Further to my two previous announcements here and here, I am excited to tell you that my heart surgeon gives me and my heart a clean bill of health. After consulting various medical tests and a personal examination, he concludes everything is progressing well. I will continue to be monitored by cardiac doctors and nurses. My medication has to be adjusted (easy). I need to exercise more (not so). Otherwise, I am free to continue living my life. While this is welcome news, I continue to recuperate. My energy levels are improving, but they are not where they ought to be. Well, I won’t bore you with further personal details.

This accomplishment is all the more remarkable given that it is only nine weeks ago that I collapsed unconscious in the street as I walked to my office one morning. I am grateful to the National Health Service (NHS) and how quickly it diagnosed my condition of a failing heart valve I was born with and arranged for me to have the surgery to replace it. It is the recuperation from open-heart surgery and the medication that’s taking the time.

The NHS is not without its faults and challenges. Nonetheless, I am full of admiration for its ethos and its organisation. Moreover, the people I met who work in the NHS were professional, knowledgeable, courteous, and compassionate. I will always defend the NHS and work to elect Labour governments. The NHS was their vision. Only Labour understands why its work must continue unhindered.

My goal is to spend the remainder of August recuperating at home. I plan to return to my office in September, starting with a few days a week and increasing my attendance from there. My focus will be writing the biography of Topsy the elephant and preserving the history of the animal rights movement. I am truly grateful for all the many kind thoughts and get-well messages I received. I am not able to answer each one but please know they made all the difference to me.