Come Die With Me…The Glory That is The Martlets – Episode 4

Before I wax lyrical about the jewels in Brighton’s Crown; the Royal Pavilion, the Interfaith Contact Group, Brighton and Hove Albion, the Universities, the superb schools, etc etc. I must tell you about the Martlets Hospice, the most secular and most loving and spiritually inspirational community in the United Kingdom.

Five weeks ago I was whisked to this place in a state of pain, not death, just excruciating pain. I was thinking ‘Well if I go on suffering like this for another year, I’m going to have to think of merry ways to top myself’. I had been in diabolical pain in my leg and groin for too long, and that grinding agony was really getting to me.

It had been a few years since I had been to the Martlets Hospice, which has been radically spruced up, and I knew that the sprucing up had cost this wonderful organisation a lot financially. As an interfaith minister I had met several good people who sought my services while staying in this wonderful place of rest, peace, and powerful spiritual enlightenment. Truly, if you want to go to heaven, it seems a good idea to stop off at the nearest heavenly bus stop of the best of the best, and make your way home from there.

But what I did not know was the scale of the inspirational commitment of the team, who spend their days sorting out the needs of the dying. For three weeks a skilled team ­of consultants, doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, cleaners, kitchen staff, angels from the realms of glory, improved my daily life, and gradually I started to feel better. The pain diminished, and I felt no guilt about asking for pain relief, or calling out at the darkest hour and asking for help, while these wonderful people, radiant spirits made everything better. If only this kind of joy and spiritual light beamed so brightly when the NHS springs into action, our beautiful health service would be a different place, a different mindset, a different dimension.

But with this thought I leave you, hoping that I make it to the next observation, as I sprint merrily towards the next bus stop along the way.