of those who wrote appreciating the Wee Ginger Dug’s encouraging words. In fact, I claim precedence in this distinguished group. You see, I too suffered a stroke (and a heart attack) at about the same time as he did. And I was in the same hospital, in the same ward, as him. And in the distant past, he was a pupil of mine. (We had renewed acquaintance through our shared support for independence). It’s like a badly done pastiche of a Russian novel. Ironic, seeing I was also a teacher of Russian…

But this time it was a complete role reversal of the teacher/pupil relationship.

Faced with the possibility of something unpleasant happening, I have always acted on the sound principle “if you ignore it, it will go away, so just don’t think about it”. Thus I have cultivated a profound ignorance about likely dangers to my health, by religiously ignoring uncomfortable facts. So I had simply no idea of what to expect when this double whammy hit me.

READ MORE: Wee Ginger Dug: This is how life is one year on from having my stroke

I had no idea of the psychological damage that can come from a stroke. I just slid into a dark night of the soul. I was tormented by a constant, mocking voice which frequently drove me to tears of despair. I doubted my sanity, and wanted to escape, to die at home. But always, the tears of sorrow and regret.

I had been reading Paul’s painful and moving account of his grief, and how he had persevered till he found his new love. I didn’t think this was relevant to me, but it was. The moment of revelation was precise and profound. I was limping from Ward 1 next door to Ward 2 and I saw Paul sitting up in his bed beavering away with his laptop. I stopped for a moment, overcome with gladness because I knew that this was the answer to me, right in front of my eyes. Not my way of self-torment and regret, self-loathing and despair. But his way of seeking love always. Simple, really.

I went into the ward, sat on the edge of his bed, and took his hand. Filled with a deep sense of gratitude, I tried to explain what had happened. Unfortunately, one of the excruciating consequences of a stroke is that it causes a deterioration in communication skills, which still plagues me today. So there I was holding his hand and babbling incoherently. He was very patient, but a bit puzzled. Probably he thought I had lost it.

He will never know that I had found it, thanks to him. And that he had shown me the answer – love. Simple really.

Brian Quail
Glasgow

JUST who do they think they are? No, not the TV programme, but the Tory government.

First they decide to drag us all out of the EU because they resent foreigners, then they continually demand rights and concessions from the organisation they have rejected, and finally they sign an agreement in an international treaty, which they loudly proclaim is a wonderful deal that will lead us to the “sunny uplands” of having “taken back control” and again becoming a “global” player on the world stage.

READ MORE: Richard Murphy: How Tories are exacerbating the signs of a looming recession

Then they start having to live with what they negotiated and trumpeted so loudly and find they don’t like the inevitable results of their own wonderful deal. But it is not their fault, it’s the nasty, intransigent EU, which that wants them to abide by the terms they agreed and signed, and refuses to water them down.

The Westminster government made their own decision to leave. Now the very person who negotiated the great deal is trying to blame the EU because he and his cronies don’t like his great deal. The EU owes us nothing.

Yet Scotland voted by a 24% majority to Remain. Are we really too stupid to make better decisions for ourselves in an independent Scotland?

L McGregor
Falkirk