Second Handers

 

Somebody recently asked in The Gas Spanner livechat what was the biggest challenge of being as HP, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-gas-spanner-programme-174.html. That's a difficult question to answer because hospital portering has so many challenges. I replied that probably it was that a HP's self-esteem must come completely from within and from facts. You cannot find it in other people and conventional social eminence. The fact of the matter is that we are essential members of a lifesaving team doing one of the most important jobs in the entire world, but very few people appreciate that. The knowledge of that fact is all we have to draw on. Life experience is very different if you are a high status individual doing a glamorous and prestigious job; such as solider, airline pilot, stockbroker etc. In social situations people will automatically and instinctively treat you with reverence and respect. You'll find it much easier to make friends, to flirt and find romantic partners. You don't need internal validation because you receive so much of it from outside of yourself from others. That, I would say, is one of our toughest problems and the quest to overcome it is the very essence of the HPWA and all my HP welfare activism. The Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand, whom I have talked about before, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/03/he-loved-his-work.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/11/all-labour-requires-intelligence.html, called people who draw too much of their self-justification from others "second handers". The term is coined in her second novel The Fountainhead which is about two young men who are aspiring to become architects. One is very conformist and conventional; he just goes along to get along, "climbing the ladder" as Jack Shaw would say, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. The other has his own ideals and values that he has discovered personally and he lives his life according to his own moral principles. Ayn Rand died a long time ago, in 1982; but, as I have said before, I think she would have understood me and the HPWA in a way few others ever could. See here for my review of the book: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-fountainhead-by-ayn-rand_29.html.

I've actually had a few experiences that taught me something I hadn't expected. High status people's lack of internal validation comes with a price, and I discovered this for the first time on a trip to Manchester. I travelled with a brother porter called Andy to visit a friend of ours who used to be an ODP in main theatres. She had married a man in Manchester and had got a job there. Her husband was a big-shot young executive in some mobile phone company. They had bought a big house in the Cheshire suburbs and he drove a Mercedez Benz, very dangerously to show off. Although I was a perfect guest the three days Andy and I stayed with them and I was always polite and respectful, I never really got on with her husband. He obviously felt subtly but very distinctly threatened by my presence. I had to think about it for a long time afterwards to work out why. I thought at first that he envied my internally generated self-esteem, but I'm not totally sure about that. It could be that because I did not consider myself beneath him, the way a lowly HP should, that he interpreted this as hostility. He was used to lesser men looking up at him with awe and envy. I didn't do that. This demonstrates that high status people can be hurt very badly when their external validation is suddenly taken away, even by just a single person. They have nothing inside them to fall back on and so mentally collapse in a heap. There are other similar experiences like his I could relate and may do so in future posts. It's never my intention to cause other people distress, but in this case the distress the husband suffered as a result of my existence was inevitable. The only way to avoid it would be for me to put on an act, pretend to be a conventional man for a few days, and I won't do that.  
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/04/dont-tell-em-were-porters.html.

One of Our Wheelchairs is Missing 2- Con Club

 

After the rather dismal article I posted previously I thought I'd give you something more cheerful, a quirky anecdote from the annals of my HP service. I was on my way to a two-to-ten and walking along Windmill Road towards the JRH. I passed the Headington Conservative Club, like I did almost every day. It was as routine as brushing my teeth; therefore it was a bit of a surprise when a man came out and called to me. "Hey, aren't you a porter at the JR?" I don't know how he knew that; I wasn't in uniform and I didn't recognize the guy. It must be some sort of psychic aura I give off. "Yes." I replied. "You might be able to help; come with me." He led me inside, through the bar and out into a backroom where there was an Aunt Sally court. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, Aunt Sally is a simple pub game which involves throwing sticks at a peg standing on a pole.) Parked in the corner was a hospital wheelchair, one of the "original fleet" ones with rear wheel steering, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/09/acute-care-vehicles-1-original-fleet.html. "Isn't that one of yours?" he asked. It was indeed; it even had JRH PORTERS stencilled on the back. "How did it get here?" I asked. "Ain't got a clue, mate." he replied. "Can you take it back for us?" I wheeled it with me to the hospital. It wasn't easy pushing it along the street for the reasons I explain here in a more recent similar example: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/11/chair-saga.html. Luckily the distance was short, less than a mile. When I arrived I placed the chair in the pool with the others by main entrance. The senior wasn't sure how to write my task into the logbook; there is no entry for anything off site. In the end he just put: "13:15- 13:49, wheelchair, carpark L2 to L2 entrance, BEJ (my initials)." If the head porter or his deputies had asked me why the job took 34 minutes I'd just have to explain, but they never did.

"He Killed Himself cos of Her"

 

This is one of the most disturbing stories I've ever had to cover on the HPWA. A few years ago I bumped into an old colleague from the hospital, a civilian not a porter. He was a ward clerk on one of the medical levels that I used to get on well with. Like myself he had moved on to other things since we last spoke, yet he enjoyed reminiscing about life at the JRH. At one point in our conversation two names came up; one was a male nurse on one of the other med wards and another was a sister who was on the same ward. Both names were well known to me; I'll call the nurse "Fred" and the sister "Kath". We both spoke about Kath in disparaging terms because neither of us liked her. I asked my friend about Fred and whether he had heard how Fred was. My friend looked down sadly and said: "Oh, you haven't heard. I'm afraid he's dead." I was shocked. This was a man a good decade and a half younger than me and had no long-term illnesses that I was aware of. "I'm sorry to hear that." I replied and said a few words about Fred. I pointed out, with a bit of sentimental humour, that I hadn't envied him working with Kath every day. My friend nodded and said in a serious tone: "Not half! He killed himself cos of her." I was speechless. This was the first time my friend had mentioned that Fred's death had been suicide, let alone the reason behind it. "He left a note saying that he couldn't bear the way she was treating him anymore." What shocked and upset me the most about this conversation was the casual way my friend spoke. I got the feeling this wasn't the only time somebody he knew had taken his own life. What's more his tone indicated that he had come to regard suicide as normal, one of the unavoidable hazards of living, like lightning strikes or sinkholes. This normalization of suicide is horrific. I wondered how Kath had felt about this. Was she unaware of how harmful she was being, unable to understand the vulnerability of her victim; like I report here: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/08/unbreakable-rubber-balls.html? Possibly, but I think it's unlikely. I came across this video that contained nothing surprising and actually confirmed my own experience, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtXyoUb6M8. It's not just doctors who are very likely to be psychopaths, so are other people in clinical professions. What's more I think Edward Dutton is being too optimistic. His research does not include the phenomenon of pseudo-psychopaths, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/10/its-our-job.html. 

If Kath were a full-blown psycho then obviously she would not give a damn, but if she's a pseudo-psycho she also might feel very little concern. Pseudos are capable of empathy and guilt, but they rarely feel it. They tend to invent excuses and cop-outs to exonerate themselves in their own minds. It was only years later, when I thought back over this conversation, that the fact struck me that maybe my former ward clerk colleague is similar. He spoke about Fred's suicide so nonchalantly that it seemed to me he had rationalized it away too. Or maybe he was simply desensitized by it happening in his life so often. It turns out that, tragically and scandalously, suicide is the leading cause of death among twenty to thirty-four year olds; 16% of women and 27% of men, that's over a quarter. I don't know, but I suspect that in the National Health Service that figure is even higher; we know clinical depression is very high there. This should justify a state of emergency, that dedicated people taking the king's shilling to save lives end up giving up on their own. What has gone wrong with us?
See here for more background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/hps-and-psychos.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/12/nhs-nurses-destroy-patients-doll.html.

...And it's Goodnight from that HP

 

I'm thinking of doing a regular slot on The Gas Spanner called something like "famous ex-hospital porter of the week". The latest addition to this most illustrious hall of fame is the comedy actor Ronnie Barker. (I must thank my friend and Spanner listener David for telling me about this.) Ronnie Barker was a versatile performer who was equally at home sit-coms, most notably Porridge, and the very long running sketch show he did with Ronnie Corbett, hence its title The Two Ronnies. I used to have the claim to fame that I lived in the house where he was born in 1929, but that's not true. He moved to 23 Church Cowley Road, Oxford when he was four years old, about 1933. Since I moved out, a blue plaque has been placed on the wall. I started watching Ronnie on TV when I was a child and always enjoyed his shows. The famous movie actor Alec Guinness was once asked which of his fellow thespians he admired the most. Everyone expected him to reply with the name of a Hollywood legend, but he said instead: Ronnie Barker. Ronnie was enormously talented. One of the best sketches he ever did with Corbett was their parody of The Professionals in which Barker plays a dark and sinister character obsessed with continuously drinking tea. He is based on John Le Carré's George Smiley, see: https://ok.ru/video/4292584016580. Anyway, on to the important stuff. Ronnie started out in drama like most actors, as an amateur and part-timer who aspired to greater success. In 1949 the theatre company he was touring with went bankrupt and he was forced to quit and get a day-job at the age of just twenty-one. He became a HP at the hospital today called the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford; in those days it was called the Wingfield-Morris Hospital. His service there affected him his whole life. He developed compassion and empathy while caring for the patients, some of whom had been struck down by polio. He cheered them up by performing impromptu comedy routines. It makes me think of Patch Adams, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNh9e6QPJY. Ronnie Barker died in 2005 after a lifetime of brightening up people's lives, including my own. This was partly from his comedy, but also from his stint in our ancient and noble profession. I salute MEP&DBP Ronnie Barker.

Dr HP

 

As a childhood Doctor Who fan the fifth doctor took some getting used to. It's hard to imagine these days when the Doctors generally struggle to last two seasons, but back in the 70's and early 80's the Doctor simply was Tom Baker. I knew of no other, being too young to remember the first three incarnations. Baker portrayed the Time Lord for seven consecutive seasons, still by far the longest ever tenure. The fifth doctor was very different, a much younger man with blond hair and was usually dressed in cricket whites and a cream blazer. He had question marks on his collar to emphasize the enigmatic nature of the central character, along with a Panama hat. He took some getting used to, but eventually he won the hearts and minds of the fans. It amazes me that I've only just discovered that the actor who played him, Peter Davison, was also a HP. A friend of mine has discovered Davison's back-story where it clearly states that he did a number of jobs in his youth while starting out in drama part-time. One of those was a hospital porter. He was also an attendant in "Rose Cottage", a bit of a dead end job, as we used to say. As you can see from his bio in the above illustration, he dislikes rude people. I'm not surprised considering his occupational experience. He will know too much about that! Peter Davison entered civilian life permanently when he accepted the role of Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small, the TV adaptation of James Herriot's famous books about being a veterinarian in rural Yorkshire. Source: https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/All_creatures_great_for_the_new_Dr_Who. Doctor Who has changed enormously in recent years, completely for the worse. The idea of a portrayal of the central character winning any hearts and minds, of what few fans the series has left, is laughable. The travesties cast post-David Tennant have caused me to boycott the franchise altogether. Peter Davison is a nostalgic reminder of the golden age of Who, the time when quality on TV was still a thing; when thespians, writers and directors actually did their job well. Luckily, thanks to home media, all the gems of the previous Doctor Who catalogue are available to enjoy. Even if the BBC bans them... which is quite possible... they will be bootlegged. I'm proud that a HP was involved with that glorious historical artistic creation. I salute MEP&DBP Peter Davison.

Beware HP's Bearing Gifts!

 

The illustration above shows one of the most celebrated Roman statues in history. When the Laocoön Group was dug up in 1506 it astonished all those who saw it. The central figure in particular has been praised for being the ultimate depiction of human agony. Its facial expression and posture very skilfully project the animated feeling of suffering. The sculptor is unknown and the work could have been made at any time between about 200 BC and 70 AD. It was found under a vineyard in Rome and immediately moved to the Vatican museum where it remains on display to the present day. This life-size classic sculpture is based on a very old and famous Greek myth, the Siege of Troy. At the end of the Trojan War, the Greek attackers surrounded their enemies in the city of Troy, but the defenders were determined not to surrender. Therefore the Greeks came up with a cunning plan; they pretended to give up and go away, but they left behind a wooden sculpture in the shape of a giant horse. This was supposedly an act of chivalry, a tribute to the courage of their enemy. The Trojans were delighted and eagerly accepted the gift. However, the horse was hollow and inside was a contingent of heavily armed Greek troops. As soon as the horse had been moved inside the fortified walls of the city the Greeks burst out of their hiding place and attacked, conquering the final holdout of their enemy. However, there was one Trojan who saw through the trick and begged his fellow citizens not to fall for it. He was a priest called Laocoön and he warned the others with the classic line: "Beware Greeks bearing gifts!" The other Trojans did not believe him and any who might have been wavering were convinced to keep their mouths shut when Athena, the Greek goddess for war, sent a pair of sea serpents up from the depths. They crawled out of the water, grabbed Laocoön and his two sons and dragged them into the sea where they all perished. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZmTQIFA9fY.
 
I wonder if any readers will spot the cruel irony in this story before I explain it to you. Of all the villains in classical mythology, the Cyclopses, Minotaurs and gorgons, the worst fate of all is saved for the person who refuses to conform to society's agreed falsehoods. What's more it is this punishment above all others, more so even than Sisyphus, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/10/an-open-letter-to-richard-dawkins.html, that guided the hand of one of the best sculptors who ever lived. Laocoön is the ultimate example of what George Orwell talked about when he said that telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Perhaps a better reference is Joseph Goebbels, Germany's minister of propaganda under Adolf Hitler. Goebbels once said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can only be maintained for as long as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and military consequences of the lie. It therefore becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie; and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state." And, to be frank, one of those lies is that hospital porters are lowlifes and that to be one and proud of it is the truth enemy. This belief very quickly can reach the absurd extreme of the instinctive and violent rejection of those who challenge the belief. This is because there is a part of all of those believers who know there is another side to the story that, if told, would totally neutralize that precious deception. Another classic line from a more recent piece of fiction, the Wachowski's film The Matrix, is very telling indeed. The Morpheus character says: "You have to understand, most people are not ready to be unplugged; and many of them are so inured and so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it." I know this sounds arrogant of me, but I can't think of any other explanation. It fits like a glove when considering the behaviour of "Jack Shaw", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. This also explains why, in a health service that has an extraordinary and disgusting indolence when it comes to abysmal standards of service, they are willing to take up arms vigorously against people who merely disagree with the lies everybody else tells each other and are considered essential for maintaining the status quo. In that sense, I am the HPing Laocoön... Yes, I know, I was never attacked and drowned by sea serpents, but I'm sure if the OxRad Trust management had been granted the powers of the Greek gods they would have made sure those serpents would have coursing up the Isis the moment I was suspended. As it was they did punish me in as brutal a way as they could within their real abilities. What a sad state of affairs. What can be done to change things?
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html.

Under the Affluence of Incohol

 

I feel now is the right time to share another precious memory of my late friend Barry, see the background link for more. No special occasion, anniversary etc; I just find myself in the mood right now. This occurrence took place in 2003 during the Rugby World Cup. I went to Barry's house to watch the quarter final match loaded down with a few bottles of "Old Git", a popular red wine we used to imbibe during TV sports. By the end of the game those bottles were gone and Wales had lost 28-17; and lost to England to add insult to injury. (England famously went on to win the Webb-Ellis Trophy that year.) We were both in a dismal mood as I left the house Barry shared with his wife and stepson to make my way home. Then I did something rather strange. To this day I can't recall exactly why I made the decision, probably from my sadness mixed with drunkenness, but I chose to travel home a rather unusual way. Barry lived in Cutteslowe, a district in the far north of Oxford. Dissecting the city from north to south is the River Cherwell, a tributary of the Thames/Isis. Instead of heading for Banbury Road to catch a bus or walk down the pavement into town, I headed for the Cherwell in the hope of walking down its bank into the city. I knew that there was a path along the river bank from where the river reached the University Parks. The problem was, I had no idea if there was any pedestrian route of any description between there and Cutteslowe. Before I had walked less than an hour I discovered that there was not; but being very stubborn and determined, I kept going. I struggled through some rather muddy pastures being eyed up by some very intimidating bulls and eventually came to a stream flowing into the Cherwell from the left, the side I was walking. It wasn't a wide stream, maybe a dozen feet; therefore I conjectured that it must be fairly shallow. I decided to wade across it; after all I had come that far and would rather get wet feet than walk all the way back. So I strode out into the water, and discovered that it was much deeper than it looked. Its bed was soft and so I sank in up to my waist. I struggled back onto the bank I'd just left gasping with cold and shock. This was November and the water was freezing. I had no choice now, but to walk back the way I had come, all the way upriver to Cutteslowe. I tried to call Barry and tell him what had happened, but my mobile phone was in my trouser pocket and therefore had been submerged and ruined. I got back to Barry's house about an hour later freezing and dripping. He lent me a spare pair of trousers and allowed me to use his landline to call home. My daughter, aged eight at the time, was a bit worried because nobody had heard from me for about two hours and she was expecting me home. Barry couldn't stop laughing! I knew he would see the funny side of it. I couldn't share his amusement at the time, but did a while later, on reflection. The thing is, Barry never let me forget it. At Christmas his present to me was a rambler's guidebook with a footpath atlas, and... a pair of water-wings! The card read: "Dear Ben. Happy Christmas and I hope this will be of use the next time you go walking while under the affluence of incohol!"
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html.