Best of luck to you, but I don’t know. I just, hang on, hang on in there because there is people out there who aren’t going to laugh at you, think it’s a joke and that’s not being sarky, not being funny. And there is people, doctors, specialist people out there who do know what you’re going through and do want, and want and want to help you. And they do help you. So it’s going to be a hard, it’s going to be a hard drive for you, a hard ride for you, but in the end theres people there, if you get the right people, who will help you and who will put themselves out for you and they do. They do put themselves out.

People see you, they think, Oh, you know, Hes big, he looks healthy and everything, but they don’t realise what – I think what people don’t know, or don’t realise is the pain it actually gives you. You know, you can look as healthy as anything, you know, but you don’t know what pain you’re in all the time. And that’s where because if you’ve got a broken arm or you’ve got a broken leg they say, Oh, hes got a broken leg. He must be in pain. If you’ve got a broken arm or you’ve got a thick lip or something, they say, Oh, hes in pain. But they don’t just because you look, oh, you might be hobbling a bit, I’ve got two sticks now and they say, Oh, you know, but they don’t realise the pain inside.

The first doctor, he was a rheumatologist, top rheumatologist man. He was very, like I said, brilliant, absolutely tremendous. And then he said, I can’t do any more, and then he passed me over to the doctor I’m under now, and hes a – he specialises in gout. And I hes that good he I haven’t got an appointment, I mean, I’ve got a if I haven’t got an appointment and I’ve got it, I can pick the phone up because his secretary now, I know her now, I know her by name, pick the phone up, I phone his secretary, Hang on. Shell have a word with him and hell fit me in tomorrow or, I haven’t got an appointment, so, Just come and tell them. And hes smashing, really, really I said to him, If I paid to go private, £1m a year, I wouldn’t get as good a service as that, you know, that’s how, how good.

And does that make a difference?

It makes a hell of a difference, yeah, hell of a difference to… Because, some of the doctors I mean, they’re all doing a job, I’m not knocking them at all, but if I’ve got an appointment to see somebody in three months’ time, then the three months is three month. But I can pick the phone up now, I could phone his secretary and say, I’m having a bad, I’m really, really, and hed see me at his next clinic which is probably tomorrow. Tomorrow or the hes even given me I’ve got a number, a card with, his card and number. I can phone the day clinic up and just give them my name and they’ll have me in there and drain me off or yeah, it makes a hell of a difference to know theres somebody there who, is thinking, I’m not saying the other doctors aren’t, but he is, thinking about you and hell be there at a drop of a hat. Yeah, yeah.

They look at it as a rich man’s disease and that’s what they feel, you know. If you saw gout, years and years ago, thered be an old man there with his beard and his tash and you know, well to do, with his jacket and hed be in bath chair with a big cage over his foot. That’s, I think that’s how people look at it now, you know. And they laugh, it’s a joke, you know. Oh gout, ha, ha, and that’s how they look at it because it’s never been… Like school, kids in school, I bet 9 out of 10 kids have never heard of gout, in schools. It’s never been talked about in schools. You know, health or nothing like that. So it’s just a laughing subject. You know, my mates laugh at me, you know. They say, It’s all that money you’ve got, serves you right, like.

It makes you frustrated really, because you never, you never put the telly on and see a programme, Gout. You never, nobody ever talks about gout, do they? Well, I’ve never seen a programme on telly anyway. You know, but you, you go up the hospital when I go up for the clinics, and how many people who do suffer with gout, but it isn’t… You know, if you have an epidemic of measles it’s the first thing on the telly, first thing in the paper or chickenpox, it’s blasted all over the place, but when was the last time you picked a paper up or whatever and you’ve seen gout? You never see it; it’s never talked about. I don’t know why. I mean, years ago, when I was a lad, you never used to talk about cancer. Cancer was never, cancer always used to be the Big C’, and don’t talk about it. But that’s the same with gout, why I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

And do you think that your experience of gout has changed as you’ve got older. Has your age made a difference to anything?

It just slows me down more. I mean, like I said to you, when I’d had it, when I was [working for the company], when I was working at least I I used to go to work and go with it and I’d try and I’d go down the pub with it, but now I never, now with the age, no. Yeah I mean, say now, you can’t, you can’t, you don’t want to get out, you don’t want… Like when I was like forties, I’d go out, I’d put up with the pain and go down the pub and they can laugh at me, you know, I’d go up with my open sandal on or me slipper on and I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be bothered. But now, I’d sooner sit here and just, you know. No, because it, it takes the stuffing out of you more, more now. So