Angels on Earth

His nickname was `Punch' because like the infamous Punch and Judy, the show simply couldn't go on without him. But when you have months to live, it must, and thanks to Cranford Hospice in Hastings, the last curtain call brought the house down. EVA BRADLEY tells Tony's story.

TONY HORSEFIELD on air guitar is a sight not to be missed. With the stereo cranked up and Queen's Greatest Hits bouncing off the walls of the family home, he is a young man loving life. He is also a young man about to lose it.

Taken only a few months before his death three months ago from a cancerous brain tumour, the home video shows no sign of the debilitating illness that is about to devastate his body.

As his mother, Joyce, leans forward in her armchair, there is a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. This is her boy the way she best remembers him: A cheeky grin, a quick joke always at the ready, happy to be a bit of an idiot as long as there's a laugh in it for someone.

Even his terminal prognosis in May this year couldn't dampen his irrepressible sense of humour. Many 33-year-olds might struggle with telling their mates their number was up. Tony simply chuckled and explained that in a few months, he would be pushing up the daisies. If you didn't laugh, you'd cry.

But for Tony, dying wasn't as light-hearted as he might have hoped. After brain surgery and radiotherapy five years earlier, the Hastings man was just getting his life back on track and resuming the OE that had been interrupted when he felt things weren't right. An English pub was traded in for the sterilised interior of a hospital - a place he would get to know only too well over the coming weeks and months.

“The neurologist just thought he needed a change in medication,'' recalls Joyce - who can talk about her son's recent dying days with remarkable honesty and aplomb.

An MRI scan told a different story. Tony was given two to six months to live. He lasted four.

“There was just a feeling of dread with that news,'' says Joyce. Her voice breaks and tears that are normally held in check by a strong spiritual optimism tumble down her cheeks.

“When it's your child, you would just rather it was you - that you could take that pain away. But he knew he was sick and, in some ways, it was quite a relief for him to be told because he could make plans.''

Unbeknown to his family, those plans included Cranford Hospice. Always independent and wanting to stay that way as long as he could, Tony contacted them himself. Unable to struggle on his own with increasing pain, he knew he needed more help than his family and GP could give him.

“I got a call at work one day to be told he was in the hospice. They just said to him `come and stay, we'll sort you out', no questions asked. They just accept you for who you are, what you are and where you are in your life.''

After three days, then a further 10, Tony was back on top of his game and ready to return home - but not till the hospice had arranged for all the comforts a dying man needs. An electric bed, ramps, hoists and wheelchairs were all delivered, regular visits from a district health nurse were scheduled and doctors booked to make house calls at a moment's notice.

As Tony's body slowly shut down, his mind remained bright, and being at home, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of family life, made the last few months a little easier.

“It meant everything to him. He simply would have given up if he hadn't been able to come home. It was important for him and the extra time gave him the chance to come to terms with the fact he was dying.

“He made a video, we chose a coffin and got the other kids to paint it the way he wanted, we had his room decorated with balloons and streamers,'' recalls Joyce with a sad smile.

At the centre of it all was increasing contact with the hospice and regular visits by Cranford nurses to monitor his pain.

“I could ring them three or four times in the middle of the night. They never rush you and always have time for you. There wasn't a lot Tony could do in those last days, but he could make choices and the hospice allowed him to do that.''

On a Saturday in late July, that choice was to go back into the hospice. The following Tuesday, surrounded by family, he died.

The experience couldn't have been more different from the death of another of her five children 35 years ago.

“Kim was 19 months when she was scalded. We weren't allowed near her, it was surreal. I couldn't even hold her and physically ached after that. We didn't bring her home because that just wasn't done back then. I said then that I would never let anyone keep me apart from my children again.

“When Kim died I felt empty but when Tony died I felt fulfilled because I was able to do what I needed to do as a mother, and it was the hospice that gave that to me.''

Asked what those last months would have been like without Cranford, she answers: He wouldn't have had them.

“The Cranford staff are the closest things to angels on earth.''

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