Sandra Parton - Endal - How one extraordinary dog brought a family back from the brink

When I emerged, a doctor came over to watch me walking across the ward. ‘That looks like a bit of a struggle,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Strange,’ I slurred.

‘Can you remember your name?’

Of course I could. Whom did he think he was talking to? ‘Chief Petty Officer Parton,’ I barked out, the words sounding all mangled and muddled.

‘And the name of your ship?’

I opened my mouth to reply and realized I had no idea. It had gone. I shook my head blankly.

‘Do you know what age you are?’

I racked my brains. My mind raced back over countries I’d seen, ships I’d sailed on, weapons systems I’d helped to design, but I couldn’t think what age I was.

‘Missiles,’ I said, trying to communicate to him that that was my job.

He nodded, and then guided me to the bed where he began to examine me, taking my blood pressure, shining a torch in my eyes, pricking my arm for blood. It hurt. Why couldn’t he have done it on the right side where I seemed to have no feeling?

‘What’s happened?’ I asked eventually.

‘We think your brain has had a traumatic injury. There’s no damage to the skull. It’s all internal.’ He made some notes on his chart, then folded his arms. ‘I don’t think there would be any point operating. We have to wait till the inflammation dies down and we’ll see what happens next.’

I was irritated. Just do your job, I thought. And get me back to work. I haven’t got time to sit around here for weeks on end. My men need me.

‘The staff nurse will give you something for the pain. Take it easy now.’ He turned and walked off.

I blinked. Yes, there was pain. My head and neck were aching. I let the nurse help me back on to the bed and swing my feet up for me.

‘Lunch will be round in a bit,’ she said. ‘Then your wife’s coming to see you later.’

I stared at her blankly. I had a wife? That was news to me.

She frowned. ‘You don’t remember, do you? Her name’s Sandra. You’ll know her when you see her. She’s been very worried about you.’

She left me to digest that news. I lay back on the pillows trying to trigger my memory. Wife. Wedding. Married. I was married. I could remember that it was a good thing to be married. You were in love, and you looked out for each other. But I had no memories of my wife at all.

And then visiting hour came, and a very attractive woman with dark hair and a curvy figure was hurrying across the room. I peered hard as she came into focus. She was definitely heading towards me. It must be her.

‘Allen,’ she said. ‘Oh my God.’ She kissed me and looked into my eyes. ‘How are you feeling?’

And I thought she seemed like a nice person, but she was a complete stranger to me. I didn’t remember ever seeing her before, never mind marrying her. I had no feelings for her whatsoever. Inside my head there was a vast fuzzy blankness.

Allen sailed off to the Gulf in April 1991, leaving me at home to look after our two children: Liam, aged six, and Zoe, aged five. It was always hard when he went away but after seven years of marriage I was beginning to get used to it. It goes with the territory when you’re a naval wife. However, this was the first time since I’d met him that he’d been posted to a war zone, and although the fighting was over and Saddam Hussein’s troops had been chased out of Kuwait, I was still nervous. Every time I read news stories about random shootings, friendly fire incidents or that missile that hit a military base in Saudi Arabia, a knot tightened in my stomach.

I’d been suffering from anxiety and panic attacks since I had a severe case of post-natal depression following Zoe’s birth. Some days I found it hard to look after myself, never mind two children, and I struggled to cope with all the incessant chores and responsibilities that come with running a house. Allen was my rock during that period, the person who could always calm me down and make everything all right. He’d walk in the front door and cook us all a nice meal, and whatever I was stressed about, he’d say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll go and get the shopping, I’ll pay the bills, I’ll pick the children up from school.’ He was a calm, capable, very caring kind of man.

Now that Liam was at school and Zoe’s difficult baby years were past, I was managing a lot better but I still missed Allen very badly. Silly things, such as the central heating breaking down or one of the kids falling and scraping their knees, could reduce me to a panicky wreck again. He called from the ship when he could, but it was a complicated process. He had to book a call in advance, wait to get a line, and then if I happened to be out he would miss his slot. I had no idea when he would be back in the UK. We were hoping that he would be home for Christmas but there were no guarantees. There never were.

Then tragedy struck when my sister Valerie died of liver failure on Monday 12 August 1991. For most of her adult life she’d been battling complex health issues, but the end came suddenly and shockingly and I was distraught. Right up to the last moment we hoped she would pull through but it wasn’t to be. She left behind a little boy who was just five, two months older than Zoe, and it was a horrible family tragedy.

I contacted the Navy’s Family Services and asked if I could speak to Allen urgently. They called the ship and a few hours later he was able to ring me briefly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, his voice breaking up across the crackle of international airwaves. ‘I just wish I could be standing there right now with my arms round you.’

I started crying so much I could hardly speak. ‘Please come home, Allen,’ I begged. ‘Please.’

‘I’ll put in a request with Family Services. We should know soon. When’s the funeral?’

‘I don’t know yet. Early next week.’

‘I’ll do my best to get there. I love you,’ he said. Then the line was abruptly cut off.

‘Love you too,’ I sobbed into the vast distance between us.

I’d never needed him more in my life, but the next day I got a call from Family Services to say that he couldn’t get leave because it wasn’t a member of his family who had died.

‘It’s his sister-in-law!’ I cried. ‘He was very close to her.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not considered a close relative in Navy terms. If it was his own sister that would be different.’

I argued but they had made up their minds, so I just got on with trying to deal with it myself, along with my mum and my two remaining sisters Marion and Jennifer. There were the funeral arrangements to make, Valerie’s little boy to look after, her possessions to deal with; it was all too much on top of caring for my two lively kids. I staggered through each day, barely coping, just doing the minimum because my energy levels were so low. It was as though there was a huge weight pressing down on me making it virtually impossible to do anything.

Every day I prayed that Allen would at least be able to get access to a phone to ring and see how I was. Even a few words of comfort from him would have helped. I’d never felt so utterly alone. My sisters and my mum were immersed in their own grief and couldn’t deal with mine as well, and the kids were just too young to understand.

The following week, on 21 August, I got another phone call from Family Services. When I heard who it was, I assumed they were calling to see how I was managing after Valerie’s death and couldn’t make sense of what they were saying at first.

‘We’re calling to tell you that Allen’s back in hospital again,’ a woman’s voice said.

‘What do you mean he’s back in hospital?’ I was stunned.