For the first time since he had told me of his condition Freddie brought up the subject of his death. He asked me a very odd question, ‘What are you going to do when I die?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, crying, ‘I can’t handle it all.’

‘Well how do you think I feel?’ he replied. I looked over and Freddie was crying too. He cuddled up to me and we cried quietly together, hugging each other tighter for some kind of reassurance…..

I lay awake crying most of the night, with the thought of Freddie’s illness and his inevitable death racing through my mind. What was I going to do when he died? I had no idea. I often used to cry on my own, thinking about Freddie’s illness during quiet moments at Garden Lodge, but I made sure he never saw me doing it. I’d go to bed and cry myself to sleep. Through the day I tried to put all thought of Freddie’s illness at the back of my mind, but in the still of the night it would come back to haunt me.

Jim Hutton