I smoked, I used to have a fag, I used to smoke about twenty a day, which was Capstan. Used to be the best in those days. If you could smoke a Capstan you were, you were with it, you know! [laughs] So’ and then after my heart attack I got a milder brand, which was Embassy! [smiles] Thought I was doing better ’cause I got a milder brand, but it was rather strange, they say smoking is just a habit, because there were days when we had trouble in the mine, I’d worked twelve hours underground, I’d been at work eighteen hours, and never had a cigarette because you couldn’t. But when I came to the surface, went to my office, the first thing I did was open the desk drawer and have a fag! And coughed my heart up, you know! [smiles].

So after a while I realised it just couldn’t go on, you couldn’t. The doctor told me about smoking like, and I tried really hard. And different ones would say, ‘Come on, come on you silly devil, have a fag, have a cigarette. And at the finish I had a badge ‘Please don’t give me a cigarette. I’ve stopped smoking [laughs]. And I used to put that on me coat. And I just packed in, stopped. I just stopped and, mind I was bad-tempered you know, bit me nails and after about a month I could manage it alright. I’ve never had a cigarette since about 19’ well 1982 I retired, 1984’1986…1988, haven’t had a fag since, cigarette since, have no desire to have one.

Well I think deep down we all know what causes it..I think it was my lifestyle, really. I used to smoke a lot although I’ve been off them for 40 years now, believe it or not, yes, but I used to smoke 40 a day anyway. My work was great fun but stressful. I used to drink quite a bit in work, not alcoholically, but I used to be a heavy drinker at times. And then when dealing with the press, etc., I used to feel I had to drink because they looked asquint until I learned the old habit of using Canadian dry ginger in your glass instead of a whisky and they wouldn’t know the difference! At least I think they didn’t!

But we used to work hard and play hard and certainly at the times of meetings in London and meetings in Glasgow, I would be up at 6 o’clock getting the place ready for the meetings at half past eight. Finishing meetings about 6 o’clock at night, then going to the bar before dinner, talking business, dinner business with wine, etc., and then probably be redesigning things that had gone wrong during the day right up to 12 o’clock at night when you tumbled into bed! So admittedly that only went on sort of at a fortnight at a time about twice a year, sort of thing, so it wasn’t punishing the whole story. But you had other things happening that sometimes raised the blood pressure a bit but those were quite hard times of, well you didn’t feel then, you thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact, but it was rather punishing on ones body I would say, yes. And driving down to London with all my toys, as I called them, all my designs and things, for displays, etc was probably not the best way of going.

Okay, so a mixture of lifestyle and work?

And feeding of course. I was too fond of my steak and chips rather than other things, which would, if you follow? Coming from Glasgow our diets were particularly bad.

Well I’m sure you weren’t eating deep-fried Mars bars?

No, no, no. I never got quite to deep-fried Mars bars! I was intrigued mind you, but fish and chips I think is about my, or steak and chips preferably.

And so I pestered them actually, I didn’t think I’d have the nerve but once again I couldn’t dare say anything about my heart. This was also verified by the fact when I worked at the previous place, there was a chap there who’d had a heart attack and had been in to have a heart bypass, and I was talking to the foreman one day and he was looking at me, and hed often confided in me because I was a very good boy [laughs]. In other words, I kept my mouth shut and I got on with my work. And so he thought I was a friend of his, and he turned round and said, ‘Our money-boy there has been inside. (You see that’s my reference to being in hospital, being ‘inside.) So anyway he said, ‘I’ll tell you what, if you want a fact, hes got a bad heart, I’d get rid of him. ‘Is that right?’ ‘Yes’ he said, ‘Well hes a lame duck isn’t he?’

And there he was talking to somebody with severe heart failure who was his hardest grafter! And he kind of, I wanted to have a go at him you know because I’m not one for sort of standing back when something needs to be said, and then so when I went for this other interview I had this in mind, don’t you dare mention having a heart failure.

So I got the job as an inspector and I went and it was basically an inspector, lovely job, you just looked at something, compared it with a drawing and said yes or no.

Yes, once the nausea and vomiting stops I actually do feel quite a lot better. That just makes me feel so wretched that it is actually almost like, it’s like status something. ‘Status’ is usually used in medicine when it’s something that keeps on like ‘status epilepsy’, you keep on and on. And my consultant now and I call this ‘status vomitus’ because I actually don’t stop. I don’t sleep in between; it’s just incessant. It’s actually non-stop, it just wears me out, I’m exhausted;

I mean now we actually know what does tend to stop it, it’s much better. When I go into hospital I have intravenous infusions and they start giving me the drugs that help stop it straight away and so it does now stop between 2′ and 3 days. Interestingly, we don’t know whether this is a symptom of my cardiac disease or not but I think we think it is. Most people get angina, chest pain, I don’t actually get chest pain, I’ve got silent heart disease and we think that the nausea and vomiting is a symptom of me either going into heart failure or of heart attacks. Were just not completely sure. I always get said to me, ‘You’re a very unusual presentation’;;