If I do play with them they are energetic and I love playing and I like doing stuff with like from an early age, you roll round and pick them up and swing them and do that sort of stuff with them, which not all parents do that, but that’s something I’d do. I think it gives them like a bit of strength and rough and tumble but different parents differ, I don’t make any judgements on any other parents, that’s how I do it, but physically that has a, an impact on me.

It’s one thing sitting down and read a book, okay, you can do that for a while, but having said that, you can’t really do it if you’re really tired either, trying to concentrate it’s not easy. But physically if you lift them up and doing that, I get out of breath quite quickly, now they’re just getting hyper and hyper and hyper, they want to do it more and more and more but I have to say, ‘No.

Now they tend to understand that, ‘Ok, Daddy’s tired now, have a rest, Daddy’s tired and [my son] will say like you hell go out like, say going to grandma’s, ‘Are you tired, ‘Yeah’ and they’ll kiss me leg and walk out in to the other room.

Now okay he understands that I’m tired, so that’s what I’m trying to get that there is a reason, it’s not just no Daddy just doesn’t want to do, I want them to understand that theres a reason, because I don’t want them thinking I’m doing it I’m, pulling away from them because I don’t like them, theres a choice thing there so that’s what I’m trying to do but it, you know, it’s not easy when you, it doesn’t help me when I hear them saying things like, ‘Oh you, you can’t do or you can’t read and my wife then ends up having to read with them or play with them, because I’m just so tired, I’m just laid, laid out there.

Because it often coincides when they come home. I go and pick them up about half four and come home. Now as I say, that’s starting to get to be the time when I get worse, it can be anywhere between half three, four and say seven, well that’s the time when they’re home, when they’re crammed and tired, they’ve been at nursery all day.

So the combination actually isn’t a very good combination, weekends are slightly different because you’ve got the whole day, you know, but of an evening it sometimes it’s okay other times it isn’t. I, all I need to do sometimes I just want to lie down and rest and they want to play. What do you tell them?

And because I only work part-time I obviously don’t get as much money as what I used to so the financial side of things is totally, totally different now. So, obviously, I had to cut back and watch what I spend and that now, whereas before my heart attack I was just like working and just getting on and so all of a sudden working part-time, half the hours, I get half the money and stuff so things have, things have changed like that way;

So even though I’m not like a money-orientated person but you’re used to that much money to live on and then all of a sudden when that’s cut in half, you know, your bills don’t all of a sudden go in half, do they? So, I’ve had to like re-budget things and that;

And like my daughter’s had to like, shes got like a little Saturday job so she buys some of her own clothes and bits and pieces like that to take the pressure of me, which, shes been as good as gold in that sense and that. But, I just want to go back to work, go back to work full-time, and then just save up and have a holiday;

But wed had a trip to China planned and paid for in, well we paid for the flights in April and that was just too much for me, we cancelled it. My doctor and consultant both said that there was no reason why we shouldn’t go. It was a seven day trip but it was just too far away in too short a time so it was disappointing. But it was just, that was just one thing, it was sort of a hurdle too soon I think;

Weve adopted a little girl, which I’m not sure but it does make it a lot more difficult if you have health issues before you get approved and my consultant was very helpful in writing to social services. We adopted our daughter from China so we did make the trip, that was one of the reasons why we were going originally;

[My wife] to this day I think, still thinks I engineered all this so I didn’t have to get on a plane to go so far because I’m not, I’m not a great flier. But that was another big leap, even though it was sort of three years after the event once again that was, you know that really was going into the unknown and going to Beijing and then flying down into southern China;

But I think by then I was more comfortable that there was and theres no reason to think that there is another heart attack on its way.

You see the thing is that the children, the grandchildren are used to coming sitting on my lap and things like that and they were told not to. You know, granddaddy’s not well. Granddads an ill man type of thing. One day, my granddaughter shes only nine now. She was only about two or three at the time.

She came up to me, ‘You’re not ill, Granddad she said. ‘You’re not ill, Granddads fine. And I suppose, I’m afraid to lift them. Personally, I’m afraid, you know, you just keep thinking ‘ oh God am I right to do this, am I wrong, you know. If I fall or anything like that with a child in my arms sort of thing, you know. Those are the things that’s worried me.

It came to mind the other day that I taught my wife to cycle, I taught both our children to cycle. I taught all our grandchildren to cycle except the youngest one whose now, hes a latecomer, hes now eight and he still can’t cycle.

And I can’t, you know I can’t sort of run round with him with a bike bending double to hold his saddle. So that’s a regret, I can’t do that. But, and I can’t play football with him.

My family too, they’ve looked after me. Two sons and one says ‘Oh don’t fuss Mum, Dad can do it. And the other one is more quiet and considerate and caring and hell look after me, which is lovely. It’s good to have that balance really. You don’t want to be put in cotton wool but it’s nice.

They, they always think of me, ‘Are you sure you can go up these steps, do you want to sit down or you know or just take a short walk or something like that. And that’s lovely, that’s lovely. On the other hand, the other son he says, ‘oh come on were going on, Dad will be alright, I’ll look after him. And I don’t want to feel an invalid. I want to be able to do all the things I did before, which I can more or less, which I can, yeah.

My son was I would say he was really shocked. My daughter was more, well it’s happened let’s get on with it. But my son didn’t really know how to treat me I think. I think children are often like that; they don’t want their parents to be ill, certainly a life threatening illness.

So he didn’t know what to do really. His mum was really poorly and he just didn’t know what to do because that’s not supposed to happen to your mum. But hes alright now, hes okay about it now. They just treat me as if I’m normal, nothing’s happened.

And how did that change did you think from him not knowing what to say and do to being normal again?

Well we work together, so eventually I went back to work, for a couple of hours a day sort of thing, and as I got stronger, he got better with me and as I started doing more normal things, he became more normal with me.

And what were the sort of things he was doing that weren’t normal?

It was just his attitude; he was perhaps a bit, a bit harsher with me. A bit, ‘Come on, Mum, you know you can do that. And I would say, ‘No I can’t actually, I don’t feel well enough. ‘Aah, oh alright then. It was, he wanted me to get better. ‘You’re not ill, I don’t want you to be ill, sort of thing. I want you to be normal.