Triple A. AAA. It doesn’t sound so bad, more like a good thing than a negative one. A very high standard to achieve perhaps, or a small battery, power in a cute little cylinder. Or a minicab firm, perhaps, with ambitions to appear first alphabetically in the phone book. But in 24 Hours in A&E (Channel 4) it stands for aortic abdominal aneurysm, which is not a good thing at all, as handsome Welsh consultant Rhys explains. “If it ruptures, it can bleed out and you can lose your whole blood volume into your tummy within a matter of minutes.”
Doctors suspect this is what is ailing 89-year-old John, who has been taken in to St George’s hospital in south-west London. Then there’s Mick and Linda, who have had a road traffic accident, but who are very much in love, and 10-year-old Niall, who’s fallen out of a tree and now has an alarmingly bent arm.
But this is John’s episode. Sir John actually – he’s a baronet, and the staff of St George’s are enjoying having a nobleman to look after.
It’s not an AAA, it turns out, but a twisted bowel. You can see that John is in a lot of pain, he doesn’t open his eyes throughout. But he doesn’t lose his humour. “Here’s where the lies come in,” he says when Rhys asks him how much he drinks. John was a wine merchant, “but not an alcoholic”.
John’s son, Jonathan, shows up, by bicycle, and more of their family life and history comes out. There was very little money, but Jonathan was brought up by John and his wife, now gone, in a crumbly Jacobean manor house, which was always full of clever people and music – and wine, of course, which Jonathan was introduced to when he was about eight. There was also homemade cider – Jonathan would often down a crafty half-pint of it before school, if he bothered to go.
It sounds like a lovely childhood – certainly, Jonathan appreciated it. He recently wrote his parents a letter saying how wonderful they were, and he recommends you do, too, if it’s not too late. So thank you, Mum, if you’re reading, for everything, and for my childhood (which was quite similar to Jonathan’s in many ways – not much money, but a Jacobean manor house, music and homemade cider, although never before school, sadly). Sorry for any bolshiness there possibly might have been on my part. Proper letter to follow. I wish I’d written while I still had two parents.
This is why 24 Hours in A&E is so compelling and brilliant. It’s an observational documentary about the most interesting building in the world, because of what goes on inside, from birth to death to everything in between, and A&E is arguably the most interesting part of the building.
But it’s not just about the high drama, the sirens, the red phone ringing, speeding trolleys, resuscitation and medical procedures; it’s also a very human show, about the lives of the people who come in, and the people who work there, and how those lives are being changed for ever.
It makes you think about your own life, and the lives of people close to you, about impermanence and mortality. It makes Dr Rhys, who lost his mum young, ponder mortality too. He wells up a little bit.
John’s life might be about to end. He needs surgery for the twisted bowel. Jonathan strokes his father’s head as he explains. “There’s a risk factor to it, but if we don’t do the operation you’ll probably die.”
“Right,” says John.
“So we’ve decided we’re going to go ahead with it.”
“Yes, right, splendid.”
“Splendid.”
There’s no silly hysterical wailing, it’s stoical, peculiarly (posh) British, but somehow also very tender and very moving. I’m welling up now, too.
Just before John is wheeled off for his op, Jonathan kisses his father three times on the face, saying, “Don’t worry, Pa, I’m here.” He could mean here, as in next to him (John’s eyes remain closed). Or maybe here as in still here, carrying on, if John doesn’t come back.
He doesn’t. Sir John Cockburn never regains consciousness after the operation. It’s desperately sad, of course. But then, as deaths go, it’s not the worst: slipping away after your son tells you not to worry, that he’s there. I’d take that, all day.
