The First Time I held A Man's Hand

Over the last few weeks I have been clearing out unwanted things from the cottage
Its been a therapeutic exercise as de-cluttering always is.
Last week I came across this old paperback book

Written in ink on the dedication page was a name
I shall share the name as James Kent
It wasn't the real name written in careful neat writing.

I remember James Kent well. A strapping and ruddy faced twenty something Yorkshireman who suffered a devastating mental health breakdown seemingly out of the blue' He was admitted to our Psychiatric ward acutely distressed and seemingly psychotic after becoming unwell whilst working in a family business event . The suddenness and severity of his condition suggested a potential drug cause for the symptoms we were seeing, but he responded well to medication which allowed him to rest ( both physically and mentally) and within a few days of hiding away under the covers of his side room bed, he suddenly seemed back to his "normal" self much to the relief of his parents and two younger sisters. He denied drug use vehemently  and seemed happy in going home a week after he was admitted.
James and I were roughly the same age, I was perhaps three years older and because we got on in friendly terms the ward manager suggested I continued to see James "for a supportive chat" every week or so after he was eventually discharged. In hindsight I now suspect that that she had an inkling something more was going on under the surface and that by seeing me, a junior and inexperienced but totally nonthreatening nurse, things may be unearthed.

and that's exactly what happened.

On his second or third visit James brought along a mental health self help book with him. He told me he was trying to understand what had happened to him but the book was written by a journalist and although pragmatic and "common sense" in nature the book proved to be of little help to a young man trying to make sense of something that seemed profoundly unreal and frightening for him.
He gave me the book as a gift when he left that session

James' next visit was the difficult one. He was sullen and quiet and tearful. A family party had ended badly for him and he had gotten into a fight with his mother who had suggested that he leave the family home to live with an uncle who also worked in the family firm.
It was this family spat that precipitated this crisis
I had no experience of the devastating effects childhood sexual abuse has on any individual, for I was but a junior nurse, but in front of me, this young man spilled his guts that his uncle had abused him for years from the age of seven or eight.
I was totally and utterly out of my depth, as I  had never heard such terrible things in my naïve 24 year old life, but I went with things and let him vomit away the pain for the very first time and as he did so I held his cold, thick wristed hand as my grandfather would have done if I had cried so deeply.
He cried for an absolute age

I saw James just once more after this meeting and it was when "I handed him over" to the psychologist who took over with his much needed therapy. James was pale but managed a smile and afterwards the ward manager debriefed me in her office where I said I was "just fine"
but this was the 1980s and I had absolutely no training in this area whatsoever

I remember walking home to my flat in Acomb from the central York hospital. I walked alongside the river Ouze for a while, next to the houses which had their flood gates locked against potential flooding.

and I had a long grown up cry