144 – The Cancellation Prize: 11 January 2025

This photo shows the complete list of friends who came to wish us Happy Christmas on 25 December 2021.  

Margaret's sister Maurine Redden had visited me in hospital and given me the three stuffed toys.  Our 2021 Christmas was extremely dismal.

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Before getting home after my final hospitalisation on 15 July, my mind was very focused just on staying alive.  I knew Margaret had incurable cancer, but she had been granted a miraculous reprieve from death in March 2021.  I hoped this meant her death sentence had been removed.  I was wrong in thinking this, but in July and August 2021, I was unaware just how wrong I was.

Once I got home and my health began to steadily improve, I became more observant of things that were happening in our lives apart from Margaret's cancer and my own health.

When she told me on 8 February that she was severing all ties of friendship with me, Anne Ryan pointedly said that even though she was terminating her friendship with me, she “hoped she could remain friends with Margaret”.  I did not process this statement at that time because I had difficulty digesting my own cancellation. 

By August 2021, I began to realise that the statement that she “hoped she could remain friends with Margaret” was a doublespeak way of saying “I will no longer be friends with Margaret.”  She had already decided to cancel Margaret when she decided to cancel me – but she was too gutless to say this either to me or to Margaret.  There was an additional layer to the cancellation of Margaret and that additional layer involved making sure that all of Margaret’s other friends – every one of whom she had been introduced to by Margaret – also cancelled both of us.

The implications of what Anne had done became apparent to me after I got home from hospital in July 2021.

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As July and August elapsed, I became aware that Sue Chaman – whom Margaret had known for about 50 years – had completely stopped visiting our home.  Prior to February 2021, she had always been a regular visitor.  Sue had become the closest of friends with Anne over the years and she was certainly Anne’s lover by 2021.

Anne had made sure that Sue stopped visiting her dying friend whom she had known for decades before she ever met her Anne.

Margaret told me that on 8 February when Anne had told me of my cancellation, Sue had waited on the street in her car while Anne told me of my cancellation.  Sue had then driven Anne back to her unit in Glenelg.  Sue and Anne had jointly decided on what Anne and Sue were going to do.

After 8 February, Sue stopped all contact with me – but unlike Anne, she did not get around to telling me of my cancellation.  During the months that I was gravely ill and close to death, I had no contact from Sue Chapman.

Just as her lover Anne did, Sue did not openly terminate her friendship with Margaret.  She simply reduced that friendship to a shell which contained nothing.

Margaret tried to hide it, but I had been aware that the behaviour of her so called friends had caused extreme distress to Margaret, but there was nothing I could do about their behaviour.

In July 2021, Margaret was in temporary remission from a deadly cancer and she had been completely sidelined by pretend friends because she was married to me.

I had come close to dying before Margaret, and I too had been completely shunned by people I had once believed were my friends.

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Margaret’s friend Heather Long seemed to find it more difficult than Sue Chapman to behave atrociously towards Margaret and me.  Margaret had also known Heather Long for about 50 years. 

Heather did not immediately cease all contact with me and she did not immediately lessen her contacts with Margaret.  Heather even sent me a text wishing me happy birthday while I was in hospital. 

Heather did not immediately reduce her friendship with Margaret to an empty shell, but did have a dilemma.  Because Anne and Sue refused visit Margaret in our home, in practice, Heather was also a rare visitor in Margaret's home.

Because of the boycott instituted by her friends, Margaret could see her friends only away from our home – usually in coffee shops.  As the months rolled on, the coffee shop catch ups became ever rarer.

Heather’s final attempt to simultaneously be a friend to both Margaret and me and to Anne Ryan and Sue Chapman took place on Sunday 22 August 2021 when she invited Margaret and me, plus other members of the friendship group, to a restaurant dinner to celebrate her husband Andrew Long’s birthday.  

Anne boycotted the dinner because I had been invited, but Sue Chapman came.

Other guests at the restaurant in addition to Andrew and Heather Long were Chris Reilly, Cheryl Scopazzi and Nes Fernandez.

By the time Margaret and I got home after dinner on 22 August 2021, I knew very clearly that the friendship circle had been smashed and it would probably never be repaired.