I am almost embarrassed to say that in our Christmas raffle I won the opera tickets and my daughter won the turkey! Thank heavens Peter Sorrell won the wine thereby, just about, saving our blushes! The wine was donated by Bryan Frewin who, looking the picture of health, made his annual pilgrimage to our meeting. Thank you, Bryan….see you next Xmas?! The raffle and other contributions raised £374 so thank you one and all.

Little Marina Walton our next door neighbour’s daughter did an excellent job of serving trays of canapes and mince pies supplied by Marie and Aiden and sausage rolls supplied by Mary and Larry. Marina also presented Alvan with a bottle of wine plus a cake complete with candle to mark his birthday which was a week or so previously. We also acknowledged Julian and Guy’s support of us who could not be with us on the night.

Jim and Alvan sang a duet of the ‘Doctor, Doctor’ song which led to one member saying afterwards that listening the Alvan singing and watching him swish around with wine glass in hand has permanently cured him of ‘white coat syndrome’, but is wondering how he is going to keep a straight face when next in his consulting rooms at Mount Vernon.

It would seem hardly a month goes by now without at least one new recruit (4 in December) turning up to the meeting. The nature of the Support Group is, of course, that we see many on a regular basis but others just a few times when they are newly diagnosed and may need a little support when coming to terms with prostate cancer. That they can just drop in and bring a colleague or friend with them is, I believe, the essence of the FOPS Support Group. Long may it continue!

Alas, I have some sad news. One of our members, Nick Polydore, died on the 5th January. He was only 57 but had many, many health problems not least advanced, aggressive prostate cancer. Sabina, his partner of almost 30 years, is heart-broken. I am sure we have all heard the expression 'tiger mum' - well, Sabina was a 'tiger' partner, attending all hospital/doctor/consultant appointments with Nick and caring for him with love and courage. As representatives of FOPS, Joe, Jim, Dennis and I attended Nick's funeral over at Waltham Cross where Sabina had nominated FOPS Support Group as one of the charities to share the donations given in Nick's memory. Sabina, in time, hopes to promote awareness of prostate cancer in the Black community, an ethnic group who she believes is woefully in denial of their increased risk of developing prostate cancer. My last image of Nick is him sitting at our Christmas meeting with Joe eating a very large bowl of trifle! Sabina, all of us in FOPS send our sincere condolences to you and your family.

Our next meeting is on the 1st February. Alvan, Julian and Guy hope to be at there on the night. So make sure you have your questions ready so that we can put them through their paces. See you all on the 1st.

The following meeting will be four weeks later on the 1st March but please check the FOPS website for any changes that may occur.

Kind regards,
Gabrielle

PS. For those of you who may be interested in upcoming FOPS social events, please check the FOPS website as Julian Shah and the Singing Surgeons ('our Julian') are doing a gig at Rootz cafe, Chorleywood on Friday 3rd February.