The first was a phone call from a nurse. She said something about not being able to stabilise him. She said “you need to be here”. Need. She told me she was a parent too. I understood immediately.

The second was face to face. The doctor took us to one side. He said my son needed to go to another hospital by helicopter, but that his blood pressure was too low. He said we needed to know that he might die on the journey. Die. There it was. 

It was a conversation he must have trained to have. He was matter of fact, and left no room for doubt. He avoided offering false promises. They packed him up and took him away. And then the long wait through the night for news, dreading the phone ringing. 

The third was much later, after we’d been in hospital for months. The surgery had saved him, but the sepsis was still making his body fail. There were small improvements, followed by major setbacks.

I knew his consultant well by now from his daily visits. He asked to speak to me away from the ward. We went into a room and he shut the door. There was another doctor there, and a nurse. 

He explained the context, which I understood very well by now. He said he wanted me to know that they were doing everything they could, and that they would keep trying. But they were now dealing with regular setbacks, and each setback was life threatening. 

He said that my son might never leave the hospital, and he wanted me to know that. He asked me if I understood what they were telling me, and I said that I did.

I’m going to post a few things about my experience of living through my son’s serious illness.

I want to write things down to help me organise and process my thoughts, and to explain what has been preoccupying me for the last couple of years. 

I’m going to be writing about illness, hospitals, and fear. Please skip these posts if that’s not for you.  

So what happened? In September 2024, my 16 year old son collapsed at home. He was airlifted to Glasgow for surgery that saved his life. He spent the next 7 months in hospital, dealing with multiple surgeries, sepsis and setbacks.

I can only write about my own experience. His illness and his ongoing recovery is his story to tell so I won’t try to tell it. Maybe he will. Also, I know that others close to him lived through the same events and will have experienced them differently. 

I want to write about panic and anxiety, the routines of living in a hospital, and coming to terms with a new reality. 

Because for the last 2 years this experience has been the defining and often all-consuming fact of my life.

After Stanley came home I started applying for jobs.

Lagom was closed for business and I needed to find a way to earn money again. But I was still very anxious about my capacity to do work, and about anything that would involve being away from home.

So my job search had a few strict criteria, including: proximity to my house, regular hours, and taking no work home.

That led me to a job for the Royal Mail, delivering mail and parcels to the west coast of Arran, 4 days a week.

The job advert said I’d be working in the open air and walking up to 16 miles a day. After spending months cooped up in Glasgow hospitals, I quite liked the sound of that. 

The reality isn’t all strolling down country lanes whistling a cheery tune of course. There’s a lot more sorting, carrying, dirt and sweat involved. 

The work is a mix of memory challenge, solving little puzzles every day, and physical endurance. 

At its best, I’ve found it very rewarding – grateful farmers coming out of their houses to meet me, knowing that I’d be bringing them that crucial bit of kit they’d been waiting for. But there are a lot of bumpy tracks, and delivering toilet rolls to empty holiday homes too.

There are 450 addresses on my route, almost all of which have individual Gaelic names rather than house numbers. After a few weeks on the same route I’d managed to memorise most of the house names and their sequence, and could sort the mail without reference to my notes.

Every day has felt like a race to get home. I imagine the longer you do the role, the less it feels like that. But for me, I’ve known that the consequence of any time wasted (by taking longer to sort the mail or load the van, or stopping to chat, or looping back round to deliver a missed parcel) would be felt at the end of each day. So I’ve always just pressed on, not once stopping for a break or lunch. 

On a good day I start at 8, I’m in my van on the road by 10, and home by 4. Some days I’m out much longer than that. Even on easier days I’ve still felt the pressure to get round quickly, when getting home by 3.30 might be the reward.

I’ve learned a little bit about a lot of people on my route. And I’ve learned to curse fiddly gates, sharp letter boxes and dogs.

I’ve been continuously impressed by my colleagues. They are relentlessly can-do, only occasionally grumpy, and I’ve been in awe of the depth of their knowledge about all the routes and people on the island, and their dedication to the task.

The work has prompted lots of thoughts about the service design of the Royal Mail, some of which appears to be extremely impressive, some of which leans too heavily on the memory and conscientiousness of individual members of frontline staff. But that’s for a different post.

This week is my last as a postman. I’m going to be moving on to a role that looks a bit more like the other things on my CV. I’ve sorted and delivered thousands of parcels and tens of thousands of letters over the last few months. I’d happily do it again.

I’ve been doing some filing.

I’ve imported some of the blog posts I’ve published in other places onto this blog so that I have a record in one place. Here they are:

Selected blog posts that were first published on lagomstrategy.net:

• The discovery would have been better if we’d been more prepared
• Expertise versus experience: which one is the best?
• Can this be an exemplar discovery?
• 7 things I’ve learned about social care by doing research in social care
• Right, any questions?
• Being on time
• We did too many stakeholder interviews (again)

Selected blog posts that were first published on digitalhealth.gov.uk:

• Logging out
• Hold on, I think we might have fundamentally different ideas about what comms is
• Gifted amateurs, experts and people who don’t flit around
• The digital team do it like this
• Digital content teams: 6 ways to confidence and empowerment
• An update to our digital strategy
• Digital and change: what to get excited about
• Good enough metrics
• How we decide what to do
• Digital capability plan – would we be better just to wait?
• But what if it’s consistent with the proposition, but the platform doesn’t do it (yet)?
• Digital teams, end-to-end communication, and the digital communications capability review
• A wonky gene and the web: triennial update
• Checklist for an ideal digital policy engagement campaign
• Should we digitise press office?
• The end of pat-on-the-head digital engagement
• Why and how we publish digital content
• 5 open policymaking examples
• My dad, a denki puzzle, and my hopes for the GOV.UK publishing tool
• Inviting comments on a draft bill
• Digital engagement – all about people
• The order I check things
• Post-it notes, performance and innovation
• The corporate beta from the fringes
• Foreign Office blogs: a short history of UK government digital engagement
• Mid year review: the state of DH digital
• But what about the people who can’t use the internet?
• New DH website: A spoiler and some caveats
• PHP, cheese reviews, and getting your hands dirty
• The mechanics of listening
• A simpler and better digital presence
• How can the web help deliver health and care reform?
• A wonky gene and the web – my son and my job
• Digital health – what’s that then?

Selected blog posts that were first published on blogs.fco.gov.uk:

• The end of this blog
• Our digital campaigns – some highlights
• Forget global, everything is local now
• Can I say anything useful about the future?
• Why websites matter less and less
• So what do you actually do?
• Can I have a new website?
• Digital diplomacy in Vietnam – guest blog from Rory Cellan-Jones
• G2G, a social experiment, and why I like Yammer
• An interview with digital diplomat, episode II
• An interview with a real digital diplomat
• London Summit digital campaign evaluation
• Summit bloggers make history
• An event: bringing digital diplomacy home
• What can governments learn from Skittles?
• Proving the value of digital campaigns (and why Twitter won’t take off in Ukraine)
• How can the web help solve global financial problems?
• What do you need to be a web professional in government now?
• Mumbai, microblogging and travel advice
• Why would a diplomat blog – some theory and the future
• Why would a diplomat blog – history
• Why would a diplomat blog?
• Digital diplomacy – what’s that then?

Liam posted last week that we are in the process of closing down Lagom Strategy.

In many ways it’s a sad time because the business has been a big part of my life. Liam established Lagom 12 years ago. I turned up 7 years ago, first as an associate, and then later as a director alongside Liam and Helen.

We devoted ourselves to building a great business, making digital public services more user centred, and doing it all in a lagom way.

We built a great team: user researchers, service designers and delivery managers. And I think we did some genuinely brilliant pieces of work for our NHS, central government, and public sector-adjacent clients.

So I do feel sad that it’s ending. But not too sad. All things change, and Lagom may have just come to a natural end point.

As Liam said, the pendulum swing away from SMEs like Lagom in public sector procurement had already affected the work we were able to win. We managed to keep winning work for longer than some, but it had definitely got harder. And a lot of our work was with, or via, NHS England, which has been in a fairly constant process of change, making some of our best work frustratingly uncertain.

We had already reduced the size of our team to reflect this new reality. My own recent period of compassionate absence wasn’t decisive, but it wasn’t very helpful timing.

So we stopped trying to win work a little while ago, and we’re now well into the process of closing the business down.

As we do so, I think we can feel good about the work we’ve done. Personally, I feel extremely grateful that Helen and Liam invited me to join them. The Lagom ethos (do good things, advocate for the user above all else, quality over quantity…) was already established when I joined. But I found that it suited me very well, enabling me to do the most rewarding work, in a way that made sense to me, with people I really enjoyed working with.

I think we were at our best delivering gnarly, difficult discovery projects, where most of the work was user research, but mixed in with a dash of politics, and some tricky tech and design options.

We did our share of more straightforward pieces of work too, but they were less satisfying. I think the Lagom team came into its own when we found some big ideas, a set of genuine of problems to solve, a distracted client, some awkward stakeholders, and users who barely had time to participate in our research. Our work on clinical placements for NHS England was like this. Really important; maddening at times; and a brilliant Lagom team quietly making sense of it all.

Lagom was never just the work though. I’ll miss the catch ups, the team days, the Hot Topics, the quick debriefs, the virtual coffees. I reckon we did a lot of things right.

I am very thankful to have worked with a great team. I loved working with Adam, Charlotte, Emma, Hannah, James, John and Victoria. Reducing the size of the team was a painful experience, however lagom we might have wanted to be about it.

And I’ve been extremely grateful to Liam and Helen during the last few months in particular, when their support has enabled me to step back, despite the pressures it must have created on them.

I don’t know what’s next yet. I don’t have a job to go to, or much of a plan. But whatever we all do, I hope it will still be lagom.

On 3 September my son collapsed at home and everything else stopped.

His bowel had twisted and blocked, causing him to go into septic shock. He survived the ambulance and the helicopter, and the surgery. And he kept on surviving though multiple procedures, surgeries and infections.

Last week, after 198 days in hospital, he came home. He’s not better, but he’s home, and that’s good.

I’ve had reasons to feel scared and sad over the last few months. At times it has felt like everything has gone, or is about to go, wrong.

As an exercise to try to snap myself out of dark thoughts, I started adding to a note on my phone, listing times I remember feeling most happy.

I was trying to remember very particular, personal moments of contentment, so that I could shut my eyes and reexperience how I felt.

The result is an incomplete list of snapshots. Short memories of specific vivid feelings, rather than achievements. Quiet moments rather than milestones.

There’s a bias towards some types of memory because of the context in which the list was made.

This list may only be of interest to me. But the process of making it was helpful, forcing me to briefly immerse myself in a different, better emotional state.

A Forest game with Dad on a tandem ticket, listening to Radio Nottingham then Sports Report in the traffic jam on the way out of the Council House car park, whistling the theme tune trying not to laugh.

Climbing to the loch above Thunderguy. Hamish doing the thing where you appear on both ends of a panoramic photo, except I film it instead of take a photograph.

Commentating on toy cars Olympics on the small table in the caravan.

Cooking tortilla and tomato salad for Dominic and Dominic at the Albert Square flat before a Cinimo practice.

Cricket camp with Stanley. Getting there early covered in sun cream. Coaching. Tournaments. The day he took an all-bowled hat-trick.

Doing a bar shift at Kimberley, pouring pints of mixed.

Drinking Guinness with Tom, Beggsy, Trevor and whoever, back at the otherwise empty clubhouse, after a Sunday away match, a bit too late with work tomorrow.

Driving across Nottingham having borrowed Mum’s Fiat Panda, with all the windows down and Radio Trent on, wearing white Reeboks.

Driving hundreds of miles to an away match with Stanley. Arriving 2 hours before kick off and staying at the end. Newcastle, Aston Villa, Forest, Wolves, Man City, Man United.

Driving to Poppy’s house in Cumbria, listening to The Don Declares on cassette.

Easter egg hunt in the garden, Alice has bought 1000 eggs. I hide some carefully, but scatter the rest, then set the rules for Hamish in front of the steps.

Eating a whole artichoke with a pot of olive oil, lemon, vinegar and a boiled egg, with Alice. Alice having the same, except the egg. Watching 2 episodes of 24.

Getting a train to Freemantle for falafel.

Getting piped into the hall before Stanley is made Dux.

Walking round and round St James’s Park rehearsing how to say things to myself.

Going back to Kimberley or Dulwich cricket clubs years later, and having the same conversations with the same people as if I’d never been away. John Parkin, John Lawrence.

Going to every day of the Grand Prix with Stanley. Impersonating people talking boringly about better routes/queuing systems/logistics.

Going to the fifth day of the test match against New Zealand on a whim with Stanley. Moeen Ali taking the catch to win the game.

Going to the nets in Dulwich Park with Stanley really early in the morning. Videoing him playing cover drives and bowling.

Grandma and Grandpa arriving for Christmas in Nottingham with a cardboard box full of Coca Cola and lemons.

Having 2 pints of Red Stripe at The Greyhound with Poppy.

Having cake, a bath and a nap, then running the fines meeting after a day skiing.

Holy Isle day trip with Mum, Dad, Alice and Stanley. Stanley running the length of the island like Alistair Brownlee. Mum sitting on a rock.

Lying on the carpet at the end of the night, listening to Ride.

Making the tiered garden at Martell Road. Sitting in it in the sun on a Sunday morning.

Mowing the lawn.

Mum drives me to a field at lunchtime, I sprint across it, then we have sandwiches.

One v one cricket with Chris against the garage door in Havant, or in the garden in Bognor.

Overrhearing Dad reverting to his school days when talking to Wally on the phone.

Playing Aussie Rules with Chris and Chris on the playing fields and in the swimming pool at the weekend.

Playing cricket with Mark in the car park next to the house in Withington.

Playing for Dulwich at home, Alison brings me a big courgette from her garden, scoring 64, having a shower, Fran and Alistair are there too for some reason.

Playing Slow Dog, Fast Chicken with Hamish in his room.

Practicing Ingenious Friend songs with Malcolm and Wilko in Ken’s tiny rehearsal room.

Reading a novel in a tent, on a train, or in a palaza in Slovenia or Italy, interrailing.

Rock Trip to Dr Montfort Hall to see Pixies. Alison going down to the mosh pit.

Running the 200 meters in the KEEN Cup after Mum persuaded me to.

Seven-a-side football tournament on a sandy pitch in Échirolles for Priory Celtic, a towel over my head to shade the sun between matches. Mum is there.

Sitting round a tree at playtime with Sarah, Emma and Ross. And the school trip to the Isle of White, listening to The Chicken Song.

Sleeper train to Inverness with Alice. No beds, so sat upright dozing, with Sigur Ros on repeat in my headphones.

Stanley blogging about going to see Palace away at Man United. His description of walking back along the canal in the rain after an unlikely win.

Taking Stanley to see Grandpa in Bognor, while Alice visits Kerry.

Talking to the Vietnamese government about the internet in Hannoi. Showing them pictures of Stanley and the allotment.

Three on three football match in the back garden. Hamish, Stanley and Sam v Joseph, Gavin and me. Hamish scores the winning goal.

Two player Fifa career mode with Stanley, as Dortmund. Gareth Bale scoring the winner in the Champions League semi final.

Villa degli Dei in Nocelle with Alice, having bread and jam and coffee in the morning, with a Joe Sacco book.

Walking to the Ritzy with Alice, drinking a bottle of Becks in the bar before a film.

Wandering through the red light district in Amsterdam with Stanley.

Watching a cricket match sat on a bench at Kimberley (or anywhere) with the sun on my face and tightly cut grass under my feet.

Watching Sperts Porsonality of the Year and getting a text from Matt Jaffa about the length of the applause.

Water fight on the last day of school. Getting Stanley from the top window in Martell Road. Later, being careful not to get Hamish too much in Murray Crescent.

Working an evening shift at The Lavender. Poppy comes in on her way back to Oval after a shift at Oddbins.

Wrestling with Stanley on his bed in West Norwood. Him doing the “ABERDEEN” move.

Stanley writes well about football.

Then the moment came, in the dying seconds of the game, Franca burst forward down the right hand side, and floated a ball just over Mateta, who didn’t give up, chased Bernado Silva, who had tormented us all game, and robbed him of possession, a scrap ensued, Ozoh was initially tackled inside the area, but the ball ran loose, and Mateta once again gallivanted on to it, sticking out a leg and getting to it before Phil Foden, who before he could realise what was happening, had tripped Mateta, sending our big lump of chaos flying.

Low expectations, frustration and uncontrolled jubilation: Manchester City 2-2 Crystal Palace, from the away end