Forty years ago, during the baking “long hot summer” immortalised by the Style Council’s song of the same name, my teenage body started to undergo a mysterious, unwelcome and life-upending transformation. I’d just finished my O-levels: as a treat my mother took me to Paris for a holiday.
One morning during our trip, I couldn’t get out of bed. My body felt as if it were pinned to the mattress by lead weights. There was also an unusual swelling forming at the front of my neck. My mother was concerned, and when the fatigue didn’t pass on our return home to Sheffield, she took me to the GP for a blood test.
