A buddy for Buddy. The miracle baby and the man who gave him life

BABY DOLL: Buddy and me in December

I’ve become a sentimental old Buddy, sorry biddy,  as I head towards my dotage – but my ‘miracle’ grandson’s battle for survival even had the tough guys weeping..
I’ve not written about little Buddy for some time now but so many people have asked me for an update on the One-Kilo Kid that another bout of nepotism is well overdue.
It’s now seven months since Buddy John Harry Holmes was delivered by emergency Caesarean 12 weeks ahead of schedule.

EVERYONE'S BUDDY: Our happy chappie

He had no heartbeat and weighed just over two pounds. And for the first few days, no one knew if he would survive.
When his mother, my daughter Hayley found she was expecting, everyone assumed all would go well. OK, she was 41 and it was 12 years since her second daughter, Daisy, was born.
But all progressed normally right up to the 28th week. Then, 197 days into Hayley’s third pregnancy, came a remarkable – and frightening – development triggered by the smallest hint that something was wrong.
The embryo child all but stopped booting hell out of her body from the inside. She sensed that something was amiss, and although her midwife was not unduly concerned, the worried couple wanted to be sure. A surreal scenario followed, with Hayley and Steve acting purely on intuition and booking  a  private consultation with sonographer Richard Warriner.
Richard sent them immediately to hospital for an urgent scan, which revealed that the waters around the baby had all but dried up.
In this sea of nothingness, the tot was in imminent danger of suffocating – and an urgent Caesarean section saw him plucked, lifeless, from Hayley’s body with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck.
He had no heartbeat and was not breathing. For fully three minutes, doctors and nurses united in a battle to give life to the tiny foetus. For Hayley and Steve, those three minutes translated into a lifetime of lifelessness.

LIFESAVER: Richard with Buddy

As the seconds ticked away, they named the baby Buddy, desperate that he should have a proper identity, even if he was never to draw breath.
Then, his tiny body invaded by a host of canulas, tubes and ventilators, a   miracle occurred. The mite’s heart began to beat.
Buddy was alive…if not kicking. All 992 grammes of him (that’s a tad under 2lb 2oz). For 24 hours, his under-developed lungs were helped by a ventilator. Then another miracle; he started breathing by himself. Amazingly, doctors told the relieved parents that had Hayley not gone to Richard, the baby would have died inside her within two hours.
Last week, seven months after that fateful day and armed with a bottle of the finest malt whisky and a box of expensive chocolates, Hayley and Steve took Buddy to meet the man who saved his life.
Richard held the  bubbly 18lb bundle of happiness in his arms and Steve told him: ‘If you ever doubt the value of the work you do,  just remember our Buddy. He’s the living proof.’’
At that moment, through the inevitable flood of tears , a pact was sealed. Richard became a family Buddy for life.

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) July 20, 2012

Why I am not the Murraying kind...

MUCH as I would like to see a Brit win the Wimbledon men’s singles title, the Murray misery mob are not my type of heroes.

 Yes, despite the fact I live in Spain, I was delighted when Rafa Nadal's exit opened the way for the Scottish sourpuss to go all way. And I  felt for beaten Andy as he choked out that emotional Centre Court apology for losing last Sunday’s final. 

But I switched to Federer’s side after it  became apparent that the Murray entourage was shrouded in a grey cloud of depression. Even after he had won the first set. 

Judy Murray...po-faced intensity

Ever-dour Andy presumably  inherited his semi-permanent sulk from his mum Judy, whose po-faced intensity frightened the life out of me every time the cameras focused on the old battle-axe .

And even Posh Spice’s pouted posturing was a more attractive alternative to the Scots racketeer’s expressionless girlfriend Kim Sears. To top it all we had to endure the mask-like mush of Ivan Lendl, the most miserable Grand Slam champion of all time, glaring across the court .

It was inevitable, then, that a big black cloud would bring the roof down on the Scottish sourpuss’s day. With the rain came the sun...in the form of the ever-pleasant Roger Federer and the irresistible tennis that permanently keeps the Swiss Master ahead of Murray in the world rankings.

Touching as the sour Scot’s on-court concession speech was, I found myself immersed in the smiles and waves of the Federer family. They may hail from another country but I felt as if I belonged in their world rather than Murray’s.

Give me the beaming faces of the Duchess of Cambridge and her sister Pippa savouring the action any day.

Or better still, the unbridled joy of Yorkshireman Jonny Marray (almost a Murray!) at becoming men’s doubles champion. 

The 31-year-old Yorkshireman did what Murray didn’t  – and you can be sure he’d also have compensated with  a big smile even if he had  lost.

Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) July 6, 2012