THROWBACK THURSDAY: That Time We Were Featured In A Supermarket Tabloid

Photo by Antoni Shkraba

When Rachel and her colleagues at work were moving offices several years ago she brought home a selection of lost and forgotten "treasures" that had been unearthed.

Key among them was an old copy of trashy tabloid magazine Love It! which featured "our story". 

Cover dated July, 2007, this issue featured a semi-factual, rather sensational retelling of "Our Miracle Wedding", a truncated version of the story of my sudden, unexpected, aneurysm; the stroke I suffered on the operating table; my recovery; my marriage proposal; and our wedding.

This sterling example of high-quality journalism was tucked away on page 24 amongst the ridiculous 'true life' accounts of scandalous celebrity gossip, money-saving household tips, horoscopes, and sordid sex tales.

Basically what would now be termed "click-bait".

I wasn't sure about rereading the article (for the first time since I read it upon publication), in case it triggered unpleasant memories of my near-death experience.

But I needn't have worried, the overwrought retelling of Rachel's heroic handling of the whole situation, saving my life and placing me forever in her debt, actually brought on a smile of pride instead.

While it's rather insulting to dismiss the story of my brush with the Grim Reaper as a "speedy read" suitable for when you're waiting in the queue for a bus, it's an oddly concrete reminder of a time when things were moving so fast that no one thought about capturing the moment for posterity.

The paltry payment we earned from selling our story went towards 'spending money' for our trip to Disneyland Paris later that year.

I seem to recall that we would have got more if we'd been able to supply a picture of me in a hospital bed, all wired in to the machines that go 'beep', with tubes down my throat and up my nose... but camera phones just weren't as ubiquitous then as they are today... and, anyway, there's a degree of dignity and personal privacy involved.

And they weren't offering THAT much for a hospital shot.