APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

We get candid about terminal facts and how I found the keys to life in Nottingham.

The inevitability of death is - thankfully for most of us - a subject that we rarely give much thought to as we go about our daily lives.

There are, of course, important exceptions. Those souls with a life-limiting prognosis, those that choose to end their lives prematurely, and perhaps folk in the final season of their twilight years. I am fortunately in none of these camps. Broadly speaking the former have a relatively brief period looking death squarely in the eyes, whilst I would hope the latter reflect on a longevity of life that never promised an endless existence. If you have read my earlier work on the subject of mortality and suicide you will appreciate that I have a measure of understanding of both.

I have-and hope you do too-many reasons for living to a ripe old age. My personal life goals are, amongst others, becoming a grandfather, traveling to many more points on the world map, reading those books I had always promised to, eating those things that I had always shunned, and to once again score a three-dart one hundred and eighty score from the oche as I did as a seventeen-year-old at The Horse and Jockey pub in Banbury, Oxfordshire, when I skipped lessons from the nearby college. I have another ambition which I earnestly hope is tantalizing close - to see Notts County back in the football league. My team. My favorite waste of time. And part of my identity.