People with Diabetes
Click to change to Family Members or Professionals
   

 diabetes topics
Many topics can be found by using the Story Search facility.

Examples of single words that produce interesting results are: DAFNE; dietician; independent; insurance; laser; Lawrence; message; NovoPen; podiatry; pregnancy; rationing; smoke; stress.

Examples of phrases that produce interesting results are: been different; changes in attitudes; deliberate hypo; diabetes specialist nurse; National Health Service; newly diagnosed; protamine zinc; urine test; what advice.

Longer phrases can be found by using the Advanced Search facility on the the Story Search page.

 Diabetes topics

Click on an interview of interest. The tracks concerning 'Living alone.' will be highlighted in red on the following page.
14. Living alone.
< Back to topics

Name: Richard Fawkes
Overview: Richard Fawkes` father worked as a railway engineer in Argentina and Richard was brought up in an expatriate British community. His father died during the war, and he returned to England in 1945 to work in the family firm. He shared a house with his mother and sister for many years, but has lived alone since 1980. He has sung in amateur musicals, renovated houses, including the one in which he now lives, and painted 1,600 paintings, most of which he has sold. He is currently recovering from a heart attack.

Hits=2
Name: Fred
Overview: Fred`s family was poor and food was rationed in his early years: he remembers that a Mars bar was cut into slices to last 4 or 5 days! After diagnosis, he was told that `I had to control the diabetes rather than the diabetes control me` and has tried to follow that advice ever since. He lost his sight in 1978 and his second wife left him because she couldn`t cope. He began a successful business making garden furniture and now lives with his third wife, who is also blind.

Hits=2
Name: Victor Warman
Overview: Victor Warman`s father had been a Sick Birth Attendant in the Navy during the Second World War, and was very protective of his son after his diagnosis, advising him to avoid competitive sport. Victor left school at 15, spent much of his life as a machine-fitter, and ended up teaching Design Technology. His glucose levels go `up and down like a yoyo` and he now advocates plenty of exercise: `don`t do as I do, do as I say`. He has had several complications, but feels that diabetes is `not the be-all and the end-all of your life`.

Hits=2
Name: Philip Newick
Overview: Philip Newick comes from a working-class Bristol family which was greatly affected by redundancies in the aircraft industry. Determined to escape such insecurity, he did a degree and postgraduate work in chemical engineering. He worked for HJ Heinz until after diagnosis, when he was told that he could no longer work abroad. He then got a job nearer to his home in Birmingham and all his treatment has been in that city. He and his wife still weigh and measure all his food and he has few health problems - apart from an inability to detect the onset of hypos.

Hits=1
Name: Peter
Overview: Peter`s father was a professor and both parents were well-informed about diabetes after his older brother was diagnosed in 1945. They spotted Peter`s symptoms early and at first he only needed four units of Lente insulin to last 24 hours. He was educated at Oxford and worked in the steel industry for several years. He is now a management consultant and has few problems associated with diabetes. He has recently remarried, after being widowed in 2003, and has a daughter with diabetes who is `much more able to cope with disturbances to her daily routine than I am`.

Hits=1
Name: Ron Craythorne
Overview: Ron Craythorne worked all his life in the family business of carpentry and joinery but, when he retired, there was no-one to take over, so now he and his wife give shows for charity, showing people round the old workshop and selling the products of his woodturning. (He carved and painted the wooden fruit and bowls shown in his photo.) He has played team sports all his life and diabetes has caused him few problems. However, he knows of the problems it can cause, from members of the diabetic group he founded several years ago.

Hits=1
Search returned 9 matches

Oral History of Diabetes © 2005 - 2016 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Built by Within