Andy Johnson: A Personal Memoir.

 

For Charlotte, Alex and Arabella.

Part 1: The Easy Part

I have had Andy’s memoir scripted in my head for some time now. But I seem to have a form of ‘output paralysis’ that is acting to inhibit me from putting finger to keyboard. This, I think, is because seeing the written word makes it scarily real-Andy really is no longer with us. Time for me to face reality-here goes.

I first met Andy in October 2003 when he was a bright-eyed (and bright) final year undergraduate at Cardiff University. I never fully understood the School’s procedure for assigning final-year project students to members of staff, but as luck would have it, Andy was assigned to me. My habit in those days was to check each student’s academic profile, to see what I might reasonably expect. The first thing I noted was that Andy had transferred out of his Law studies at King’s in London after 18 months. Quite rightly, he had deduced that life in a grey suit was not for him. The second thing I noted was that Andy was an excellent undergraduate-1sts all the way, bar one minor blemish in Social Psychology. Well, you can forgive a man for that. I spent my undergraduate career arguing that all of Social Psychology could be interpreted within the novels of Jane Austin. That probably explains why, for that module, I managed to scrape 37% in my finals.

Andy very quickly proved himself to be a formidably able research student. You know the type-he’d worked out the 2nd experiment before I’d fully got to grips with 1st one. Fantastic! In those early days, Andy had the (misguided) ambition to train as a Clinical Psychologist. I worked very hard (selfishly) to dissuade him of this ambition, and fortunately, was successful. After obtaining a top 1st and postgraduate funding from the Medical Research Council, we were off. Three years of fun and experiments followed. Andy fizzing with ideas, me, always a step behind, trying to keep up! I remember sitting in my office one afternoon reading a recently published paper on the topic of ‘Chewing Gum and Memory’ written by an esteemed (now FRS, no less) colleague at Cardiff. I decided it was a rather poor study-the design was inadequate, the analysis of data similarly inadequate, and I didn’t think the results reliable. I immediately emailed Andy and suggested we embark on a series of ‘Sunday Afternoon’ studies looking at chewing gum and its possible effects on cognition. Of course, he agreed, and ably assisted by Georgie Powell (a summer research student) we completed a whole range of studies (alongside Andy’s primary PhD work) which resulted in some dozen publications. The obsession that Universities of today have with ‘Impact Statements’ meant that this ‘research hobby’ received more media attention than any of our ‘proper research’ ever did. (As an aside, my daughter is in the 3rd year of her own PhD exploring the role of trauma in the novels of Nabokov. Good luck with your Impact Statement, eh?). Nevertheless, from that first meeting, there followed a 20-year collaboration that produced, and I’ve just counted them, 30 publications, with a couple more in the pipeline. Andy soon learned not to take it personally when reviewers dismissed our work as ‘frivolous’ or ‘not sufficiently mainstream’ or ‘lacking an extant theoretical framework’ (of course it occasionally lacked an extant theoretical framework-we were pushing the boundaries and took pride in following the path less trodden!!). We stuck to Cromwell’s maxim ‘consider the possibility that you may be mistaken’, and our work was never dismissed as ‘poor science’. At this juncture, I should like to thank Geoff Ward and Mike Page. You were both generous enough to review several of our manuscripts. Your thoughtful guidance and gentle encouragement, I am sure, made us both better researchers.

Of course, like the rest of us, Andy was a flawed human being. He insisted on arguing that the Smiths were the GOAT. Come on, man! Zappa, Dylan, Neil Young-they could each make equal claim to that accolade, surely?! Notwithstanding our differing views regarding GOAT, we did bond over 2 albums in particular: Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ and Nick Cave’s ‘Pushing Back the Sky’, both are very fine albums. If any of you folk reading this are not familiar with them, then I urge you to give them a spin. Each will transport you to a better place, where you might, just might, catch a glimpse of Andy.

A final memory. In our time at Cardiff, it was not unusual for me to bump into Andy and his pals training in the gym. I used to pop into the gym after my run. Andy, together with his pals, took great pleasure in observing my efforts to lift a weight, let alone attempt a repetition. ‘Stick to your running, mate. This is hardcore!’. Indeed, it was, and yes, I guess Andy was right.

 

Part 2: The Hard Bit

I remember with great clarity the day in the summer of 2021 that Andy ‘phoned me to say that he had received a diagnosis that was ‘highly probably’ pancreatic cancer. For a moment, my reality shifted on its axis. The 5-year survival figures for pancreatic cancer are appalling low-this was vey serious news. During that call I made a pact with Andy that I would be with him, to support him, for every step of the journey ahead-regardless of where that journey might go, or where it might end. So, from that day on we spoke by ‘phone just about every week-normally on a Friday, occasionally on a Monday. I did my best to support Andy as he endured fortnightly chemotherapy treatments for 6 months. Throughout Andy was, well, Andy. He never complained about his lot-he only felt sorry that he was putting Charlotte and the children through hell. During his calls he would recite, with his usual dry humour, snippets of conversation he had overheard at his latest visit to the ‘poison clinic’.

Because Andy was young, fit and strong, he tolerated the treatment remarkably well. A side effect of the chemotherapy is that it acts to destroy the immune system, and so he was extremely vulnerable to any type of infection. Any evidence of COVID in his children’s school, and he was confined to the bedroom for 10 days. This meant that there was absolutely NO interaction with his family. Meals were left outside the bedroom door. If Andy wanted to sit in the garden or go for a walk, he had to ‘phone Charlotte so that the family could leave the house before he emerged.

The plan was that the chemotherapy would shrink the tumour sufficiently for it be removed and allow Andy ‘to get on with his life’. All seemed to be going to plan. Andy was booked in for surgery with a very experienced team in Southampton. But it was not to be. The operation did not go ahead because small, secondary tumours (not picked by the MRI scan) were apparent. After some weeks recovering from the surgery, Andy was put on a further chemotherapy programme to control the spread of the tumour. Andy now had incurable cancer, and we all knew this was the endgame. Again, Andy was stoical throughout, but as the pain and discomfort increased, along with the morphine dose required, Andy booked himself into a hospice. There, he received outstanding palliative care from the staff. Close to his home, family and friends visited regularly. We had some very personal conversations during Andy’s final weeks. We explored the human condition, what it means to be dying, and what might be on ‘the other side’. My final ‘phone conversation with Andy was Monday 4th September and we agreed to speak the following Monday. We knew then that the train Andy was on was travelling, rapidly, to a single destination, and there was no getting off. Tragically, that conversation never took place- Andy died, peacefully, on Monday 11th September-he was just 42yrs of age. Charlotte, thankyou so, so much for finding the strength to tell me that Andy had died. How you managed to articulate those words is quite beyond me. You and the children were at the absolute centre of Andy’s universe.

I was in Cornwall when Andy died. The following day I took an early morning walk to a quiet, secluded beach. There, I sat in the early autumn sunshine and had my last conversation with Andy. I thanked him for his unwavering support and friendship, and we said goodbye. I picked up Andy’s spirit, folded it, and placed it carefully in my pocket, where it shall remain,

For me, it was an enormous privilege to have known Andy as both a colleague and friend for the last 20 years. He was a very fine academic but, more importantly, he was an even finer human being-he is, and will be, greatly missed.

‘Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.’

 

Take it easy, buddy. But take it.

Your old mate, Chris.

 

NB I think some folk reading this might regard it as a little self-indulgent.  But hey, who cares? I have done my best, and Andy was my mate!