London - Fed up with bad news I turned the radio dial to to the BBC’s Five Live - where they were launching their Happiness Week.
People were phoning in saying what made them happy - a holiday, a walk with their dog, a new job. One woman said it was simply knowing that the people you loved were happy.
And it made me pause, as I consider myself to be something of an expert on happiness. My father always taught us to be glass half-full people. Each day as we grumbled about getting ready for school, he’d say: “It’s a great-to-be-alive day.” To which my two brothers and I would groan: “Oh Dad, you say that every day.”
He’d respond: “And your point is?”
So the early teachings of Francis Ernest Platell were that just being alive and being with people you love is the only true recipe for happiness.
For me, it’s also that first cup of strong coffee in the morning and the smile of my partner. Watching the family of blue tits outside the kitchen window. Seeing my stupid, almost entirely white cat Ted trying to camouflage himself in the garden’s greenery ready to pounce on marauding squirrels. Having family and friends you’d take a bullet for and they for you. The ordinary things, such as a phone call ending with: “Love you lots, see you soon.”
And, in my case, as I live so far away from my parents in Perth, Australia, the moment I walk through the front door of our family home and see Mom and Dad’s beaming, slightly teary smiles.
There was a time when happiness for me meant a glamorous new boyfriend, a promotion and arriving home laden down with bags full of new frocks.
Now I’m older - 57 - one of my greatest joys is Mom saying my name. Despite her Alzheimer’s, I’m one of the few she still remembers. We share a lot of silly jokes to which she responds, giggling her head off: “Mandy, you are a dreadful daughter.”
Two key words there, “Mandy” and “daughter”, mean the world to me.
Next on my list would be a big bear hug from Dad. I’m also lucky that I still have them, with Mom aged 87 and Dad 89.
Dad is the Platell Rock of Gibraltar. Everything is built on his steadiness and strength and ability to see the best in any situation.
So the day after Nicky Campbell’s phone-in, when I received a text from my brother Cameron in Australia saying “Hi, Mandy. Can you give me a call”, my heart sank.
I’ve inherited Dad’s optimism gene and am never one to catastrophise, but I knew this was out of the ordinary. I knew something was wrong.
I called him and he explained that despite my father being given the all clear by doctors five weeks ago for a routine check for skin cancer, an aggressive melanoma had grown to the size of a Malteser on his right forearm since.
He’d just had it removed that morning but the doctors had said the prognosis was not good. If a virulent cancer could grow from nothing in a few weeks, it was likely it may have spread to other areas of his body, especially at his age.
It didn’t help that news had just broken that former US President Jimmy Carter, 90, had been diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to his brain.
As Dad was asleep after the operation, I couldn’t call him immediately as I so desperately wanted. So I walked to the nearest pub and ordered a double gin and tonic. Dad, a lifelong enthusiastic drinker, would have been proud.
I was numb with shock. A friend from my church walked by, saw I was distressed and joined me. After I told him the news, he reminded me of a sermon Father Paul had given about Jesus fishing with his disciples.
He said that while Christ was our anchor, he was also in the boat with us when troubles struck, sharing our pain and worry, helping us to lift the load. I took great comfort from that.
I went home and had to wait until 1am - 8am in Perth - before I could call Dad. I pretended I’d been out late at a party as I didn’t want him to know I was worried.
Dad was his normal cheerful self, reassuring me that it was all nothing - he just needed a few tests.
So we carried on with our cheerful charade. He would have expected nothing less.
But I knew his first concern would be about Mom. She has a small army of carers each day, but in reality Dad is her primary carer. He’s the one who dresses her, prepares her meals, makes sure she takes her pills and fills her hot-water bottles each night.
Dad’s full body scan was booked for Friday at 10am - 3am my time. The next few days were a sickening blur. I didn’t panic, I tried to be practical and optimistic. I am, after all, my father’s daughter.
I reserved a flight home for the weekend, packed my bag, waited and prayed. I went to work, though being Amanda Platell was tough when all I wanted to do was stay in bed and cry.
If anything happened to Dad, our family’s world would fall apart. Especially Mom’s.
I couldn’t stop thinking of the last time I’d seen Dad, just eight weeks ago when he’d hugged me as I set off for London.
He has several traditional parting words: “Au revoir”, “Adios amigo” (the only words he can speak in a foreign language) or his favourite: “See ya.”
Different words, yet each with the same meaning: his abiding sentiment that we would meet again soon.
That’s what he said that Tuesday night as he waited for the scan: “See ya.” Now I was paralysed with the fear I never would, except with him in a hospital bed or worse.
Wednesday and Thursday went in a blur. I got to bed about 11pm on Thursday, having worked on my column all day. All I wanted to do was jump on a flight.
But I knew Dad would not approve of such drama. A journalist who retired at 80 and who takes great pride in me carrying on the family tradition, he would have told me not to be so silly.
At 3am on Friday morning, the very time Dad was having the scan, I woke bolt upright after a terrible nightmare, my heart pounding. Knowing he was in that machine at that moment, I just prayed.
There was no way I could sleep, so I showered, dressed and double checked my passport was in my bag.
At 6.20am I got a text from my niece Ari, who calls her grandfather Poppy and who had taken Dad to the hospital. It read: “Poppy’s scan all clear, cancer hasn’t spread. Yah!!!!”
I called home and spoke to Dad. He admitted then that he had been worried sick, having been told an aggressive melanoma cancer that spreads is incurable.
He also confessed that having got the all clear, he’d raided my secret stash of Moet in my wardrobe at home and had put some in the fridge to celebrate later.
As they popped the cork in Perth, so did I, in London.
That Friday morning I was again listening to Nicky Campbell as he wrapped up his Happiness Week. So overjoyed was I with my news that I called Five Live. Happiness for me, I said, was eight little words sent by text from halfway across the world.
Daily Mail