I have suffered from Type 1 diabetes since the age of 13 in 1980. At the time my father advised me that it would not stop me from getting a good education and a good office based job. I wanted to play rugby, do the things boys do and maybe one day become a lorry driver.

After complaining of feeling unwell after a school day trip to Stratford to see Merchant of Venice…(I've since heard of others feeling unwell after watching this!) …I spent the next day at home in bed with as much lemonade as I could drink. The doctor came to visit that afternoon and I went to hospital that evening to be balanced.
At 13 I was too old for the children's ward. I spent a week on the adult ward next to theatre. I remember one patient was a publican and his staff would visit him after pub closing time. They would enter via the fire escape and leave him bottles of spirit. Two guys died on the ward, he was one of them. A week later I went home. My first night I asked my parents to wake me up the following morning…I was terrified that I might not make it through the night.

Back then testing blood for sugar meant sending a sample off to hospital and waiting to hear back for the results. When home kits came in they were expensive well over £100 or so in today's money. The hospital clinic only gave them to people who could not control their bloods. Syringes were glass and metal and had to be boiled frequently. Needles were blunt and a wide gauge and were frequently used for a month at a time. When disposables came in although they said use once on the packet my diabetes clinic advised me to reuse at least twice. The 20 40 strength insulins that I was on back then are still around but I believe are being phased out. So much has changed….
…yet so much has stayed the same. Judith Campbell the diabetes nurse in my support crew, lent me an excellent book RAGNAR HANAS when I passed it back I thought she might be interested in the book I had bought from the BDA all those years ago. To my surprise the answers are all there if you looked.