As a kid, I managed to get most of the childhood illnesses: measles; mumps; scarlet fever; chicken pox (I can still smell the calamine lotion) and German measles (which, oddly, the Germans don’t call English Measles).  I’d have had diphtheria, except my mum couldn’t spell it.

I’d had all these by the age of ten, and wished there’d been an I-Spy book for me to have ticked them all off.  I never got West Nile Fever (25-points), even though we did live near the River Wandle.

When I was ill, it was my dad who looked after me; my mum invariably had “one of her heads” – Balham’s answer to Cerberus – so caring for the sick fell to my dad.

Whether it was dabbing calamine lotion on me; pumping me full of penicillin or just sitting on the bath while I occupied another piece of bathroom furniture, he’d chat away.  Usually about sport or comedy.

Dad would ask whether the Tommy Baldwin/George Graham swap was good for Chelsea; how lucky Kent had been with wicketkeepers through the years, as he extolled the virtues of the (then) very young Alan Knott and would suggest getting comedy records out of the library, as he wanted to introduce me to The Goons.

All this lead me to feel better – however unwell I was.

If ever I’m unwell now, I talk to myself in the style of Eccles, Bluebottle and Minnie Bannister.  More effective than kaolin & morphine.