On 6th February, 1985, I got the call that any child of any age would dread. I was woken at 6.00am by the phone.

It was my brother, Victor, calling from Dublin to say that Dad was very poorly and the prognosis wasn’t good. In fact, could we get home as soon as possible? He didn’t go into details, nor did he need to, as it galvanized us into action and we started ringing the airlines.

Frantic packing of winter clothes (mid-summer in Sydney for us!) and hasty arrangements of money, passports and taxis followed and we made the 3pm Sydney-Singapore-London-Dublin flight.

26 hours in an aeroplane gives one a lot of time to worry, panic and generally feel more and more despondent as we got closer to Ireland. It also gave me a lot of time to think about Dad and what this might actually mean to us as a family and what we might have to do. We arrived at 9am the day after the call (due to the 10-hour time difference in Sydney.)

My brother, Mike, and Mum met us as we fell out of the taxi and off we went to the Adelaide. Dad was in a general ward of about six (his request, he didn’t want to be on his own in a private room). When we got to his bedside he was awake and sitting up and delighted to see us, saying “Yiz didn’t have to come all this way for me, did ye?” He looked frail and a bit shrunken and, compared to our trip the previous year, old.

I hadn’t thought of Da as ever getting old. One thing about the white hair and beard was that he looked the exact same to us for about 30 years. We should all look so good. Anyway, he was O.K. at the time and Mum and Victor told me the whole story of how the catastrophe happened.

A couple of nights before, late in the evening , as Mum was drying the cups in the kitchen and getting ready for bed, she heard the most almighty crash in the hallway. She rushed out to find Dad, flat on his back at the bottom of the stairs, looking ghostly white.

All 5 foot of Mum struggled with all 6 feet 4 inches of Da and managed to get him into the living room, where Dad told her he’d just reached the top of the stairs when he felt th’ aul’ legs going and, knowing what was coming , he’d used the old theatre tumbling training and rolled onto a ball.

Thirteen steps later, he hit the floor and was winded, he said, but no 84-year old bones broken, thank God. But it did take a lot out of him, so Mum left him on the sofa and next morning, when she checked, found he wasn’t looking very well. She got him a cup of tea and said, “Noel, I don’t like the look of you, better get you checked out.” Dad said “Fair Enough” and Mum called the ambulance.

What went next mixed elements of the Keystone Kops and Fawlty Towers, but I suppose, when Dad’s name was mentioned as the casualty, it was only natural

Dad was sitting in the living room having a cuppa, when sirens blaring, around the corner hurtles the ambulance and a rescue truck. In came the squad equipped for everything from extracting a kid’s finger from a plughole to jacking up the entire house!

Anyway, there’s Dad and Mum having their cuppa, so they all wait and chat till Dad finishes, whereupon he proclaims: “The Adelaide was nice the last time, we’ll go there.” “Fair enough,” say the Ambulance crew and Mum and Dad get aboard and with full sirens and lights away they go. Halfway down Baggot Street, on the way to the hospital, Mum suddenly looked at Dad and said, “Oh Dear!”

The Ambulance men looked at her in major concern and at Dad and said “What is it, Missus?” Mum said: “I’ve forgotten his bottle.” The Ambulance man said, “Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of his medicine when we get there.” Mum says: “No, you don’t understand, I mean his bottle, ye know… er his Paddy Whiskey!”

“No problem, Missus, “ sez the driver, and Dublin was treated to the sight of an ambulance pulling up to an off-licence, sirens and lights still going, a fellow getting out of the back, trotting in and emerging with Dad’s treasured Drop, followed by the ambulance roaring away to the Adelaide.

All true and actually RTE reported in the news, that “Famous actor, Noel Purcell, was today taken to hospital after a fall at home, but cannot be too badly hurt, as they stopped for a drink on the way!”

After he was settled in, the doctor examined him and said to Mum: “His heart’s not good and he’s not well at all.”

Mum: “I thought his heart’s as strong as an ox.”
Doc: “Well, not at all. Haven’t you noticed Noel’s lips are quite blue.”
Mum: “He’s had a beard on him for 30 years, how would I?”
Doc: “Well, didn’t you see his nose is all purple?”
Mum: “Ah, sure I thought that was from the Jar!”

(Final episode in our next edition in June)

Above: Noel in action, 1940s.