HP is Hyrox Champ

 

Hyrox is a sport I had never heard of before. It is a multi-disciplinary game that involves a series of physical challenges; running, pushing, pulling, rowing, jumping, lifting and carrying weights. It requires no serious skills and is primarily a test of strength and stamina. Anybody can play it and there is a broad array of participation categories around age and sex. It is quite a new sport, only invented in 2018, but it has become very popular. I'm delighted to tell you that a hospital porter has become one of the most successful Hyrox competitors of all. He has just broken the world record and won two medals. His prize is a golden kettlebell, an emblematic implement for the sport. David Ridout serves at the University Hospital Crosshouse near Kilmarnock, Scotland and travelled all the way to Chicago, USA for the Hyrox world championship. He finished top of his age category, which must be one of the oldest because he's seventy-five. He said: "I trained very hard for over a year so I could go out and do my best in Chicago. Hopefully by sharing my achievement this may inspire others to look at their options and challenge themselves to improve their health and wellbeing. If I can do it, anybody can." He was congratulated by his hospital management. Source: https://news.stv.tv/west-central/scots-hospital-porter-breaks-hyrox-world-record-at-75-years-old. The next tournament is in Glasgow, slightly closer to home, which I expect David will be taking part in. I salute my EP&DBP for his remarkable achievement. He has made this a great day for HP's everywhere. I wish my brother all the best for future Hyrox championships.

Unbreakable Rubber Balls

 

One of my favourite Dignity Statement Stories is a regular spot on The Gas Spanner, and it is one I save for a bit of Christmas goodwill because in this case the target later apologized to me, for example see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-gas-spanner-programme-104.html. Another similar tale happened to me many years earlier when I was quite new to hospital portering. I on reception duty in JRI Maternity, later called the Women's Centre, when somebody approached the admissions desk next door to reception. The patient was clearly what is known as a "Karen", a very entitled female customer who is never satisfied with the service she receives. It quickly became apparent that she was very unhappy with the situation and began lambasting the two staff members serving her, a middle-aged woman and a young male trainee about my own age, his late teens. At one point when the trainee was speaking she jerked her finger at him and yelled, and I distinctly recall her exact words: "I'm talking to this lady here! I'm not dealing with you; you're too stupid!" He opened his mouth to reply, but the young man's supervisor cut him off: "Jonathan, let me deal with this." The young trainee got up and slumped off to the office. I thought at the time that I'd like to have seen the supervisor reprimand the patient for how the patient spoke to her colleague, but she didn't. Many times through the years I've been in a similar predicament and received no support from line management. Whether you do or not depends on your tacit subconscious status within the team and mine was always very low. A teenage admin junior is right at the bottom of the pile. A few minutes later the young man came out of the admissions office wearing his coat and walked off towards the entrance. He didn't say a word, but he was weeping. His supervisor called after him: "Jonathan, where are you going?" He didn't respond so she chased after him out of the hospital building. After a while she came back and said: "Sorry..." and continued the interview with the patient alone.

What was amazing about this whole debacle was that while the supervisor was running after the new recruit, obviously trying to persuade him to return, I was watching the Karen. There are several ways somebody like her will react to that eventuality. Most people will shrug their shoulders and double down on how they are being affronted, "the customer is always right" and that everything was the young man's own fault. He really is "stupid!" and deserved to be called so. A few of them, luckily a minority, will even smirk with sadistic satisfaction that they reduced somebody else to tears. This woman was different. What I saw in her expression was a look of shock, disbelief and self-reproach. This woman clearly had had no idea exactly how much of a bitch she was and when she suddenly realized, she hated herself for it. This is sadly an unusual response; most people lack the introspective consciousness to think in those terms. I think feminism has a lot to answer for here. It teaches woman that men... or to be specific: white men, occupy a place of unique evil among human demographies. Everything bad that happens in the world is our fault; therefore there is no code of conduct in their dealings with us. They can be as mean, deceitful and abusive at they like to us because we deserve it, each and every one of us, regardless of our own personal actions. What this incident taught me is that women who exhibit feminist cruelty are not all feminists; some of them are ordinary women who have come to believe another feminist lie; that if a woman is troubled by qualms and says things like: "Okay, we know they're all bastards, but we shouldn't be nasty to them all the time should we?" then there is a fallback position. This states that white men are all resilient enough to take whatever abuse an "oppressed!" "Woman!" can hurl at them. We are like unbreakable rubber balls on a squash court. No matter how many times you whack us against the wall we just bounce back unscathed. When they realize that this is not true, they suddenly find themselves staring at a pile of broken glass lying on the floor of the squash court realizing that what they ignorantly threw against the wall was actually a crystal goblet, and they've just destroyed it. The interview at the admissions desk continued and the ex-Karen lowered her voice from then on, but I still overheard her saying: "Is he going to be alright?... I really should apologize." I don't know what happened to that young trainee; I never saw him again. I assumed he decided ward clerking was not for him and started a different career. If so then I hope he fared better than he did at OxRad. I expect that the ex-Karen learned a lesson that day and didn't act so horribly ever again. The late comedian Robin Williams, somebody who wrestled with his own morale throughout his life, once put it very well: "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind, always."
See here for more information: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html.

Chad is Fine

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-machine-shouldnt-speak-for-men.html.
I have an update on the above article I wrote the other day and it's very good news. It was found by a reader who told me about it in the comments. The love and solidarity shown to Chad Willoughby by the people of Taylorsville has triumphed over the heartless and mindless corporate bureaucracy that stripped him of his livelihood. The fundraiser raised US$6000 and that helped keep a roof over and food on for him and his family while he was unemployed, but I'm pleased to say another supermarket snapped him up very quickly. The grocery chain Harmons is a smaller institution than the global giant Walmart. It was founded in 1932 and has just twenty branches only in the state of Utah. They have given Chad a similar job as a cashier in their store in the nearby town of Sandy. Just like in the Taylorsville Walmart, he has quickly developed many admirers among the local residents who shop there. One of them, Candee Allred, organized a party for him in the shop's cafeteria. His customers cannot sing his praises loudly enough. They say he cheers them up whenever they're feeling down. No doubt this has increased the shop's popularity and therefore profit. His supervisor puts it very well: "His former employer's loss is definitely our gain." Source: https://www.sandyjournal.com/2022/01/03/380210/harmons-cashier-flourishes-in-his-job-and-gains-hundreds-of-neighborhood-fans. There are a lot of terrible things going on in the world right now and sometimes the evil seems overwhelming. It seems invincible, marching onwards with nothing and nobody willing and/or able to stop it. But we can stop it. The saga of Chad Willoughby proves that the light can defeat the darkness. (I will copy this article to HPANWO Voice because of the version of the background one I wrote there.)

A Machine Shouldn't Speak for Men

 

Yesterday I wrote an article on HPANWO Voice about Chad Willoughby, the shop worker who had been sacked, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/07/friendly-shop-worker-sacked.html. (Somebody in the comments has informed me that Chad has now found employment in a different grocer, one that I hope will value him more.) This article is not really a follow-up, more a hospital portering edition of the same one. I'll address other issues to do with this case that lie outside the scope of the Voice. The title of this article comes from the lyrics of an excellent song by the rapper Immortal Technique which is paraphrased from a speech made by Charlie Chaplin in his 1940 film The Great Dictator, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoTVCgWX90 and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20. Why did Walmart sack Chad? It's not a good business model to dispose of employees who attract customers. There may be a connection to my own experience in the MRI although in this case the aversion comes from the top, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/03/he-loved-his-work.html. I've heard many stories about people who are fond of their work and take pride in it; and worst still, behave in a manner that makes it obvious they are enjoying it, getting into some kind of trouble. I include myself in this. In Chad's case it was from management; in mine it was from both colleagues and management. I wonder what Chad's fellow Walmart employees thought of him. In some cases it is the customer who objects, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/starbucksbaristas/comments/hh0siv/i_got_a_complaint_for_being_too_friendly_and_it. Obviously they'd rather be served by some glass-eyed script-reading Stepford husband; that would somehow give them comfort. Some people can't abide seeing other people happy. They're like prisoners in jail; when one of the inmates tries to escape the others block his way and alert the warders. Another metaphor might be the strange crabs that live at the bottom of the sea whose body is so used to the crushing pressure and oppressive darkness that they can't survive without it. They don't feel that way about people with high conventional social status because such people are supposed to be enjoying their lives. The ones who grate are those with low status, shop assistants and HP's for example, who are not walking round with bowed heads and slumped shoulders, cursing every moment of their mortal existence. This is an awful situation because I feel humans are slowly turning into machines, just like the faceless and soulless consoles that shoppers use to buy their own goods from the supermarket. It's very revealing about my own life and why I made so many enemies at the hospital without even trying. Maybe this is why they eventually discarded me.

Big Spammer is Watching You- HP Edition

 

I have received the following email:
 
Hi Ben
 
We published A Market Report on Mobile Patient Lifting Equipment (2025) for You and Competitors. (sic)
The following manufacturers are covered:
 
Arjo
Baxter
Benmor Medical
Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare
Etac AB
GF Health Products Inc.
Guldmann A/S
Invacare Holdings Corporation
Joerns Healthcare
K Care Healthcare Solutions
Medline Industries
LP
Prism Medical UK
Stryker
 
If you have further interest in this report or related reports, we would be happy to share the sample report for your reference.
Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / 此致敬意,
Bella (...)
 
I've often had that strange feeling that someone's watching me. I've recorded these suspicious incidents in articles like this: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/07/big-spammer-is-watching-you-3-tripod.html. Now I've had a spam email that demonstrates once again that there is a system somewhere building a profile on me based on my tastes and interests expressed though internet activity. This email is different though; it has a particular hospital portering theme. The companies on that list all exist. I have a feeling the text is an AI translation because of its stilted syntax and somewhat forced tone. I'm not sure why all the words in the opening sentence are capitalized. The last line includes a phrase in two foreign languages, German and Chinese, and both mean "best regards". I tried Googling "Bella's" full name and it came up a blank. I find it disturbing that there is somebody out there who has created a "file on me", even if it just an automated system and even if it's for an innocent purpose; in this case advertising. It could even be beneficial because it could connect me to products that might interest me. The problem is that if online advertising agencies can do this to me who else can? What else do they know about me? What do they plan to use the information for?

Against Inverted Snobbery

 

We live in a world where injustice is one of the daily niggles and obstacles in life for almost everybody. We can reduce it in our own lives, but we cannot eliminate it. I think so long as we don't contribute to it ourselves through our own actions and inactions then we have to be satisfied with that. A common mistake when coping with injustice, whether real or just perceived, is one I see a lot in wokery, feminism and so-called "Celtic" nationalism; that is to fetishize it to the point where is becomes a part of our identity, and even, in a strange way, a part of our self-esteem. (See here for background details: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/08/women-in-ufology.html and: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/10/cvd-is-ruining-wales.html.) Of course this delusion is not confined to the above tendencies. We hospital porters have our own kind, in fact so does the rest of the working class. In a way it is understandable. When dealing with the SULBN's and psycho midwives of this world, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-dare-you.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/well-take-it-from-here.html, how do you expect us to react? This totally unprovoked, baffling and meaningless hostility is going to have an effect. It's going to change people's lives. It changed mine; in fact before I joined up with the HP's I didn't even believe it existed. Sure, I'd heard stories from older friends and family members, but I dismissed them. Surely nobody would be unpleasant and aggressive to another person for no reason at all, except because they can and want to due to social status, would they? The common and most instinctive reaction to this abuse is simply to abuse back; blindly and without discrimination. There are many things wrong with this approach. When you go to war against an abstraction all you usually end up achieving is harm towards individuals who are themselves innocent. Along with that comes the narcissism and arrogance of victimhood, which is the staple mentality among the groups I mention above. I think this is why I didn't last very long in union shop steward training. I saw through it quite quickly. Many people have remarked about how strange it is that so many trade union officials end up in administration. I've even coined the phrase "the shop steward to management pipeline". I think a lot of those men are primarily motivated by envy. This is what you'll find when you dissemble their inverted snobbery. They go on and on about "workers rights", but as soon as they find an opportunity to get their feet under the top table they leap at it. (Nicolae Ceaușescu, the last communist leader of Romania was once asked how he fought anti-government rebels. He replied: "I don't fight them, I offer them a job.") So I think inverted snobbery is something of a satanic tempter for HP's and the working class in general; but it is extremely destructive, to yourself and others. However, injustice without catharsis is one of the worst experiences you can endure. I consider it a form of mental torture, probably the most common type. Something must be done about it, and without inverted snobbery what do we do then? Well, there are two solutions. The first is that I find immoral acts often bring their own punishment; I do believe in karma. I've noticed it in my own life. The second is my own invention, the dignity statement, for example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/telephone-dignity-statements.html. Just give those two solutions a chance! If they don't work, feel free to go back to pacing the lodge floor in endless circles railing against "posh bastards!"; but if they do work for you, I swear to you, you'll find them a salvation.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/05/hard-work-by-polly-toynbee.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/10/hospital-porters-guild.html.

Uch!

 

I was in London on Monday making a video for HPANWO TV, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2025/07/awake-and-aware-conference-2025.html, and happened to walk past the University College Hospital. This was originally founded in 1834, but the old buildings have been replaced by a typical new PFI pile on the corner of Gower Street and Euston Road. It is a tall and compact building without any space between the walls and pavements as you'd expect in crowded London. I never went to the main entrance which is on the north facade, but I decided to go in and have a look at the emergency department which is behind a surprisingly small door on the east side. As I walked up the entrance ramp I saw a pregnant woman who looked like she was in labour. At the time I wasn't sure if the UCH had maternity services; as it happens, it doesn't. This is unusual because maternity tends to be attached to general hospitals. I would have warned her and her husband if I'd known. Inside the emergency department I faced another surprise; it was very small, not much bigger than a GP's surgery waiting room. There were some rows of seats, only about thirty, and lots of people were sitting on the floor. It was very overcrowded and people who couldn't find space to sit were standing precariously against the wall. There was a reception desk behind a sheet of armoured glass and a door to minor side where a grim-looking security guard in a covid mask sat. The waiting room itself was totally sealed off from the rest of the hospital. I heard a voice on a loudspeaker say: "Could we have a porter to cubicle five with a wheelchair please." I looked over and saw a row of windows behind which was a wheelchair stack. Sure enough a porter appeared. He used a key to unlock the wheelchair; it was connected to the stack by a chain, like some supermarket trolleys. Why? Do people steal them? (Actually we did have a few go missing at the John Radcliffe and I found one in a pub. That's an amusing story I will relate another time. However, we never felt any cause to chain them together.) I wanted to salute the porter, which was the main reason for me entering the hospital, but my brother was behind the reinforced plate glass screen and so would never have heard me call to him. See here for the hospital's official site: https://www.uclh.nhs.uk/our-services/our-hospitals/university-college-hospital. This hospital's A&E was totally different to the one at the JR. It is clearly built with security as its top priority. Maybe that's a sign of the times we live in. The waiting room is far too small and the atmosphere inside it was tense. God knows what it's like late on a Friday night! I will look at the main entrance and report on it when I can, but I'm willing to bet it will be very different to the emergency entrance; large, grand, intimidating and pretentious.

Lucy Letby- More Arrests

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/02/new-lucy-letby-panel.html.
Police investigating the series of baby deaths in the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital have made a further three arrests. The three unnamed administration officers are being held under suspicion of manslaughter. They may have committed gross medical negligence in the case of the deaths because they wilfully ignored warning signs from the unit's records, specifically those connected to Lucy Letby who has been jailed for fifteen life sentences after being convicted of murdering the babies... but did she? See links below. Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes of the Cheshire constabulary said: "In October 2023 following the lengthy trial and subsequent conviction of Lucy Letby, Cheshire constabulary launched an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the Countess of Chester hospital. This focuses on senior leadership and their decision-making to determine whether any criminality has taken place concerning the response to the increased levels of fatalities. In March 2025 the scope of the investigation widened also to include gross negligence manslaughter. This is a separate offence to corporate manslaughter and focuses on the grossly negligent action or inaction of individuals." Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/01/lucy-letby-countess-of-chester-hospital-bosses-arrested. All three have been released on bail and no doubt right now they are sitting in their homes desperately machinating some scheme to throw each of the other two under the bus and come up smelling of roses themselves. I'm not sure how familiar the police are with NHS managers, but I hope they are savvy enough to realize that they are some of the greediest, weakest, most deceitful, most amoral and downright crafty people you can possibly imagine. One thing's for sure, if we see any convictions over this, the person who goes down will be the one least to blame, if not somebody totally innocent; and, as the comedian Bill Hicks used to say, the little demons will be left to run amuck. I'll make another post as soon as there are updates.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/07/is-lucy-letby-innocent.html.
And: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-gas-spanner-programme-89.html.

Ex-Footie Coach is Honourary HP

 

The former football manager Luke Williams has gone up in the world! He has just lost his position coaching Swansea City FC. He quit in February after a run of seven defeats in just nine matches. This has made him unpopular with the fans and in the end the board decided to let him go. As regular followers will know, I have got into the habit of considering airport mobility helpers honourary hospital porters, for example see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2025/06/ben-in-desert-2.html. Even though they are not technically HP's I find it impossible not to compare them to members of our ancient and noble profession. Their job is to assist disabled passengers around the airport, through customs and security, and on and off the aircraft. They push the travellers on wheelchairs and I've been saluting them and saying "Pride and Dignity Brother/Sister Porter" when I pass them. They usually smile and thank me. Luke Williams is one of these honourary HP's at Bristol Airport. Source: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sacked-swansea-city-manager-luke-31906436. I wish him luck with it. He has not commented on whether he will be applying for any other league football coaching roles. Perhaps he will become too fond of his new life to change it.

Happy St Theo's Day 2025!

 

In advance!... Apologies, but I will be away on St Theo's Day itself this year, so... On behalf of every serving hospital porter, every former hospital porter, and everybody else who loves, appreciates and supports us, with all the Pride and Dignity of my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother and Sister Porters, I'd like to wish all my friends and readers, a very happy St Theo's Day; in advance for this St Theo's Day, Sunday the 1st of June.
See here for The Gas Spanner St Theo 2024: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-gas-spanner-programme-85.html.

Civilian Uniforms

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/05/women-hps-uniform.html.
My endless laments about the loss of hospital portering traditions, and especially my tirade in the above article about HP women's uniforms, is not confined to HPing. It appears the same thing has affected the civilian professions. This change happened even earlier than the HP one. I just about remember the time when male nurses wore tunics. There have always been men in nursing, but they were very much a small minority until the establishment of the NHS. Today I would not go as far as to say the gender imbalance is the reverse of HPing; men are still a minority, but they are a larger minority, about twenty to thirty percent. Above you see two male nurses' uniforms, one from the 1960's and one from the present day. You can quite clearly see the difference, especially when you also compare the women's uniforms of the past with knee-length blue and white dresses, bonnets and pinafores, for example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/12/devotion.html. I could show you a similar comparison involving radiographers, dentists and physiotherapists. Clearly men and women were made to look distinct from each other, even when doing the same job. Modern civilian uniforms in the NHS, like the portering ones, are virtually unisex. The tunic has been replaced with the very androgynous short Cuban top. The women's is slightly longer, but apart from that they are identical. The reasons why male and female staff are being made to look more and more like each other is a subject I cover extensively in other HPANWO projects, see the link below.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html.

The Most Dangerous Man in Britain was a HP!

 

No, it's not me, despite what you might have heard. I'm talking about Ian Bone. That epithet was pasted onto him by The Sunday People, a typical British redtop. I first came across Ian Bone as a teenager because for a while in the '80's and '90's his journal became popular enough to appear on the shelves of WH Smith and other mainstream newsagents. Class War immediately caught the shopper's eye with its skull-and-crossbones banner. I was curious enough to read a few issues of "Britain's most unruly tabloid", which was its own motto. Class War caused outrage and scandal. It was full of swearing, extreme rhetoric and completely devoid of any attempt at diplomacy, to put it mildly. For example, I read its report on the fire at Windsor Castle in 1992 and remember part of it well: "It was brilliant wasn't it? Unfortunately the whole pile didn't burn down and 'Her Maj' was not in at the time. To think working class firemen risked their lives to put out the blaze! Bollocks to that!" When a police chief was hospitalized by a heart attack the paper encouraged readers to send flowers to his wife and to address them to his "widow" even though eventually the man recovered. Bone also organized "Bash the rich!" protests during which he would incite the harassment of what he called "penguin suited wankers!" Such activities, of course, would be totally illegal today and even back then Bone got into terrible trouble with the law. His prosecutions were for him all part of the "struggle!" He was an ultra-left anarchist, and seems still to be so today at the age of seventy-seven. During my lost weekend as a trade unionist I once asked one of the conveners who read Militant about Bone's anarchists. He replied: "They have only one rule: there are no rules; and sometimes they break that rule." (I'll say more about NHS trade union culture in a future article.) Even in those days I found it hard to take Class War seriously. Looking back at it now I see it as a form of unintentional black comedy. See here for the archive: https://libcom.org/article/class-war-newspaper. (These days Ian Bone writes a blog which I will not link to because Blogger will probably delete this article, but it's quite easy to find.)

I certainly do not share Ian Bone's political views, if indeed you can even call them that. However, he was indeed a hospital porter. He comes from Wiltshire, but has spent most of his life in Swansea, Wales. Today he lives in Bristol. He studied politics at university and started his first anarchist group in 1966. He took part in a massive protest against the South African rugby team's tour of Wales in 1969. However, most importantly of all, he also served as a porter at the city's Singleton Hospital. Source: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/ian-bone-class-war-anarchist-19454850. You might be shocked and appalled at Bone's words and actions; and I oppose a lot of what he said and did, but he was still a HP. I've known far worse people than Ian Bone who were HP's, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/hps-and-psychos.html. For better or worse, agree or disagree, the fact that Ian was a HP means that he and I share a common destiny. He is now elderly and suffers from Parkinson's disease which is very sad. I salute my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother HP and wish him all the best.

Women HP's Uniform

 

Hospital portering in Britain is a primarily male occupation. Over ninety percent of HP's are men. Feminists do not object to this because HPing is such a low status low paid job. In fact doing a job like HPing is one of the few places left in the western world where you can find a "male space". However, a number of women have always been present in our ancient and noble profession. I can't recall a time in my career when every single one of the seventy to eighty porters at the JRH were male. A number of these women were very good porters. I remember with particular fondness a fifty-something post room porter called Linda who kind of adopted me in the same way Barry did, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html. I also had a female shift partner in A&E once called Sandy. There is no reason why women cannot be HP's. Great physical strength is not necessary for the occupation; in fact, as a manual handling trainer, I learned that if you're using too much muscle power to do something then you're doing it wrong. Today a female hospital porters' uniform is almost the same as the men's except the trousers and shirt are feminine lines. However, when I started out there was a female HP's uniform that was distinct to the job and very different to the men's. It consisted of a simple green nylon knee length clinical dress with black tights and sturdy flat-bottomed shoes. The above illustration is the closest I could get to the reality I remember. I like the fact there was a proper uniform for female porters that was different to the male one and identifiable with the job. I think it should be brought back in, along with all the other traditions and pleasant aspects of the profession that have been stripped from us. I'm sure many readers are wondering this and I'm willing to confess it. I do find the sight of a woman wearing a traditional HP's dress erotic. This is because of my general sentiments for hospital portering.

The Varginha Monologue

 

This is one of those strange moments where a subject comes up which blends aspects of both hospital portering and the civilian subjects I cover on the other HPANWO media I produce. In 1996 the town of Varginha in Brazil was the site of some extraordinary reports. Three local girls reported that a brown extraterrestrial being was seen wandering the streets. This led to more stories of aliens and ET spacecraft being seen in the area. The full story is long and complicated and I will not repeat it here, but it is covered very well by the Anglo-American filmmaker James Fox in his recent documentary Moment of Contact. I strongly recommend studying the background links below if this is the first time you've heard of this incident. I seem to be in the mood for "offering my services" when it comes to HPing matters at the moment; in fact I did so the other day to the space programme, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/04/hp-space-consultant.html. I now offer them again to that other kind of space programme that involves non-human beings from space, not putting humans into space. According to the narrative built by many researchers over almost thirty years of investigation, the local authorities in Varginha were a bit out of their depth. They flailed around in a panic; clearly they did not have any units specifically trained and experienced for this eventuality. In the end they took the being to two hospitals. They started with the Hospital Regional do Sul de Minas, a state general unit in Varginha. They kept it there for a while and then moved it to the smaller local Hospital Humanitas where it was admitted for a couple of days. By then Marco Chereze, the policeman leading the operation to capture the being, had fallen ill; and he died a few days later. Maybe for this reason the staff then transferred the creature to the Escola de Sargentos das Armas, a military academy. All these facilities were totally inadequate to care for such an unusual patient and the situation only came under control when the Americans arrived and took over.

I think I can be of use to this inquiry. Why? Because I am an ex-hospital porter. If any researcher wants to know more about what happened in those three medical centres then it behoves them to interview the porters there. Porters are famous in all hospitals for being the principle source and transmitters of gossip. At the same time, we are the epitome of Shakespeare's "band of brothers". Despite our loose tongues there are certain things a HP will only ever say to another HP. I know I can gain information from those operators that nobody else could. Therefore I offer my services to all UFO and alien researchers investigating the Varginha incident to play the role of "hospital portering liason". Unfortunately I do not speak Portuguese and so will need an interpreter, but that should be easy enough to arrange. I look forward to rejoining this quest in an exciting new role.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2022/11/moment-of-contact-watch-party-review.html.
And: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/ufo-disclosure-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2016/01/programme-172-podcast-varginha-20.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/01/new-varginha-alien-video.html.

HP Space Consultant

 

This article is one I am addressing directly to the world of space exploration. I would like to offer my hospital portering services free of charge to NASA, Roscosmos, SpaceX and every other space agency and private operator. I have already done this with the movie industry, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2013/08/portering-hits-hollywood.html, and the manufacturers of hospital equipment, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/09/acute-care-vehicles-1-original-fleet.html. A couple of weeks ago Butch and Suni came home. This pair of astronauts have become two of the most famous in history because of their impromptu asylum aboard the International Space Station after their Boeing Starliner vehicle suffered a breakdown while in orbit. Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams had only planned for an eight day mission, but this ended up being over nine months. I watched their return to earth with interest and trepidation. Luckily everything went without a hitch, at least until the Crew Dragon descent capsule had reached the earth. The spacecraft splashed down into the Gulf of Mexico, or Gulf of America as it is also now known, and remained afloat safely while the recovery vessels quickly sailed to the location. The capsule was hoisted onto the stern of the SpaceX Megan recovery ship. It was kept there for a while and then moved forward to the midships area. For some reason this movement is called "translation". See here for details: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2025/03/third-rail-radio-programme-203.html.

Then came the business of extracting the astronauts from the spacecraft, which is harder than you might think. There were four people inside it in total. Along with Butch and Suni were the ISS crewmembers Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov. The hatch was tightly sealed against the vacuum of space, and the personnel were wearing spacesuits and were strapped into their seats with safety harnesses. They could not move very well themselves because they'd spent many months living in microgravity. Returning to a gravitational field after that is a bit like getting out of a swimming pool and suddenly feeling heavy without the water's buoyancy, only much worse. The crewmembers had to be lifted out through the hatch and onto a waiting stretcher. Now, here comes the problem. Any trained and experienced HP can see very clearly that the medical team makes two series mistakes. They carry the astronauts by placing their arms under the astronaut's armpits. This is a method that used to be common and accepted practice in the NHS when I first started HPing, but that was in the late 1980's. It was very quickly stamped out in favour of the "Australian lift" and then later on new inventions like the Patslide, the "horace" hoist and some even more modern pieces of equipment. Patient moving with the armpit method can cause the patient and healthcare provider injury. For the patient it can strain the elbow joint and even cause fracture or dislocation. For the provider it means leaning which is a back care hazard. The second mistake is that the civilians fail to apply the brakes to the stretcher. This can cause it to shift unexpectedly when the patient is being loaded on or off it which can result in serious injury or damage to facilities. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYcO1ELvulQ. Therefore my offer is to join your teams as an official adviser on manual handling and other hospital portering skills. I will train your medical teams properly for no fee at all. Please respond by emailing me: bennyjay74@gmx.co.uk. I look forward to hearing from you.

Rose Cottage Humour

A video has appeared on TikTok from the user @Jalals which appears to depict a hospital prank. Some might say it's in very poor taste and even possibly dangerous. It consists of two scenes. In the first a porter wheels a bed into a lift in which a patient's visitor or relative is standing. The porter then says: "I forgot my pass. Could you mind this for two secs?" "Watch him?" asks the visitor. "Just for two seconds; I'll be back." replies the porter. The visitor asks: "Who is this? Are they dead? What the fuck!?... Jesus!" The lift door slides shut. On the bed is a human body on a bare mattress with a sheet draped over them. We actually never transport deceased patients like that. We wrap them up in a sheet like a mummy and use a special vehicle in which they are concealed called a "box". A cosmetic mattress and pillow is placed on top of it so that it looks like a stretcher. Also we use the service lifts to move between levels to "Rose Cottage", what we call the mortuary, never those in the public areas. But suspend your disbelief if you will. The shrouded "corpse" comes back to life and sits up on the bed like a Romeroesque zombie. The man screams in terror and flees from the lift in a panic. In the second scene, the bed with the body is left alone in a main street; again this would never happen in real life, in fact it would be gross malpractice. A young man and women walk down some nearby stairs and stare at the vehicle with curiosity. The body reanimates again and they bolt back up the stairs. The man stumbles and falls down the stairs and has to climb them again. Source: https://www.tiktok.com/@jalals/video/7079709096772914433. This is almost certainly staged. It would be reckless and possibly illegal to do this for real. Shocking and scaring people that badly could warrant a charge of assault. The victims might suffer mental or physical injury. People have died of heart attacks in such situations. The perpetrators would certainly be dismissed. The acting is very good though; the people look genuinely scared and the man in the second scene probably has some experience as a stuntman because his tumble on the stairs looks authentic. Is it possible somebody in a hospital might pull a prank like that for real? I know a few who might. As I've said before, we HP's and hospital civilians do develop a rather extreme sense of humour. This is not because we're sadistic people; it is just a psychological defence mechanism. Without it we would lose our minds; for example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/sick-hospital-video.html. This kind of thing is predictably one of the jokes in the TV series Porters, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2018/11/porters-first-series.html.

"Get off your Backside and Become a HP?"

 

Jeremy Kyle, the man once described as a "human bear baiter", justly I think, has been talking about hospital portering on his Talk TV show. (Thanks to a friend who made me aware of this.) He was interviewing Isabel Oakeshott, one of the rare journalists who openly supports Reform UK. They rant with frustration at the double standards in terms of how the government financially supports refugees with enthusiasm at the expense of the native population. That's true and I share their sentiments, but they don't stop there. They then segue to a common notion which is a dangerous train of thought. Kyle argues, and Isabel agrees, that instead of importing foreigners to do service jobs, why not get the British unemployed to do them. I also support this idea and think it's a good one, with one vital condition: these should be proper jobs with a contract and wage. Jeremy and his guest think otherwise. They promote the obscenity of "workfare", an increasingly accepted policy in many countries in which people without work and living off unemployment benefits should be forced into unpaid labour as a proviso for receiving those benefits. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzrdmCzgvTs. (He brings up HPing about three minutes in.)

The practical and ethical problems I have with this proposal are so numerous and vast that I hardly know where to start. Firstly it is beyond insulting to say that the primary cause of unemployment is laziness and if only people "got off their backsides!" to quote Jeremy, the millions on the dole would soon be off it. If this were the case then levels of unemployment would not be directly proportional to the economy. People don't suddenly just become lazy when we get a recession. The government are also effectively saying: "We can't afford to give you a proper job, so can we just pretend we're giving you a job and not pay you? Then it would look as if you were working; that's what matters." We must also refer to previous pilot schemes for such policy that failed. In one, a group of twenty long-term unemployed people were given the chance to live the Jeremy Kyle Dream, unpaid jobs cleaning the streets in a city. However the city's sanitation services had to make twenty of its properly employed staff redundant to create vacancies for the unpaid crews. As a result of workfare being adopted on a grand scale, unemployment skyrocketed as more and more working people were replaced by these civic slaves; and that's not too strong a word to use. In fact an entire sector of this "precariat" has metastasized in societies with workfare. It is unfair, abusive and only makes unemployment worse... unless the government want us all to be slaves for some reason?... What is interesting about this interview is that in the middle of his passionate monologue he mentions HPing as an example of such a profession. Is this a compliment or a slur? Is Jezza saying HP's are such essential workers that our services have to be provided for as a priority, no matter what; or is he listing HPing as one of those menial, invisible, below stairs activities that are so background and unobtrusive that everybody just assumed that they just happen automatically and therefore don't matter, and so can be done by parachuting street urchins into the role and making them do it without a wage? I'm not sure, but knowing Kyle I doubt if he is thinking respectful thoughts as he speaks like this. I do find it interesting that HPing was the first and instinctive occupation that popped into his head as an example. Why? Does he read the HPWA?
See here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-trial-of-jeremy-kyle.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2015/02/cameron-pushes-workfare.html.

Blogging Costs Jobs- Review

 

It is now thirteen years since Trystan Swale wrote his article about me entitled Blogging Costs Jobs. A screenshot can be seen in the illustration above and here is the text. The original is long gone. Trystan has a habit of jumping from platform to platform, deleting everything he leaves behind afterwards:

Blogging Costs Jobs
Until very recently Ben Emlyn-Jones was a hospital porter. Then he got sacked from his job; seemingly for some of the content he has posted to his blog and on YouTube. It is a tale that is a lesson to bloggers, podcasters and vidcasters in general. And at a time when securing new employment can be very tough it makes my skin itch.
I know Ben through my attendance at various Skeptics in the Pub events and paranormal conferences. I don't think he'd mind me saying that he believes the New World Order conspiracy; his blog Hospital Porters Against the New World Order makes that abundantly clear. I don't agree with a lot of what Ben writes, but when we see each other we are able to discuss our different world views without getting abusive, running off and throwing tantrums.
The full version of Ben's side of the story is here, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html. In brief, it seems Ben was sacked after a complaint was received from a member of the public, alleging he was behaving in an unprofessional way on the internet. The material used against Ben at his disciplinary hearing included three vidcasts he had pieced together for his YouTube channel. As these are freely available on YouTube, I've embedded them below. Watch at least twenty seconds of each and you'll get the idea.
Trytan Swale is a contemporary folklorist and a former paranormal/fortean investigator. This blog is a collection of his thoughts on the dead, the damned, critical thinking and things that probably do not exist.

The tone of novelty in this piece goes to show how recent cancel culture is. Fortunately it seems to be weakening today, but it has done untold damage in its brief rise to power. Some people actually described me as a canary in a coal mine. Oddly enough my experience came at the same time as others were suffering professionally for their conspiratorial beliefs; most notably Kevin Annett, Miles Johnston and Gary Heseltine; see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2023/06/hpanwo-show-514-podcast-gary-heseltine.html and: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2022/10/programme-181-podcast-kevin-annett.html and: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2023/06/hpanwo-show-510-podcast-bases-ufo.html. I wrote a response to Trystan that with retrospect sounds weak and too reconciliatory. I've added new links to avoid confusion:

Trystan Swale's Article Blogging Costs Jobs
As regular HPANWO-readers will know, I'm different from many of my fellow conspiracy and paranormal researchers in that that I often attend skeptic events. With the rise of conspiratorial awareness and interest in the supernatural, the skeptic movement has similarly burgeoned and organized itself as a reaction, and has become an antithesis of our own world; with conferences, groups, websites, internet forums writers, researchers and speakers all with a surprisingly similar structure, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2024/10/qed-conference-2024.html. I've come to know a few of the people involved in this community, like Jack of Kent. One person who keeps dropping in at all of these conferences and events is Trystan Swale.

I first met Trystan in 2010 at the Weird 10 Conference in Warminster. He is an internet radio host and had a stall for his old Righteous Indignation podcast. This appears to be now defunct and Trystan is between shows at the moment. Rather like a mirror of myself, Trystan the skeptic often delves in to the "wacky" world of the "Woo-osphere". Although I've not yet seen him yet at Probe or AV, he does attend the Fortean, "demi-monde"-type conferences like Weird and ASSAP. I always take time out to chat with him and we get on well despite our ideological differences... then again if I disliked everybody who disagreed with me I'd be a pretty lonely person! Also throughout history we've often seen many examples of relationships that appear to be bonded not in spite of, but because of differing opinions. A classic example is Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. I always remember that there was a boy at my school who was involved in a die-hard Marxist group called the Workers' Socialist League and he spent most of his time hanging out with the leader of the school's Young Conservative club (Well, he was the Young Conservative club to be honest; nobody else ever joined!) When I saw that Trystan has written an article about my recent expulsion from the Hospital Portering Service I was worried for a moment that I was about to get a skepti-bashing, but actually he has let me off quite lightly. He's avoided judgmental statements and treated the incident as a misfortune. He also believes as strongly as I do in free speech; believe me I'd kick up like hell if I heard that a skeptic was about to lose their job for their beliefs, which is why I supported Simon Singh in his legal case. Trystan makes an attempt to see both sides of the story, being sympathetic my own cause, yet putting himself in the shoes of the Management, as he sees it. I suppose I have to accept that in a way my own literary and cinematic style backfired on me. My lack of tact and inhibition, along with my disdain for political correctness, has always meant that I am vulnerable to actions like these. However this was not an oversight on my part, but a deliberate policy; I've always admired satirical comedy. Some of my favourite sit-coms were the serials starring the character Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell. These programmes have been totally disowned by their producer, the BBC, yet I think they're a brilliant indictment on racism and general social ignorance, and I must admit that Alf did inspire my character Butt U Doonuthin in the Microchip a Muslim Day video. I've always treated my viewers as intelligent intellectuals capable of more than just one-dimensional literal thinking, and the mostly positive feedback I've received from them seems to vindicate that. However the problem with satire is that it can always be misinterpreted, either by accident or deliberately: in other words, an attack by false misinterpretation, feigned naivete, "twisting things". This did actually go through my head when I first published Microchip in September 2010. I wondered to myself, What if somebody gets the wrong idea? Have I made it clear through the dialogue, style and costume etc that this is a satire? I hope this won't make people at work think I'm a racist... and so on. A couple of weeks went past and I got lots of positive comments, and no more rude ones than I normally get from the troll element. Also, I knew that within a fortnight or so all my viewers at work would probably have seen it, including many of my bosses, so if there was anything they regarded as a bit dodgy they'd probably have had a quiet word with me and asked me nicely to remove it, or at least make changes to it. My bosses and I generally got on well and if they had any criticism of me it was usually carried out in an informal and cooperative manner. I think if that had happened I'd have probably agreed to their request, either by producing it again in a toned-down remake or putting up a disclaimer of some kind. However after a week or two more I relaxed in the knowledge that my fears were unfounded. Everybody who saw the video understood that the satire was as plain and blatant as I tried to make it.

Trystan has guessed correctly that my film David Icke's New Book is a parody of the cover of one of that author's previous titles, I am Me- I am Free. Also, as I explained, it is not indecent really and if it were YouTube would have removed it. It is there to make a serious point and, as I say, I like to do this in my own way and have no concern for potential oversensitive viewers who take things too literally. Actually if we pursue this line of analysis then almost anything could be seen as offensive when presented in that way. The Big Issue recently published an article about how some Americans are complaining about British children's TV shows, they are supposed to be indoctrinating their youth with subversive radical liberal themes. Teletubbies is said to contain anarcho-syndicalist undertones because Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-laa and Po live in a state of communal economic and social equilibrium inspired by the conclusion of Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto. Noddy and Big Ears are clearly a homosexual couple because they live in the same house and every time they meet Mr Plod there are hints in the dialogue that they would like a civil partnership. To apply that to HPANWO TV: My Che Gue-Veitch films insult both the Scots and French people because I talk with a fake Scottish accent and wear a beret. Also Charles doing the Washing-Up is male chauvinistic and is encoded with extreme anti-feminist propaganda, because it attacks housewives. You see where this mindset could lead? If I comply with it I will spend my whole life tip-toeing around with my shoulders hunched and my arms pressed to my sides, vetting every move I make and word I say just in case one of the billions of people who use the internet decides to complain about it. I will never do that!
 
Trystan tried to see it from the management's point of view, and I think in my report linked above I made an attempt to relate their case to the reader too; you'll notice that I quote them several times when they explained their position to me at the hearing. Actually in the above cases the only reason I didn't cooperate with them was not so much the accusation itself, but the suspicious way that it suddenly arose and the violence with which management reacted against me. I explain in my report, that is not how they normally operate and it's a huge coincidence that this complaint arose at that moment in time and in the form that it did. If I had hurled racial abuse at somebody while on duty then I would have been suspended on the spot in that fashion, and would have richly deserved it. All accusations of gross misconduct are acted upon in that way; so, as I said in my report, I have ask myself if my suspension had another motive. Being instantly suspended in that way was effectively a declaration of war, as was the most serious and hurtful allegation made against me, and also the most outrageous and grotesque, which Trystan does not address in his article. The accusation that I bullied another member of staff. The idea that I would ever do such a thing strikes right at the heart of my persona and self-esteem... and perhaps it's meant to. It becomes yet more curious when you understand that the "complaint" against me must have been fast-tracked. The Trust receives far more complaints and adverse incident reports than you might think; in fact a figure quoted to me by my union was 30,000 a month. That's a thousand a day! I can well believe it because I've received training in Health and Safety. I was a manual-handling officer and trainer for many years and I've had to submit quite a few of these reports myself. I found that the average processing time is about two to three months and this seems to be acceptable. Priority is given to cases of severe clinical hazards that pose severe danger to the wellbeing of patients and personnel. However this complaint against me was dealt with in eight days, maybe sooner because there was a weekend and one day of my leave in between. So my situation was regarded as being of the highest possible importance to Management and it was processed and acted on immediately.

The other night I called a friend in the Truth Movement to tell them what had happened, somebody who used to present an online TV show. They had already found out about my dismissal, but said very forthrightly that they thought there was nothing suspicious about it; they dismissed my concerns and thought that I'd made a mistake. I was dismayed at their attitude, but I didn't get angry with them. I have to accept that not everybody is going to believe me. I can sympathize in a way, especially if one is not familiar with hospitals and how they work. And it is true that I have no direct evidence at all, only overwhelming circumstantial evidence. I still think I did the right thing. I was put on the spot and had to make a decision on what my line of defence would be and I choose that one. I could have ignored all the suspicious coincidences and breaches of normal practice and fought the case on management's turf, but I chose not to. Whatever the rights and wrongs, it's over now, for better or worse.

Soon afterwards I regretted this article, cringing at its overfriendly and beseeching tone. This is not least because a few months later Trystan was to turn against me very suddenly in a completely unprovoked attack, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/12/trystan-swale-on-ben-emlyn-jones.html. I am recording the experience here for posterity. Maybe a reader can learn from both my successes and mistakes.

HP's Cooperative

 

Back in the late 2000's I had this radical and very unrealistic ambition, as I often do. I had just read Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson, see: https://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/node/344. The book is about a man who works for a lousy public sector contractor and sets up a workers' cooperative to bid for the contract. A workers' cooperative is an organization in which everybody who works for it is also an equal shareholder. I thought it would be great to set up a workers' cooperative for the John Radcliffe Hospital porters. This is related to my idea for a guild, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/10/hospital-porters-guild.html. I must say I very much identified with the character in the story called "X". Like him I am curious and intellectual, yet I am working class. I cannot fit into academia, yet I am not content to sit around in a pub all day talking about football like most of my friends. X and I are both quite isolated people. (At some point I'll have to write a detailed review of Antarctica.) My inspired dream was, of course, doomed to failure, but I have no regrets for trying. I wrote an open letter at the time to all my EP&DB&SP's and I reproduce it below, slightly edited and improved, for the sake of history and nostalgia.
 
Ben Emlyn-Jones
Level 1 Porter
Level 1 Main Hospital
John Radcliffe Hospital
 
22/9/07
 
Dear Brother or Sister Porter,
 
I'm writing to you because you've expressed to me a desire to know more about the JRHPC- the John Radcliffe Hospital Porters' Company (We can think of a better name later!) I've decided to set up the JRHPC because of the possibility in the future that the Trust management might try to sell our service out to a private contractor. Anyone who was portering at the JR during the Mediclean era will probably agree that that would be a tragedy, both for ourselves and our patients. We simply cannot let this happen. This is not on the cards at the present time because of our current employment with the NHS-Carillion Partnership; we are talking long-term possibilities here, but I think it's wise to prepare now, so that we can act quickly if the danger arises.
 
The JRHPC is a provisional organization, not a trading business, but if it needs to become a trading business it can do so immediately as long as all the organization and planning work is done. We need to think and talk to each other about what the JRHPC will be like. We need to make a business plan, sort out any administration structures and find out what our rights and obligations would be as an independent healthcare provider to the modern NHS. We need to find and enrol people with the knowledge to help us. Maybe in a while we should hold a meeting, but in the meantime we can talk to each other informally face-to-face. You can also email each other or use the forum on my website. There are many obstacles to overcome and no guarantees of success, but hopefully it will never be necessary to even face those obstacles.
 
One of the first and biggest choices we'll need to make is whether we want to be part of the JRHPC as an employee or a shareholder. It's too soon to say which will make us better off financially, but there's no doubt that the more of us are shareholders, the more democratic and self-empowered the business will be. If we all end up as equal shareholders then it will become a workers' cooperative. This would be the ideal situation in my opinion because I've researched workers' cooperatives (see my website) and can understand how much better they are than conventional businesses, in which there are only a handful of shareholders and everyone else just takes a wage without owning a stake in the company, being just a cog in the machine. People in worker's cooperatives are healthier, happier and more productive and efficient. For them work is a creative experience, not just a necessary chore that must be done to survive. If we end up winning the contract and make a success of it then the idea might catch on in other hospitals and even beyond! What we're doing here may one day change the world!
 
As I said above, there's no rush to do this. We can take our time and get it right. The JRHPC is a provisional organization for a hypothetical situation and nobody will have to fork out a penny at the present time. But everyone is welcome to join and if anyone who doesn't receive this letter wants to, let me know. The JRHPC membership is not just aimed at porters, but also the civilians in the office, on dispatch, reception or the Help Desk. They are part of the team too.
 
The first step is simply to start thinking about it, talking about it and building a model in your minds. Remember, nobody knows how to do our job better than ourselves. We can achieve this. Whether we will is not known, but if we don't try then the outcome is certain.
 
Porters forever!
 
Ben

"He Loved his Work"

 

This article is partly an update on this one: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/02/beware-catheters.html. In this new article I'd like to explore more the psychology of the catheters and in doing so help you develop more skills for defending yourself from them. I'm particularly reminded of an incident in the early '90's when I was sent on overtime to the MRI- Magnetic Resonance Imager. Among my duties was to clean the scanning rooms after use. I remember that I had to leave my watch and mobile phone etc outside because of the powerful magnetic field in the chamber. It was a bit like cleaning Delivery Suite theatre, but much less visceral. I'll never forget the day when the senior porter, a man I'll call Jameel, approached me with a frown on his face. He said: "Ben, I've had some feedback from the MRI staff, they told me that since you joined the team they have noticed significant improvements." He then turned his back and strutted away. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been worried that I was in trouble; it turned out I was. I suspect if my employers had known who I was and how I was going to work when I sat in an interview for hospital portering in October 1988, they would never have given me a job; not because I wasn't good enough, but because I was too good. If you are in the NHS, portering or civilian, and you do your job very well, I promise you will get one hell of a lot of aggravation, both from management and in your relationship with your colleagues. A few years afterwards I would experience this again in Theatres, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2017/07/odo.html. As I said in the Catheters article, there are numerous reasons why these people might do what they do, but I did not include motives that are there to see, but are truly baffling. It is not a good business model to punish staff members for being excessively proficient, but the NHS does. It would be bad enough if management did so through a form of unwritten policy, which of course they do; but it also operates tacitly via peer pressure. I truly fail to understand why. I have never felt any such urge when dealing with other people, whether in a professional or social setting. Up until he received this feedback Jameel had been a shy and distant character, happy to let me get on with what I do, enjoying the lightened workload this gave him, but after the feedback he turned into a true catheter. He hung round the MRI scanning suite like a vulture, watching me, poking his head round doors and monitoring every move I made continuously. He and some of the others would burst in almost every half hour and pull me up on something they believed I had done wrong. Like with the previous Theatres example they would demonstrate over and over again the "right way to do it", standing round me with their hands on their hips looking stern. They gave me tours of the chambers the other porters had cleaned, but when I looked I realized that these were not as clean as the ones I had done. Nevertheless, they had been done "right!" while mine had been done "wrong!" Those other chambers had been caressed by the magic hands of mediocrity, so there! It took me a while to realize that my colleagues were trying to persuade me to do my job less well, but they didn't want to say it. This game of silly buggers reached its ultimate nadir when they took photographs of a chamber I had supposedly just done and showed it to me as an example of how I had made numerous mistakes. I soon found out that they had taken those images before I had cleaned, not after; but they all lied to me together. I then told the head porter I did not want any more overtime on the MRI cleaning team. Thank goodness I had never joined them fulltime!

It's amazing to think that such bizarre gaslighting must have involved collusion. At some point Jameel and the other porters must have sat down in a quiet corner and plotted to manipulate and deceive me. The ODO business can be explained as subconscious, an "open secret", so to speak. Maybe even the topping up scam they tried on me in DS could too, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/02/lets-just-help-each-other-out.html. If ever caught in a corner and forced to explain why they did it, those DS or theatre porters probably couldn't. They would not be able to put their intention into words. The MRI situation involved the fabrication of actual data. Conversations like that are utterly unthinkable, but they must go on. I'm reminded of a scene in Doris Lessing's The Good Terrorist where one of the character laments about how their home has been attacked by the local council and workmen have filled the toilet bowls with cement; "People did this! People!", see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/10/tree-felled-for-hs2.html. Obviously if I had been somebody else on the team I would never have done such a thing and would have warned the target about what was coming. Was the fact that I felt such pride and dignity in being a HP the very thing that generated this hostility in others? Turning again to 20th century literature: The novel The Fountainhead really struck a chord with me. It is by the Russian-American philosopher and author Ayn Rand. It is less famous than her final epic Atlas Shrugged, but perhaps deserves to be considered her masterpiece. The story follows the lives of two young architects, Howard and Peter. Peter is very conventional and does all the ordinary things in order to be successful, but Howard is a passionate maverick and decides to train under a shunned outsider called Henry Cameron. Cameron is hated by his fellow architects despite the fact that he is a genius. I'll never forget the passage in the book where he is described. The narrator gives a long list of his professional qualities and ends with the words: "...but Henry Cameron made a mistake, he loved his work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost." Am I like Henry? Did my brother porters really despise me because I loved my work? Have you, whether HP or civilian, had a similar experience to mine?