Been There, Done That

 

One of the most perceptive characters in the Porters TV show is Anthony De La Mer, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2019/07/porters-series-2.html. Daniel May's portrayal is of another classic HP personality type. I knew many porters like that and we used to say of them: "Name a place, he's been there. Name an activity, he's done it." Anthony tells his colleagues that he is an MI6 agent "licensed to kill" like James Bond. He also brags about the celebrity patients he has dated in the private hospital in which he used to serve. This caricature is barely an exaggeration. I knew a theatre porter who once told me: "I'm going paint-balling tonight" and usually had some other exciting activity on different nights. Hospital porters' boasts generally fall into three categories: sexual prowess, military heroism and streetwisdom. The first type usually involves attractive young nurses and store cupboards, as with Mick Jagger; although Jagger is one of the rare examples in which I actually believe him, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/12/mick-jaggers-service-confirmed.html. Military heroism can often get the blagger into trouble because we had real ex-servicemen in the crew and they can quickly spot a fraud with just a handful of questions about details to do with their training and career etc. They often feel very annoyed with the faker, seeing as it's stolen valour. Here's an example of such a sting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Z0GIe1Ll8. I've been in a similar situation and can understand their ire, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/02/i-lost-my-temper.html. I remember one such individual called Sean whom I met briefly before because he was once at the hospital a long time ago in my early days and returned in the early 2000's under ISS Mediclean. He was a young man with blank eyes and a monotone voice. I'm sure he was on some kind of drug or another; typical of a Mediclean hire. I once bumped into him in the carpark just before morning shift change and he regaled me with a story about how he'd been "called up". This was shortly after 9/11 when the War on Terror was getting going. He informed me that he had been a reservist since he joined the Royal Marines soon after he left the previous time. He had just come off a tour of active duty and had received orders to return. A lot of us had remarked about how his long hair and beard was; not military regulation cut. Had it really had time to grow since then? I decided to respond thus: "Oh really? I heard you were going up on the Space Shuttle soon. Hasn't NASA signed you up?" He said "No" in a very deadpan tone, completely missing my sarcasm.

Extreme streetwisdom bragging usually includes long sentences in the harshest prisons and close connections with the underworld. I recall one quiet night in which we watched Guy Richie's Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It's an excellent film, but I hardly saw any of it because two of the other porters talked all the way though it, explaining how much their own lives were like that of the gangsters in the film. Why do HP's concoct such elaborate fictions about themselves? Why do they never stop telling everybody their fables like some manic raconteur? I think it comes from dissatisfaction with their own position in life caused by the low conventional status of hospital portering. The conman Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's famous series of novels once uttered a line which encapsulates that feeling: "It is better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody." A similar character, Matthew Harris in Paper Mask, echoed that sentiment, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/07/st-theos-watch-party-2026-review.html. That is sad because HP's are somebody. We are essential members of a life saving team. We do one of the most important jobs in the entire world. Those are irrefutable facts. As I previously wrote recently, we must find our self-esteem from within, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/10/second-handers.html; and once we find that path the rest of the way is easy.