We asked one of Jimmy Reid's daughters to keep a diary in the month of the first anniversary of her father's death. The result is the following remarkable testament

He is everywhere, but

nowhere: a journey of

love and loss

Eileen Reid

 

Monday 8 August
News from London is grim. The looting is out of control. My daughter lives in Forest Hill and even though I'm not prone to speculative anxiety (I am a natural-born 'risk assessor'), I begin to worry. Dad would be horrified at the actions of these young people but I can see him pacing with frustration. Since being diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer, I have been living on Twitter. But this rioting is too serious and I call @ampherlaw1, my friend for sharing innermost secrets and failings. We decide, despondently, that in extremis we are capable. Hobbes is right, I think to myself.
     I get most of my news and commentary from Twitter but it is also a marvellous distraction. I have had discussions with people I have never met, from all over the world and all walks of life. Those with serious illness, if they're able to type, should join Twitter. The beauty is you don't need to be an 'ill person' on Twitter unless you want to be. I'm thinking of writing to Macmillan Cancer Support to offer my services delivering 'Twitter' classes.
     What seems like the 200th removal of blood from my left arm takes place to ensure my 'bloods' are right for the next bout of chemotherapy on Wednesday. I have a needle phobia – or to be precise a blood phobia – my wonderful 'needle shrink' Chris from the Beatson told me. He also said, and everyone should know this, it is the only phobia where blood pressure plummets, hence the nausea and when the dreaded needle approaches: my ancient amygdala thinks it's a dinofelis with massive teeth. The blood recedes in response to the threat; I turn white, faint, and feign death. The solution is to get your blood pressure up – and you can do that yourself. Chris has saved me from serious mental disturbance and a permanent Hickman line in my neck. My dear friend for spontaneous compassion and concern arrives at the door with a beautiful pair of diamond studs to cheer me up.

Tuesday 9 August
It is mum and dad's 53rd anniversary today. This time last year, I remember hoping my dying dad would hang on. 'Don't die today, dad.' He hung on.
     I have a tantrum at the clinic at the New Victoria where I am being treated. Given the number of managers employed by the NHS, why are there are so many systemic failures which have adverse effects on patient and cost money? As a patient hospitalised for tumour removal, lymph clearance, rushed in by ambulance last month, and as a regular outpatient, I am convinced that one's experience is determined by the competence, attention to detail, and the compassion of certain individuals – a brilliant bank nurse, an expert consultant, two wonderful cancer nurses who have knowledge beyond their own specialisms and love their work, despite sclerotic management.
     My husband writes a letter of complaint to the New Victoria and copies it to as many people as possible. It asks finally: 'Why did the Vic close its small breast cancer ward last year during the summer holidays, never to reopen?'. All that expertise is dispersed to the far corners of the hospital and it matters. Hurtling down the specialist route medically is laudable, but the NHS must provide the corresponding structures.
     As it is, it would have been sheer chance if a nurse of 14 years training in breast cancer had been available when I was taken into A&E then on to a general surgical ward. She wasn't available, and it was hell because no-one knew what to do with me other than resuscitate me with a saline drip and pump masses of antibiotics into my veins. Actually, for a needlephobe I didn't do too badly. I surprised myself. The letter wasn't sent.
     This afternoon, my old neighbour Jack McLean (the Urban Voltaire) pays me a visit to cheer me up as always. He never stops talking; but for the first time since I have met him I render him speechless by whipping off my wig to show him I have less hair than him and no comb-over. Poor Jack. A baby albino orang-utan, with wispy bits of hair inexplicably upright (does chemo have electricity in it?) is not a good look. But anyway, Jack tells me a funny joke to cheer himself up. It goes: Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin are marooned on a desert island with nothing other than a tin of beans.
     Lenin: 'I'll get it open.' Picks up a jaggy stone and messes around for hours.
     Stalin: 'Stop pussy-footing around.' Drops two huge boulders from a great height but to no avail. Tin is bashed, but intact.
     Trotsky: 'Comrades! Comrades! Enough! It takes a subtle mind to deal with such issues. I'll get it open. Come, sit around the tin with me and let's imagine we have a tin-opener.'
     Giggling, a wave of nostalgia momentarily sweeps over me. Not for Stalin, of course.

Wednesday 10 August
     At earliest morning to the door,
     He is not here; but far away
     The noise of life begins again,
     And ghastly thro the drizzling rain
     On the bald street breaks the blank day.
     Tennyson. In Memoriam.
     Actually it's not drizzling on this blank day in Glasgow, it's a deluge. I feel as low as I have ever felt in my life. No chemo today as I am not well enough to withstand it. It is also exactly a year since dad died, and the 40th anniversary of the UCS. I see him everywhere, his magnificent head, his eyes, his voice, his smile. He is everywhere, but nowhere.
     There are some advantages to having cancer. The best is time to think and read that which you could easily pass by in the ordinary, immediate way I have lived hitherto. I have discovered Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' and I read a verse every morning. There's 133 of them, so it will take me a while. This morning I re-read:
     I sometimes hold it half a sin
     To put in words the grief I feel;
     For words, like Nature, half reveal
     And half conceal the Soul within.
     Dad. How we miss you, but cannot express it aright.
     Kenneth Roy writes about dad in the Scottish Review. As usual, he says what I know to be true: dad would have been incensed at alienated young people being labelled 'feral rats'. I read parts of dad's rectorial address, where he spoke to young people in a clarion call to reject the values of the 'rat race'.

Thursday 11 August
I cannot get out of bed. I spend the day on Twitter instead, and think. I hate the term 'cancer'. As a metaphor, it is used all too often. Today, someone talks of the cancer of our society that led to the riots. We sufferers are encouraged to use the term in order to remove its sting and re-possess it as our own – as with 'slut' or 'nigger'. But the word controls you. Why can't we come up with a new term? What about 'cells that don’t know how to die'? My cells have multiplied out of control in places. I don't know why. I am not angry, I am not battling; in fact, my response to this is benign and probably weird. I have discovered I'm a dualist. I talk to my body and her out of control cells. 'Come on old girl, you can do it. I'll help as much as I can. I know, I am ingesting a brutal poison which will shake you to your roots as it crawls through your veins like the tendrils of an icy vine…but I promise to look after you the rest of our lives, if you keep going.'

Friday 12 August
I can't make the planned trip to London this weekend. I am desperately disappointed as I was booked to go to the BBC Proms friends in London. I will also miss The Wire's legendary McNulty in a West End show called Butley. Worst of all, I don't get to see my darling daughter Joani. So, I'm feeling justifiably sorry for myself this evening. Actually, I'm feeling sorry for the whole of humanity, except David Starkey. What is he saying on Newsnight? My god, is he nuts? Twitter has one of its periodic outbreaks of collective hysteria about the dastardly, hideous, racist Starkey, so I change my mind. He is obviously an inarticulate old codger historian who should never have been invited to discuss the riots in a telephone box, never mind on Newsnight. I end up going to bed feeling sorry for Starkey.

Saturday 13 August
It's my mum's birthday. I am sad that I am not with her. But she has a good day after a difficult week. My wee mum is a strong, quiet and compassionate woman. In the last year, her beloved husband dies, then her oldest daughter gets sick, really sick. Consolation doesn't lie in the recognition that loss and pain is universal.
     But still, we enjoy our moments of life's beautiful detail, ephemeral or eternal: the sunset over the Kyles of Bute, a scintillating glass of good red wine, roses budding, planning to visit Rome with the closest of friends. But the greatest pleasure of all? Watching our young, the next generation, Joan, Elizabeth and Catriona: politically and socially engaged, playing piano and cello, giggling. We think of dad when we watch them, and remember his delight. But we also remember that this week, he would have despaired at the poverty, lack of morality, the consumerism and all the rest that blighted young people’s lives this week. What would have upset him most is the neglected potential and opportunity of their lives. Every child has a talent, but only fortunate families like ours have the resources and social and cultural associations to raise the aspirations of our kids, and encourage what potential and talents they have. What a waste. What a damned waste.

Sunday 14 August
Today for the first time in months I get tipsy on prosecco with best friend from school. I'm thrilled she has a set of binoculars and a bird book. The excitement of spotting a tit of some sort results in shrieks of glee and of course, they fly off pronto.
     I finish with a wee row on Twitter with the lovely Patrick Osgood, the assistant editor of Oil and Gas Middle East magazine. I've never met him, and didn't know he or his magazine existed. We argued about supercop Bratton being brought in to help the Met with the riots. It deteriorated into an irrelevant rant about Churchill. Best not to tweet when you've had a few.
     When I'm better, I won't need Twitter, and I won't miss it, although I'll need to keep an eye on wee @biscuit_ersed. When I'm better, I will never, ever take for granted my beautiful family and friends again. When I'm better.

Eileen Reid is a graduate of Glasgow University in philosophy and politics. She is head of widening participation at the Glasgow School of Art