It was a couple of days before Christmas and I popped into my surgery for my regular blood pressure test.

The waiting room was heaving with a motley crew of coughing, sneezing and wheezing humanity.

‘You know that we are doing the Flu jab at the moment and at your age, Mr Ward, we strongly recommend that you have it’

Instantly I was offended by this approach- let’s be fair, I had just walked into this building without a hint of a cold, unlike the many ‘wheezers’ half my age who were demanding GP’s valuable time. My age, indeed!

However, the rational part of my brain could see the benefits of the suggestion and within minutes I was sitting in a tiny cubicle with my left shirt sleeve rolled up in anticipation of my jab. Suddenly what I had seen as a medical clinic transformed in front of my eyes and in an instant turned into a medical version of a Tesco Express.

My nurse rushed into my cubicle with the smile of a mobile phone salesperson  exuding delight in her ‘buy one, get one free’ offering.

‘I’ve just checked the computer and I see that you qualify for the offer of Pneumonia Injection, and I can do it for you now, if you like?’

And the ‘killer close’ was the fact that, unlike the Flu jab, which needs to be renewed every year, the Pneumonia injection is a once in a lifetime offer – a benefit for life! I was sold and proceeded to roll up my right shirt sleeve.

Ten minutes later I walked through my front door a new man. I felt like a man doing his bit to keep NHS costs down. I felt like a man staying one jump ahead of those pesky bugs. I felt like a man with a lifetime of immunity. I felt like a man with two very sore arms. The wife would have to make the tea for the next few days, that was certain!

Christmas Day was a joy, as was Boxing Day but we then had another phoney Boxing Day on the Monday and I think it was this unusual event that disturbed my body’s equilibrium. By that evening I was full of a hacking cough and a head full of cold. My eyes were streaming along with my nose whilst my ears constantly switched between total deafness to something akin to a full orchestra playing in my eustacian tubes! My ability to breathe, my ability to sleep properly and my ability to function at any level seeped away from me. Indeed on a couple of occasions I was convinced that my inability to breathe at night was more to do with the pillow my wife was holding over my face than the phlegm drowning my airways. Her mitigation was that, on the rare moments that I was able to fall asleep, my snoring was like having a chainsaw carving up the bed beside her! I’m not entirely sure how strong a defence this would be in a court of law, if I’m honest but it never got tested.

A full six weeks from my previous visit and I found myself back in my GP’s surgery, but This time I was amongst the coughers, sneezers and wheezers. My temperature was up, along with my bile and my mucus. When I finally got in front of my doctor I couldn’t help but let rip about how I had been let down by the system, how I had been encouraged to imagine that I was now immune to all forms of infirmity, and here I stood a wreck of a germ-ridden individual!

Suddenly I was no longer in the NHS environment, nor even  Tesco Express, but in a back street second-hand car dealers, or the call centre for National Rail following a spate of train cancellations because of the wrong leaves, wrong colour snow or the wrong trajectory of the sun.

Apparently, my miracle medication relied upon a very specific set of circumstances to be viable. I have never before seen a GP invoke ‘caveat emptor’ and the rest of his explanation could have been delivered by Arthur Daly as easily in his enormous sheepskin coat:

‘See, yer problem, my son, is that you caught last year’s flu but we covered you for this year’s  version. Different animal, entirely, son. It’s like treating a cat with horse medicine. Mind you, look on the bright side: the way your body works, you should be OK next year! Then, of course, you’ve picked up viral bronchitis; different again from yer pneumonia virus. With the injection you had, it was like we gave you an anorak when what you needed was a facemask. Who knew? What can I say? My best advice to you, mate, is don’t bother with a Lottery ticket this week. You will get last week’s numbers, knowing your luck!’