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.