With due respect to Mariah Carey and “All I Want for Christmas is You”, there’s another festive tune which sums up a different type of yearning for me.
It’s hardly headline news, but the 80th anniversary of “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” is here.
I wasn’t around then; yes, I know it’s an easy mistake.
It’s been covered a lot by other artists over the years because “two teeth” filled a gap (so to speak) in the novelty comic-song market.
While capturing growing pains among gappy post-milk teeth kids.
It has more bite now after statistics revealed tooth decay among children is causing concern across the UK.
We can blame both manufacturers of everything sugar-soaked and lazy parents for this sorry state.
But it’s an unstoppable tide once they are hooked on sugar and children reach that stage when they stop taking advice from parents.
Look at me in my vintage years: addicted to sugary coffee, doughnuts and mince pies – despite my wife’s best efforts.
I used to keep a bag of Jelly Tots in my car at all times – or even two as emergency back-up for fear of running out.
But after yet another spell of over-indulgence, my blood-glucose levels soared before one particular blood test, leaving a specialist nurse at my GP practice suspecting I had diabetes.
Thankfully that’s blown over, it was just a scare; I’m eating bananas now as an antidote (not at the wheel, though).
For months I have been languishing in a NHS queue
I hope children are not encountering the same shameful waiting lists as so many helpless adults are enduring.
I’m waiting, too.
Not for my two front teeth (in spite if my dietary habits I’ve managed to hang onto them), but an appointment with a surgeon.
A few months ago I called a department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to find out exactly where I was languishing in my particular miserable NHS queue.
A cheery nurse lifted my spirits with good news: they hoped my battle to reach the front line of surgical care would be “over by Christmas”.
I should have known better; didn’t they say the same thing after the First World War broke out?
Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago I checked again as Mr Postman had not shown up yet, but this time the surgeon’s waiting time had been adjusted to “one year and two months”.
Luckily (I am using this word in its loosest sense), and taking into account previous “time served” (as they say in court) during my wait, our paths might cross next summer.
Not bad, I suppose, compared to others at the mercy of this cruel situation.
I don’t blame the nurse, it’s the system.
Judging waiting times is as daunting as forecasters who pretend they can predict the long-term weather.
Maybe she meant Christmas 2025 in the first place, but I don’t think so.
If this appointment ever happens it will actually mark the seventh anniversary of a medical condition which was an annoying side-effect – or collateral damage – from my radical prostate-cancer surgery.
But I only went on the “side-effect” waiting list earlier this year, so I must be rooted firmly to the bottom of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ungrateful.
Without my prostate surgeon’s intervention, I’d have more to complain about these days: being dead, for example. A nod from God would have come my way.
For some stuck on endless NHS waiting lists there is no hope in sight
I survived; I’ve been blessed by seeing my grandchildren grow instead of being robbed of this precious experience.
I’m not writhing in pain like many others with no hope in sight.
I’ll never forget my wife sobbing in agony through the night while awaiting hip and knee replacements.
It took four years in the end.
Mine is a serious inconvenience, that’s all.
Sometimes we have to make the most of our lot.
As Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount, or was it Eric Idle’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life…”?
Yet it’s hard to see the light when lying in bed in agony – shrouded in darkness and possessed by demons.
I’m not special; every home in communities throughout the north and north-east has an NHS ordeal to tell.
We keep draining so many billions into the NHS and funding enormous pay rises for medics that they might as well open a branch of the Treasury in every hospital so cash can be syphoned out on demand.
It doesn’t make one jot of difference to waiting lists. No wonder some are so desperate they scrape the cash to go private to stay alive or avoid going blind.
Most NHS staff are wonderful when by some miracle we finally meet them, but they seem locked in a shambolic system in desperate need of serious reform.
Nobody seems capable of doing this.
It’s like pulling teeth.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal
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