Image posted at Ready To Go by
Arcedio Alvarez
Very soon, this part of Salut! Sunderland will be popping into a friendly hospital in west London to have a minor operation.
Minor as it may be, it will be on my right hand. I have something called Dupuytren’s contracture, which can be caused by excessive alcohol intake (me!?) but also by hereditary means (that’s more like it – mother had it too).
It doesn’t stop me playing badminton in a reasonably vigorous manner for a man of my age, hereditary impediments and love of the occasional glass. I still type as well as ever, though my two-finger technique was never very impressive. But it has given the little finger of the right hand an increasingly crooked look which has reached the stage of needing to be fixed (at least until it comes back, which happens in 30 per cent of cases).
And once the surgeon’s knife goes in, even that level of typing proficiency will disappear, I’m told, for two or three weeks.
So all of you who write often or sometimes for Salut! Sunderland – Pete Sixsmith, Jeremy Robson, Luke Harvey and Bill Taylor spring to mind – should consider yourselves invited, cajoled, begged to get some articles done and dusted now for easy insertion when I will be, to some degree or other, incapicitated (most of the first three weeks of October).
You need only look at this week’s items on Len Shackleton, Peter O’Toole and the transfer market to realise that what appears here is not always time-sensitive.
Lots of other people, beyond the regulars listed earlier, have written for the site, or have had their jottings adapted from elsewhere (Ready To Go, the Blackcast list etc).
Others may feel they could do as well or better, and would be very welcome – there is an e-mail link for me near the top of the lefthand sidebar.
Now is the time to come to the aid of the partier (or unfortunate victim of hereditary complaints).
Colin Randall
Thanks for all this embarrassing goodwill.
Years down the pit! I did spend minutes down the pit. At the Northern Echo and Northern (later Evening) Despatch Bishop office, we used to report on the last shift at each pit about to close. That was the late 1960s when there were other jobs to go to and the miners invariably said they’d never want their lads following them down. But there were so many closures that we eventually stopped giving each one big treatment. I’m not sad so few people earn their living that way any more, but I shudder with disgust when I remember how the Tories destroyed the industry.
Hope all goes well with the “minor” op, probably due to all those years down the pit, possibly tunnell syndrome, or related however I’m sure everyone will join with me and gtive you a big hand, Best of luck
I’m hoping to have regular internet set up in my house in the very near future. Ignoring that I have had an idea of something I want to write so I may jaunt over to the computer room when I have time (it’s just across the road) to type something up. I’ll also be offering somewhat of an explanation to my lack of recent offerings.
Get better soon Colin.
Best of luck with the surgery. I’m waiting for my sixth operation, between both hands, for the same problem. Hope this will be the last. I’m told it is prevalent in north European males.
Hope all goes well with the “minor” procedure I had one that made me feel like Roy Rodgers for a month and walk like Larry Grayson. Africa is cricket nuts at the moment with the Champions league T20 pity there are no English teams. Go well and prosper
We can only hope that isn’t how this malady came about in the first place, Alan…
I’ll be in South America from a week Friday until Octobe 12 but I’ll see what I can do between now and then.
It is nice to hear that your affliction has not stopped you from keeping your hand on your shuttle, Cock