”No Man Is An Island’ – part 1

Andy McKillop

Part 1 of Andy’s story – in his own words.

When I was a raw young teenager I met a man who shaped my life for the next four decades. I was 14, he was maybe 40, and although I wasn’t tall, he was shorter than me. He was my English teacher and it was his enthusiasm that sparked off something in me, the way that he inspired me to start reading poetry closely. Whatever it was, I have to thank Ben Donachie for the passion for poetry, writing and words that would never leave me. Not even after the stroke I had in April 2003 that left me lost for words and puzzled – the main effect of my stroke was aphasia.

The spark that lit a fire in me at 14 led me to read philosophy and theology inFranceand then English Literature and Language atGlasgowUniversity.  Many years later whilst working as a sub-editor in Bejing I found the thing I really wanted to do – work in publishing.

In early 1978 I became a copy-writer for a paperback company. It was as if I had died and gone to heaven – I had to read lots of books and then had to write the ‘covercopy’ that would appear on the back cover of the book. I rose up the ladder until I finally became a publishing director at one of the bigUKpublishing companies, Random House. I loved my work so much – reading all the time, editing writers’ work, trying the best way to publish their books, discussing how the book’s cover should look, meeting with other British publishers and literary agents, and then publishers and agents from all over the world. The job occupied my waking hours (and sometimes my dreams, too). The cost? I spent less time with my family that I should have spent. But I was still a family man; and at work I felt part of a close community inLondonand part of a much larger community that spread out across the world.

And then on Thursday 10^th April 2003 it all came to a juddering halt. I felt tired, and couldn’t concentrate on the crossword; but then I couldn’t make any sense of my computer when I turned it on when I got to my office; and then when I spoke to a couple of colleagues and when I left a message for my wife at her office it was clear to everyone apart from me that something serious had gone wrong. Fortunately (thanks to my wife and her insistence) I was very quickly at St Thomas’s hospital where they confirmed that I had had a stroke. I was lucky: I had no paralysis, I could walk and swallow and see; but my language had been knocked for six. I couldn’t read or write; I couldn’t really follow what was being said to me or the conversations around me; TV, radio, films were all hard to follow. But I was in hospital only for a week or so before I was discharged and went back home to start the long way back to being able to use my language again. Veronica Noah, my speech therapist, was funny and dogged and wonderful in getting me back on my feet over the next year or so (and she was strict when required – she didn’t allow me to slack on the few occasions when I felt less than inspired).

Part 2 to follow.