A Message from Steve

I hope you have all had a great Christmas. It always seems to fly by so fast and you are left wondering why on earth you bought so much food. Every year we agree not to buy so much. But sure enough by Christmas Eve we have so much food in the house, we could last six months without stepping out of the door.
By yesterday, Boxing day, I needed to get out on my bike for some exercise. I start to get grumpy without exercise so Rosemary shoo'd me out (I feel like the dog sometimes). So I cycled off into the hills to "burn off my grump" as I say (see my next post for details)

Steve Williams having just scaled an Alp 

Anyway back to the title of this post. 'A Message from Steve'. I was reading my emails late last night and I noticed that I had a message from JustGiving, telling me I had just received a donation for £150.00 from  'anonymous'. I thought 'Wow' how fantastic and generous is that.  Shortly after I got an email from Steve Williams who is my bestest buddy in the world. The message read:-

Brian, tried to put this on JustGiving with my donation but it just went through as anonymous with no message- can you change it for me? I would really like to say this on the donation page. (he had attached a word document with his message enclosed)


I read the message and it made me cry. I couldn't help it. If you read on you may understand why.
I tried to go into the Just Giving settings but I don't think I can edit a message once it has been published. Maybe I can,  so if someone knows how please get in touch?

So I emailed him back and asked him that if I couldn't add the message to his donation, could I post it on my blog. So here goes.


A Message from Steve

I am one of the lucky people to have met Janet & Erika and have many good memories of them both ! 

At Brian's parents house I only had to enter the room  and Janet would burst into laughter! We always ended up chatting about Barry Manilow & David Cassidy. Janet loved them to bits.  Even when Janet became more ill with her condition,  every-time I saw her she gave me a lovely big smile. 

Erika's condition became much the same but she was always happy to see me. She would smile from ear to ear and there would be lots of uncontrollable laughing. One day, Erika's younger brother Harvey gave me some lessons on how to wheelie her wheelchair, which Erika found very funny. On most visits to the Turnpike in Marple, I would ask Erika for a go on her chair. She always let me when I told her it was good training for on my motorbike. 

I cannot imagine what you and your whole family have been through losing such lovely sisters. Xx 

"Brian" best of luck on this tour! Just remember "full chuffa" and if you do fall off make sure the RAF are on standby.

Steve Helen Ben Tim Alex

Steve with Erika at MerseyBank nursing home

I need to explain some of that to you. For those of you who don't know Steve, he is one of life's funny guys. He just makes you laugh. So when he used to visit my sisters, he would have them giggling by just walking into the room. If he got into a conversation, they would be in fits of laughter and quite often I was worried they might 'have an accident'. It was the perfect therapy for them and I was always grateful to Steve for visiting. Janet and Erika used to tell me they loved Steve Williams to bits.

Steve - err being Steve

The bit about wheelying wheelchairs has a story behind it. Harvey and I discovered how to wheelie a wheelchair whilst visiting Janet at hospital once. I remember us having to wait for hours with Janet for  the neurology professor to do his rounds. It could get quite boring after a couple of hours waiting, so we used to mess around in Janet's wheelchair next to her bed. After a while we found we could hold a wheelie for ages and even control it down the corridor. So we quickly found another chair and Harvey and I would race up and down the ward wheelying the chairs with Janet giggling away in her bed (and Mum and Dad telling us to stop it - sort of) Anyway the charge nurse came in and really told us both off for fooling around. That was how we learnt to wheelie the chairs. Steve just carried on the tradition at Mum and Dads.

Janet and Erika in their wheelie chairs

Steve, Harvey, my nephew Ryan and Erika with me at the Pub  

'Full Chuffa' is Steve Williams for 'no messing around lads this is full on, balls out fast' or something like that.

One of Steve's 'Full Chuffa' downhills

The bit about the RAF being around is having a dig at my unfeasible ability to fall off my mountainbike in dangerous places. I have had 'get offs' (mtb parlance for a big fall) at quite a few mountainbiking outings and one of my nicknames is 'crash bandicoot'. Don't ask me how but I always seem to just get up unscathed (with a bit of whinging here and there)

However on one occasion I didn't get up. Me, Steve and some mates were on a bike holiday in the French alps a few years ago. It was the first days riding and we were all up for it. It was a beautiful sunny August day. We'd just climbed a ridiculously steep hill and were charging down the other side. I felt great and was pushing along near the front (not as fast as Steve - he is just mental - too quick for me) but trapping on a bit. We came to a forest section and the light went from bright sunshine to dark and murky in a split second. I had my dark shades on due to the bright sun and hadn't allowed for the sudden change. I was squinting my way through the steep downhill forest when I hit a drainage ditch that was straight across the track. It had a log in the centre that my front wheel slammed into and sent me straight over the bars. I don't remember the rest but I came round in a heap next to a large rock on a banking. My head had hit the rock and shattered the front of my helmet. All I could feel was a searing pain in my neck. I tried to get up but felt really dizzy and sick. By this time all my mates were around and Chris, who was a trained mountain medic, urged me to stay still.

Me somewhere around the andromeda galaxy

To cut a long story short they got the French Alpine rescue team out and the doctor thought I had a broken neck. I was very scared as they pumped morphine and then Ketamine into me. All I remember from that point was flying around the universe chewing the fat with God. Ketamine is not something I would want to take again in a hurry. I came round as they were putting me in the helicopter and I could hear Steve shouting "I'm coming with him, I'm coming with him" followed by a rather angry sounding pilot shouting "Non Non - too heavy, get out now" as they were trying to take off.

All in glorious technicolour - just love Steve's comment at the end :)

A very relieved me back at the chalet

I spent a very frightening few hours in the hospital at Annecy. Apparently they are scraping 10 to 20 people a day off various Alps so they are world experts at getting people to the specialist spinal injury hospital quickly. They were quite superb and I told them so. Fortunately my diagnosis was heavy trauma to my neck from the compression of my vertebrae against the rock. They said that my helmet (which was shattered) had saved me from much worse injuries. I was very sore but very very lucky.

Steve and I after too many Shnapps. Made my neck pain go away for a while. Steve 'borrowed' those hats

So that is why Steve mentioned the RAF being on hand for my ride. I hope I don't need them :)

Update - Just remembered something Steve did after the crash - Once I had been helicoptered off they were all wondering how to phone Rosemary and what to say. So Steve took it on himself to call and explain diplomatically and sensitively, what had happened. This is how the initial conversation went (according to Rosemary). Phone rings.........Rosemary answers "hello".....Steve says "Hi Rosemary....err I don't know how to say this, there's no need to worry, every things fine, no problem, however Brian's just been helicoptored off the mountain to hospital, he might have broke his neck". The rest of the conversation I'll leave to your imagination. We all laugh about it know by the way. There is only one Steve Williams.

Thank you so much for your kind donation Steve & Helen, Tim & Ben & Alexander. The donation and your message really means a lot to me.

By the way, as a real coincidence it is Steve's 40th birthday today. We are all off to a party that Helen has arranged at the local pub (how she managed it with an eight week old son and four year old twins I have no idea) anyway I can't wait. Got a pressie that Jane (at work) and I have been working on for  a few weeks now. It's a secret until tonight but will post an image tomorrow for you.

40 years of Steve Williams - Framed

Happy 40th Steve - you old git :)

P.S - a really big thank you to Mark and Fiona Brogden for your very generous donation on Christmas Eve. It was very much appreciated....oh and Mark, I don't shave my legs :)