Alan

Evening Strumpets,

It`s with a very sad heart that I am writing this. Alan King, the guy who gave me the Windsor Whirle Junior (see first GNS post) passed away in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

There are others much more suited to pay tribute to this remarkable gentleman, but like many, many, others I feel blessed that he was a part of my life for a short time. He inspired and continues to inspire me in so many ways. Without him, I probably would not have fully understood the way the human body deals with pain (bth physical and mental). He trained me in the skills of delivering pain management in a comfortable but challenging manner. And always with humour.

He swore (as do most pain management specialists,myself included), by Paracetamol. Many a time he would advise a person to begin (following consultation with their GP) 1g of paracetamol four times a day. Whilst shadowing him, I noticed he`d get a glint in his eye whilst doing this, waiting for the inevitable "but I don`t like putting chemicals into my body/ isn`t it dangerous" reply. he`d simply mention if you don`t like putting chemicals into your body, quit smoking/drinking alcohol and that if you take too much of anything, water for instance, it`ll kill you.

Alan survived more than most, from a serious mining accident, through Bronchial Pneumonia, Meningitis, and an eighty miles an hour car crash which forced him into a field. He told me he reckoned he had till he was Seventy. Anything after that was a bonus. He was sixty one when he died.

I miss him already, and it`s still not real, but if there`s one thing he would have been happy with it`s the fact that when we were told at work, there were tears, but fifteen minutes later, if you`d walked past the office we were sat in, you would have thought we would have been having a party because the laughter coming from that room as we reminisced about our friend, was loud.

Alan King. 1948-2009.