My father and I, just before …

We were warned to take a box of hankies when we went to see ‘Breathe’, and by golly we needed them. It’s the story of an energetic, newly married young man suddenly cut down by polio and condemned to spend the rest of his life hooked up to a breathing apparatus. Yet he achieved wondrous things. It’s a true story, something I didn’t fully comprehend till the end credits (despite it being announced at the start of the film).

Buckets of tears — and it could easily have happened to me. Because swimming at the Venice Lido in 1954, my friend Robin Boyd and I both caught polio. We were taken to hospital in Klagenfurt, Austria, where we lived at the time.

I don’t remember a lot about those months, and there’s no one to ask as my brother and sisters were away at school and my parents have long departed. It was a hot summer, and I remember the window to my room was open and a soldier in the barracks opposite kept on whistling the same tune over and over again, to which I mentally wrote words; something about mice, because at the time I had two pet mice I obsessed over.

Also I remember lying for days, it seemed, inside a device with very bright lights, which may have been an iron lung. I think I was in hospital for about three or four months. Robin died early on and his mother in her grief offered me his comic books — the Tiger Annual 1954! — and my mother, in her fear and anxiety, rejected them thinking they might be contaminated. What with, I’m not sure, but my mother was the sort of person who would never touch a mushroom unless it came in a tin with ‘Chesswoods’ on the label.

That tune has never left my head. When the time came for me to leave the hospital, I couldn’t walk very well and had to learn over again. I certainly couldn’t run at all. I remember the huge flight of steps down from the hospital, white in the hot sun, and wondering how I was going to tackle them.

I was given Thalassotherapy, which involved being taught to swim by an army sergeant who happened to be the Services Freestyle Champion. That helped me realise how vital a good teacher can be, as for years to come, despite my puny build, I thrashed much stronger boys in the pool simply through technique.

And that was it — my brush with polio. It’s left me with no ill effects, though Von claims I limp when over-excited. And I missed a term at school, and I’m still struggling to catch up.

The tune turned out to be ‘The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen.’ It must have been whistled by a Scottish soldier, wandering far away.