Sleep walking no joke

Oct 12 2008 by Alan Ross, Magic 1170

FIRST things first, apologies to everyone campaigning for the NHS Accident and Emergency Department to remain open at the practically brand new hospital in Bishop Auckland.

I mentioned this in last week’s column, except that I had a brain storm and moved it a few miles down the road to Barnard Castle. Ooops!

A few weeks ago in the Sunday Sun, you may remember Pauline Holt’s front-page article featuring the mother of one of the Deepcut victims.

I think Geoff Gray’s mother Diane must have had the sympathy of just about everyone who read it.

Not only is she having to deal with trying to find out exactly what happened to her son, but the stress has led her to sleepwalk, at risk of injury or worse.

She has fallen repeatedly during these somnabulations, visited a park across the road from her house and even cooked a meal without having any recollection.

Sleepwalking is one of those conditions which the media, particularly television and movies seem to think is a heck of a laugh.

And you can see why . . . it does have a lot of comic potential. There are few situation comedies where you can’t imagine a sleepwalking episode not being greeted with gales of laughter.

However, as Diane Gray knows, the reality is anything but amusing. The little I know about it from personal experience goes back nearly 20 years ago when I had my one and only sleepwalking experience.

It was relatively mild and straightforward, but it shook me up at the time and still does, thinking about it now.

I was in the middle of launching a new radio station to cover most of Yorkshire and there was the usual bad panic about a fortnight before.

I returned to my two-bedroom house. I went to sleep in the bedroom I usually used, and woke up in the other one, having no idea how I’d got there.

I’d negotiated a three-step mini-landing to make my way from one to the other and could easily have toppled straight down into the hall.

I have no recollection of what I did, or why I did it. My doctor told me that stress is the usual reason. Thank God it has never happened since. Diane’s been referred to Guy’s Hospital in London . . . I hope they can help.