Family of Michael Mosley pay tribute to TV doctor on anniversary of his death
Dr Clare Bailey Mosley, his widow, shared memories of his warmth, laughter, curiosity, and love for his family, noting the past year has been the hardest of their lives.
Dr Mosley went missing after setting off for a walk on 5 June, 2024, from St Nicholas beach, without his phone, intending to meet friends at their villa.
A four-day rescue operation ensued, and his body was found on 9 June, a few hundred metres from Agia Marina beach bar.
Investigations revealed that Dr. Mosley missed his turn-off, fell down a rocky mountain path, and died two hours after leaving his wife.
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The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
I spent my childhood in and out of hospital. At 19, I finally realised I had a terminal disease
Yvonne Hughes was 19, and attending the funeral of a friend with cystic fibrosis, when she realised: 'Oh shit, I'm going to die of this.' She had met him during shared hospital stays in childhood, and although Hughes had always known she had CF, she had never understood her illness as terminal until that day in 1992, when she stood at the back of the crowded chapel in Glasgow. For three days afterwards, she couldn't stop crying. 'I had a kind of meltdown. That's probably the first time I thought that this thing I had was going to kill me.' Over the next few months, Hughes, who was studying at the University of Glasgow, listened to her mum, dad and older sister chatting during family meals as if she was a ghost at the table. 'I pulled back from them. I deliberately didn't talk or include myself,' she says. 'I wanted them to get used to sitting and chatting without me, so that when I died, they wouldn't notice I wasn't there.' It's a harrowing responsibility for a teenager to take, but self-erasure must have felt like a way to pre-empt death, perhaps to resist it. When she was growing up, cystic fibrosis was considered 'a childhood disease' – because about half of those diagnosed did not survive their teens. A genetic condition in which the body creates thick, sticky mucus, it makes digestion difficult, damages lung function and can lead to respiratory failure. It affects about 160,000 people globally. Now 52, and enjoying what she calls a 'second chance' at life more than 30 years later, Hughes has emerged as a comedian. We are speaking on a video call before her one-hour show, Absolutely Riddled, which she is performing at the Edinburgh fringe, based on her experiences of living with the condition. 'I want to be true to myself and my story,' she says. Why does she think she survived when so many didn't? For most of her childhood, Hughes, who works as a community development worker in Renfrewshire, didn't regard herself as struggling for survival. Her parents didn't sit her down in childhood to explain her illness; she had been diagnosed at six weeks old. But there were hospital visits and tablets and eating often made her vomit. Gradually, she says, she 'put together those two words, cystic and fibrosis, with something that I had'. At school, she kept her illness hidden, taking her medication at home. She was popular; joined the Brownies, then Guides. 'I'm a very level-headed person, but I keep a lot in my mind. I remember when I was younger thinking: 'There's no point telling people about this because everyone is dealing with something. I'm nothing special.' I just got on with it.' Roughly one in every 2,500 people are born with cystic fibrosis in the UK, Australia and the US. Hughes's older sister does not have the illness and the family had no idea what it meant for their lives, or for Hughes herself. Only as she grew older did Hughes build a sense of the precariousness of her life. 'My mum said to me: 'We thought you were going to die, every day. We just didn't know.' It became their new normal to keep me alive.' If she got a chest infection, pleurisy or pneumonia, she would go into hospital, and over the years made friends on the CF ward, a fragile community. When the curtains were closed around a bed for a long time, Hughes and the other children knew not to go past. She reasoned with herself, to allay her fears: 'People were dying around me but I put it down to: 'Maybe they had a really bad infection, maybe they were worse than me.'' In childhood, she developed 'a lot of level-headed thought processes around why those people died'. She found solace in the Cystic Fibrosis Trust magazine, and dreamed of attending one of the advertised camps. 'Luckily, I didn't,' she says, because in the early 1990s, scientists discovered that the camps were a hotbed for the spread of bacteria, present in the lungs and phlegm of children with CF. Many cross-infected each other, some with fatal consequences. Did Hughes struggle to accept that sense of herself, as both vulnerable and a threat? 'Absolutely,' she says. Hospitals implemented a policy of segregation, according to bacteria carried. Hughes has the pseudomonas bacteria, and after her friend's funeral in 1992, she stopped seeing people with cystic fibrosis in case they had different bacteria or bugs that might lead to cross-infection. She has stayed in touch by phone with one old friend. 'We shared growing up in the hospital ward and I do love speaking to him.' But after that funeral, 'I became reckless,' she says. 'I thought: 'Well, life's for living. I'm just going to do what I want.' I didn't care very much for myself. I thought: 'What's the point?' I spiralled.' Her 20s and 30s passed in a blur of 'festivals, partying, travelling when I could, flying by the seat of my pants … ' She had hoped to meet someone, and to have children. 'I thought it would happen. And it never did.' In her 30s, her lung function got so low – 45%, then 36% – that she wouldn't have been able to sustain a pregnancy anyway. 'That was something I tried to grieve. But over the course of a year, I thought: 'I'd rather be alive.' My mantra became: 'I'd rather have a full and short life than a long and unhappy one.' These kinds of philosophical things got me through.' Hughes doesn't have a mantra now – 'other than trying to be funny'. The frequency of her performances range from three times a week to every few weeks, depending on her health needs. But even in her reckless phase, she embodied a stoicism, too. She worked throughout – at a call centre, a radio station, the CF Trust. 'I just had to keep going, pay my bills and mortgage.' Did she ever wonder: 'Why me?' She has had years of spitting out and swallowing mucus – 'constant, constant' – hankies everywhere, non-stop sterilising of stuff, endless medication and pain, unable to take the next breath for granted. As a child, when she went into hospital, there was a faint sense of privilege at being given Lucozade and new slippers, things her sister didn't get. But no one else in her family has the illness. Didn't she feel aggrieved? 'It's a difficult question,' she says. 'I've thought about 'Why me?' in a positive sense – that it was me because I could handle it. Or, I'm glad … because this has made me the way I am.' She has also thought, 'Why at all? Why did cystic fibrosis come into being? Why have this weird disease that just kind of ruins lives?' While Hughes survived childhood by reminding herself that she wasn't special, the differences between her life and others' sharpened as she entered her 40s. She became an aunt, and bore close witness to her peers' life transitions while she kept on being 'just Yvonne – the one that never reached any potential'. 'I couldn't have a career because I would always get ill. I never moved social class. I always remained working class.' Her dad was a welder, her mother a GP receptionist. 'Everything I did, I did myself. But it was day by day, week by week. There was never a plan. I always felt I could never get ahead of myself.' In 2018, aged 45, with deteriorating health, Hughes took redundancy from her job as public affairs officer at the CF Trust. Eating was difficult. Her weight hovered around 7 stone. She braced herself for the possibility of a lung transplant, but as her lung capacity dropped to 30%, she was deemed too ill for the waiting list. 'I was like: 'OK, that door's closed. At this point, there isn't anything else on the horizon to keep me alive.'' She completed an end-of-life form, and met the palliative care team. She thought: 'I'll see my days out with my parents, make memories and know I did well to get to 48.' Then, in 2020, the UK government granted access to a new drug, Kaftrio. Hughes had read about its worldwide trials. When the delivery driver knocked on the door, she told him: 'You're going to save my life.' At that point, her lung function was down to 26%. Within an hour or two of the first tablet, she started coughing. 'They call it the purge,' she says. There was so much mucus – dark, watery and horribly fascinating – she captured it in a cup, put a lid on it, and stowed it in a drawer in her bedroom. 'I kept that cup for a long time,' she says. Maybe she already knew it was a relic. The Kaftrio turned Hughes's life 'a whole 180, literally overnight'. There are side-effects – insomnia, weight gain, which have brought other challenges – but before long, she says, 'I could breathe again without coughing. I went back to work within the year. I could run, I could dance, I could speak, I could stand up straight and cook. I used to always be bent over, catching my breath. And then all of a sudden that was gone. It was a miracle.' Energised, she decided to enrol in an evening course. Acrylic painting, maybe, or playing the keyboard? But at the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Lifelong Learning, it was the flyer for comedy that caught her eye. 'I had always loved going to gigs. Something clicked and I enrolled.' She performed a five-minute set for the course finale – and immediately wanted to do it again. 'I started applying for clubs, Monkey Barrel and the Stand Comedy Club [both in Edinburgh]. I got Red Raw [the Stand's beginners' slot] and went from there. I want to change my life,' she says, 'and I am doing comedy to see if I can change my life.' Nearly four years ago, Hughes met her partner, Alan, online. Having spent a lifetime feeling unable 'to rely on a future', she has had to learn to picture one – and to override her old instinct to absent herself to mitigate later losses. Sometimes, this means catching herself in the act of 'pulling back' from Alan, and letting the pleasure she takes in his company teach her to quiet her mind. Life now is so different, it requires a conscious effort to remember how hard it was from one moment to the next. 'I used to breathe so shallowly that I had to take a – haa! – sharp intake of breath – to feel I was breathing,' she says. The sound punctuated even the simplest actions – after getting into a car, for instance, after reaching for her seatbelt, after pulling it across her, after fastening it. 'Now I can get in the car, pull the seatbelt over and go. I can walk and talk. I can laugh without wetting myself or going into a convulsion of coughing, pulling a muscle or breaking a rib,' she says. 'It is a horrible, horrible disease. It suffocates you. It takes every inch of your breath away. And now it is something I can live with and not die from. I'll probably live to get my pension.' Comedy has brought 'fun, joy and laughter' back into Hughes's life. But it has also given her something that nothing else has. 'I had never found anything for me in my life. I'd never married. I had no children. So I had no community. Nothing,' she says. 'There were people getting their careers and their lives sorted. Comedy was the one thing that was for me. And it still is. Just for me.' Yvonne Hughes: Absolutely Riddled is at Snug at Gilded Balloon Patter House, Edinburgh, until 15 August
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Grandad, 63, choked to death on chunk of steak after medic arrived with broken defibrillator
THE family of a man who tragically died choking on a steak dinner have raised concerns over a volunteer medic sent to save his life. They claim the medic responded to the urgent emergency call with faulty equipment. Paul Barnes, 63, tragically passed away at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in March after choking on a steak a week earlier. He was hailed as a "legend" by locals in East Harling where he was living with his daughter-in-law and three-year-old granddaughter. His family have now raised concerns after the first person to arrive at the scene of Paul's choking episode was a community first responder with a broken defibrillator. An inquest into Paul's tragic death has since heard that the family were enjoying a "steak night" a tradition on Wednesdays, when the horror unfolded. The court heard Paul was found unresponsive and "grey in the face" after choking on his steak. Emergency services were immediately scrambled and found a two-inch long piece of steak lodged deep in his throat. At this point Paul had gone into cardiac arrest, he was rushed to hospital but was placed into palliative care. The first on scene, a community responder from the Norfolk Accident and Rescue Service charity, arrived with a broken defibrillator. The responder then asked a member of Paul's family to drive to the nearest fire station to ask to borrow theirs, which he promptly did. It then emerged that Paul did not have a shockable heart rhythm, which meant the equipment was not required. The inquest into his death concluded that he had died an accidental death. 1
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
The truth behind ex-vegan influencers now selling organ meat supplements
Another day, another wellness influencer on social media telling me I should be rubbing tallow on my face. We're in a strange era, because for all the medical-grade skincare I'm being told I should use by doctors online, there'll be another post featuring a woman in a floral dress slathering clarified animal fat onto her face and telling me to eat raw beef. 'Pure' animal products are a booming business. I see hundreds of animal-based diets and animal-based skincare routines being pushed to me every week. They have titles like 'what I eat in a day' and 'how I balanced my hormones', but the content is all the same. These influencers are eating meat and dairy, often raw, and telling us that 'straight from the farm' is the best way to support our health. If you cast your mind back to the early noughties, the big message was plant-based everything was the healthiest way to live. Clean, green beauty products were in, and recipes were more raw vegan than raw milk. So why are popular influencers now promoting organ meat supplements, carnivore diets and raw dairy products in place of tofu, courgetti and quinoa? And why did they flip the script so willingly? Registered clinical nutritionist Claire Johnson says: 'Good nutrition advice should be grounded in scientific evidence and high-quality research, so it's worrying to see that dietary trends can move as quickly as fashion. Post-pandemic, there seems to have been a notable shift from aesthetically pleasing and 'instagramable' vegetables and veganism, to hyper-masculine, meat -heavy, ancestral carnivore diets.' Johnson explains that her concern isn't just the extremity of these diets – which claim to improve 'mental clarity, benefit weight loss and reduce inflammation' – but how influential they've become among their online communities, despite lacking scientific credibility. More often that not, their arguments are almost entirely anecdotal. 'These all-or-nothing dietary patterns are being used as an engagement tool to cultivate community, followers and a sense of identity, rather than being rooted in scientific evidence,' continues Johnson. 'Many influencers will present themselves as experts and point to 'the science' about diet and nutrition without providing such evidence. And when studies are provided, data is often lifted out of context. Studies might also be sponsored by brands or contain a very small sample size.' I was a vegan for almost a decade and now, I eat chicken and fish and drink kefir, so I'm well aware of how personal needs and choices we make when it comes to our health can change with time – of course, the same goes for influencers. However, these so-called wellness gurus with thousands-strong followings are in powerful positions. By their very nature, they sway and impact the decisions and lifestyles of their followers, and they usually profit from doing so. Which is where the conflict lies. Nutritionist Clarissa Lenherr says, 'The shift feels less like a genuine health evolution and more like a reflection of trend cycles in the wellness space. Influencers often pivot based on what's gaining traction online, and right now, we're seeing a big swing toward 'ancestral' eating, with colostrum, raw milk and organ meats becoming the new wellness buzzwords. 'That's not to say some people haven't genuinely felt better after reintroducing animal products, but the way it's packaged and promoted online often lacks context, nuance or individualisation.' Lenherr also points out that while some might genuinely believe in the dietary shifts they've made, it's important to consider why and to be wary of anecdotal evidence that lacks context. 'In many cases, people aren't necessarily going from a healthy, balanced diet to an 'ancestral' one. They're going from a diet high in ultra-processed foods to one that cuts those out. The benefits they're seeing may be less about organ meats or raw dairy, and more about the removal of excess sugar and packaged foods.' A recent report titled Nutrition Misinformation in the Digital Age revealed how just 53 high-profile super-spreaders of misinformation were able to reach over 24 million followers. Most had no formal qualifications, yet often claimed some sort of medical authority. Johnson points out that unsurprisingly, 96 per cent of these content creators had a financial incentive attached to their posts. The most common subjects identified in the report included carnivore diets, seed oils and the ills of plant-based diets. The rapid shift from pro-plant-based to pro-farmyard has occurred against the backdrop of a global political shift to the right. The rise of carnivore influencers has taken place at the same time as the rise of the Maha (Make America Healthy Again) movement and the rise in viral tradwife content. The farmyard has been presented to us as idyllic and natural, but there seems to be a subtext here – a p ipeline into right-wing ideology and a yearning for a wholesome traditional era that never really existed. Many of the influencers pushing ancestral eating are also suggesting we stop putting our faith in the likes of 'big food' and 'big pharma' – there's a political, conspiratorial and anti-establishment edge to tallow skincare and organ meat supplements and one that can't be ignored. 'I can see first-hand these growing trends, whereby high-profile influencers reject nutrition science under the guise of 'natural' living or personal truth,' says Johnson. 'But it's no longer about evidence; it's about narratives and belonging, or worse, engagement, followers and financial incentives. 'A primal fantasy is being sold that eating like a caveman can reverse modern disease and solve issues such as declining male testosterone levels. These trends are not about nutrition science. They are about identity, especially masculinity, rebellion and distrust of modernity.' 'Post-pandemic, we've seen a declining trust in institutions, and a backlash against 'mainstream' health advice. This has gone hand-in-hand with trends such as biohacking and self-optimisation. Raw liver, bone broth and unpasteurised milk are being promoted as miracle cures to world health problems. And wellness influencers have taken it upon themselves to find and share extremely specific and unfounded self-optimisation hacks and dietary patterns,' she adds. What makes it more confusing is the fact that the same influencer selling a cure-all carnivore diet now would have been touting vegan beauty products and strictly plant-based recipes just six years ago – making it difficult to ignore the financial incentive driving these so-called trends. Navigating the world of wellness on social media requires critical thinking and, there are plenty of ways information can be warped into a politically charged message or money-making schemes. For example, Lenherr confirms that while liver is one of the most nutrient-rich foods out there, high in iron, B12, vitamin A and zinc, there's very little evidence that drying and grinding up organ meats into capsules, which many influencers are now advising, gives the same nutritional benefits as actually eating liver. She explains that 'a lot of these supplements don't even list the amounts of nutrients they contain, so you have no idea if you're getting useful doses or potentially too much of something like vitamin A, which can be harmful in excess.' As for vegan vs carnivore supremacy, Lenherr says that both diets can be done well, and both can be done poorly. 'A vegan diet can support long-term health if it's well planned, with enough protein, omega-3s, B12, iron and zinc. Likewise, a more animal-focused diet might work well for some, as long as it still includes fibre, phytonutrients, and a diversity of real foods. What's 'healthier' depends on your goals, your values, your metabolism and how the diet is implemented.' In an online world which is dominated by strategic habits, bio-hacking and lifestyle identity, common sense and balance often struggle to get heard. 'Drinking raw milk and eating raw liver aren't acts of rebellion, they're risky behaviours promoted as lifestyle choices – often for likes and sales, not health outcomes,' says Johnson. If you're unsure about a piece of health, wellness or nutritional information on social media, consider this checklist before sharing the post, making any purchases or changing your habits. Is the poster transparent about whether the post is sponsored? Do they explain why they're recommending the product? Do they link to studies, rather than just mention a study or statistic? Do they mention any possible downsides or who a product or habit might not be suitable for? Do they have any relevant qualifications? Are they a registered nutritionist, dietitian, doctor, or do they have formal training in health or science? After some practice, you'll be able to work out who is merely sharing personal experience as fact, and then the unfollow button is there for the clicking.
