One Chance (22 page)

As it was our honeymoon, I didn't want to be too budget conscious, but we had to be aware of expenses. My knowledge of Italian was to save us money on more than one occasion. We went on a couple of mini-cruises round the Bay of Naples, one of them to the island of Capri. Capri was notoriously expensive, and when we arrived, there was a long queue for the funicular to the main part of the island. To get around this, there were taxi drivers with convertible cars. Knowing the Italian way, I chatted with one of the drivers in Italian, exchanging pleasantries and explaining that we were on honeymoon. When I asked the cost to the main square, we got a much cheaper price than did those asking in English.

As we drove along, Julz turned to me and said, “There you go, you got your ride in a car with the top down!”

I laughed, remembering how I had been disappointed with having the roof up on our wedding day because of the gloomy weather.

We also went on a mini-cruise to the island of Ischia. The boat stopped a few times to allow people to go swimming. I was aware that I needed to make sure I used plenty of sunblock on my wound, as it was getting a little red. We stopped in a bay, and I noticed a young boy throwing bread out into the sea, attracting jellyfish. Later on he started dive-bombing into the sea, jumping in with his knees tucked into his chest, getting people in the restaurant area soaked. He thought this was great fun. After one particularly heavy splash, he noticed the scar from my operation.

“Hey!” he shouted to get my attention. “How did that happen?”

“This?” I said trying to stop myself from laughing as an evil thought crossed my mind. “Oh, this was from when I was here last year, when I was bitten by a shark!”

He looked horrified, and refused to go back into the water. At least the people in the restaurant stayed dry after that.

We were well looked after at our hotel, having our meals in the restaurant every night as we were booked half-board. Our regular waiters were funny and friendly. I noticed that one in particular would flirt with the older ladies, and I teased him by calling him Don Giovanni, which is Italian for Don Juan or Casanova. On many evenings, Julz and I would go down to a local bar and have a few drinks with the waiters. We got on well with them, and they were impressed with my knowledge of their language.

Towards the end of the honeymoon, we were given a special meal by the hotel. The area is renowned for both its seafood and its tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. Neither of these options worked for Julz, as she didn't fancy the seafood and hates tomatoes. This was before we went to Asia, where she learned to like
seafood. It was a fantastic meal, which ended with Crêpes Suzette prepared at the table by “Don Giovanni.”

Julz and I really enjoyed our two weeks in the sun, but before too long it was time to head home. Time to return to reality—and I wasn't looking forward to it. I was due to start back at Tesco within a week. It was going to be a routine of 3 a.m. wake-up calls, except rather than being just once a week, they would now be a daily occurrence.

I was exhausted just thinking about it, but there was no way round it. I was nearly out of company sick pay entitlement, and we now had a mortgage to pay. At the wedding, I had been warned by some of Julz's extended family that I would need to look after her now, and that I should consider whether we could afford for me to continue activities that didn't earn money. We both knew what they were talking about. As we returned to Britain, I was very aware of my new responsibilities.

I always knew that going back to work would be a challenge, but I wasn't sure just how much of a challenge it would be. Getting up every day at 3:15 a.m. wasn't going to be easy, and initially it was a huge shock to my system, so much so that I was sick on my second day back.

I was offered the opportunity to return part-time, but this didn't make sense financially. Because I still had to pay my weekly season ticket on the train however many days I worked, it wouldn't have left me with enough money. I couldn't get a transfer while still off sick, so I knew I would have to live with this for a while. My situation, though, was going to get worse before it got better.

Four days after restarting work, I was cycling from Eastville to Bristol Parkway station to catch the train back to Wales. It was a warm, sunny July afternoon and I was looking forward to getting home. I was on Filton Avenue, about two-thirds of my way to the station, when a driver pulled out of a petrol station without looking. I had no time to stop or take evasive action, so all I could do was to squeeze as hard as I could on the brakes. It still wasn't enough—I went over the handlebars and put my hands out in front of me to try to break my fall.

I heard a crack, then I started feeling dizzy. I was aware that I was in shock. My shoulder appeared to be in a very strange position, but I couldn't feel a thing, so I pushed the bone back. I was dazed and wondering what was going on, and the driver came across and offered to take me to the local doctor. I told him he needed to call for the police and an ambulance. He ignored me and offered to take me to nearby Frenchay Hospital. Again, I insisted that his legal obligation was to report the accident to the police and to call an ambulance. He asked me if I was sure.

“I'm in shock,” I told him, “but I'm not stupid! Please do what you're obliged to do.”

As I waited for the ambulance, I started to feel my shoulder come painfully to life. I called Julz, who was alarmed and said her dad would come over to Bristol to pick me up. I was put into the ambulance and the medics tried to give me something for the pain. I tend to be a pincushion for needles, and they were unable to find a vein. They ended up offering me gas and air, otherwise known as nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. I hated it: the gas made me feel light-headed, sick, and out of control. I
ended up removing the mask, preferring to suffer the pain even though it was by now close to unbearable.

At Frenchay, the doctors confirmed that I'd suffered a complicated fracture to my collarbone as well as severe whiplash. The collarbone is known to be one of the most painful bones to break, and I can certainly confirm the truth of this! For the first month after the accident, I barely slept at all. Whatever position was right for my shoulder was wrong for my neck, and vice versa.

This lack of sleep created complications with my postoperative state. Because of my previous operations, I now had only one adrenal gland; one of the jobs this gland does is to push cortisol around your body to help it deal with stress. After my operations earlier in the year, I had been put on hormone replacement therapy, to try to compensate until my remaining adrenal gland took up the workload of the one removed.

That hadn't happened yet, and because of the stress and lack of sleep, my body decided to completely give up. I stayed on the sofa downstairs for a month, all but not moving; I had no will or strength left to do anything. When I went to see my specialist at the hospital in Cardiff he increased my therapy, raising my prednisolone dose from 5 mg to 15 mg a day. I needed Julz's help to do anything, and this left me feeling powerless. Julz never complained, but I'm sure she felt she had done the “in sickness” part of the vows in advance, and was hoping the “health” part would soon come.

Money now became an issue. Once my sick pay ended, Julz and I would be living off just one wage. I didn't know how long I would be off sick, as the collarbone seemed determined not to
heal. There was a very real chance I would need an operation to insert metal rods that would force my collarbone to heal. Before long, I found myself applying for incapacity benefit. We became more and more dependent on credit cards, just to keep going.

After the illness, the wedding, and the honeymoon, there were no savings left. We used credit cards to buy food, pay bills, pay our council tax and, in the end, we used them to pay our credit card bills. We used some equity in the house to try to pay off the cards, but it wasn't long before we ended up back at square one.

All the while, the warning of one of Julz's uncles was ringing in my ears: “You have to look after her now.” Singing at this point was the very last thing on my mind. Julz didn't have the money to go out with her workmates. It was a struggle to even pay for the fuel she needed to drive to work. She had always been prepared to give up anything for me; I knew that now it was my turn to give up something in return. I couldn't put our house at risk in order to continue singing. I couldn't justify spending money on lessons and travel costs to and from Bath any longer. Already, other tenors were taking my place because I was unable to perform, but what could I do? I would have to wait until I returned to work to see if I could get back into it.

It was seven long, painful months before I could even contemplate going back to work. By then, Tesco was applying pressure, saying that I would have to consider going back part-time or else they would lay me off. I had been with them for ten years by this point, but this now meant nothing. I had been active in the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), but I felt that the area organiser seemed to be more on Tesco's side than mine. The company wanted me to return to work fifteen hours
a week; I explained that once I had paid my weekly season ticket, I would effectively
be paying
to work. On top of which, if I went back part-time, I would lose my benefits because Julz was earning. I would only be eligible for incapacity benefit if I wasn't working at all. Once I was working part-time, we wouldn't qualify for any means-tested benefits, and there was no state help for travel to and from work.

In the end I went back full-time, even though I didn't feel ready. Either I would return full-time, or not at all. Part-time wasn't going to be realistic financially. I put in a transfer request for something closer to home as soon as I returned, but the only thing available was a part-time job in Swansea, working nights twenty hours a week. I felt I had no choice but to take this, even though I would be reliant on overtime to make my money up.

It was an eighteen-mile round trip, but I cycled to and from Swansea four times a week, leaving home at nine at night and climbing back into bed with Julz at four in the morning. If nothing else, it was getting me fit again. The trouble was that I couldn't get guaranteed overtime. The most lucrative night for me was Saturday evening, which, because I was still on old conditions (which were different from newer contracts), meant I would be paid double time plus night premium. The store, however, could have two people on newer contracts for the same price as me.

Without the overtime, there wasn't enough money coming in for us to survive, and our debts continued to grow. I had to find another position, so I decided to apply for a job at the department store Debenhams. Debenhams didn't pay as well as Tesco because my long service there meant I was high up the pay grades.
Debenhams could only offer me part-time work, another twenty hours a week, but I decided to take the job anyway.

For a month and a bit, I was working nights at Tesco and days in Debenhams. It was tough. Some days I was cycling to Swansea at nine at night, cycling back at three in the morning, grabbing six hours sleep, and then cycling back to Swansea at ten—then cycling back home at four in the afternoon, only to leave again a few hours later. Debenhams was concerned about this and told me they couldn't allow me to do it permanently. I knew myself that it was unsustainable. I had to start looking for other employment.

Before applying for the Debenhams job, I had applied for a full-time job at the mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse. I had heard nothing in more than a month, so I assumed I was unsuccessful. Then, to my surprise, I got a call inviting me in for an interview. I phoned back explaining my situation and arranged the interview so I wouldn't need to say anything to Debenhams at this stage.

I went to Llanelli for my interview, and it went well. I was nervous about sales work as it was target based, with payment partly by sales commission, and I didn't want to be involved in pressure selling. I had been into another phone shop to enquire about jobs and it had felt a little like double-glazing selling, and that wasn't what I wanted to do. Even so, I was delighted to be offered a job, and was invited up to London for make-or-break training. This next stage of the process involved candidates staying in London for a two-week course. At the end of this, everyone
took a test: those who got marks under 85 percent failed and their employment was terminated.

During the course, we each had to demonstrate a skill that others didn't know we had. I took a risk and sang the most well-known part of “Nessun Dorma” a capella. I felt nervous, but the alternative was to be made to dance, and this was the lesser of two evils. The whole centre seemed to go quiet when I sang. A few of the other people on our course used their Bluetooth phones to record my performance, and every time I entered the room they would play it back to me. It was amusing and I felt a little honoured, too, as it was done out of respect as well as out of a sense of fun.

I passed the course and left Tesco and Debenhams for my new job. I started work in a Carphone Warehouse branch round the corner from where I lived. It was a fairly large store, housed within a shopping mall owned by the local council. My co-workers were Paul and Toni; I got on particularly well with Paul, who lived with his wife round the corner from Julz's mum and dad.

I quickly gained a reputation for being able to persuade people to buy phones and packages without resorting to the hard sell. If customers didn't need what they were asking for, I would let them know. On one occasion I even talked a customer out of a package he had specifically asked for. By selling him what he needed rather than what he had asked for, I didn't win a £7,000 Tag Heuer watch. I was, however, one of the top sellers overall in the South Wales area between Newport and Haverfordwest, and was rewarded with an incentive trip to Kenya, to go on safari in the Masai Mara National Reserve with other employees.