The waiting is finally over. We know now that Charlton’s fate will be decided by a nine game mini-season which kicks off behind closed doors at Hull City on Saturday June 20th. The Roar of the Greasepaint is back but the Smell of the Crowd must bide a while longer.

Having lost dismally 1-0 to Middlesbrough at The Valley last time out, the Addicks will resume their daunting task two points in the red and mired in the relegation zone. They will also begin again without Lyle Taylor, the charismatic striker having stated his intention to sit out the rest of the season to avoid injury ahead of a lucrative transfer – a move already, no doubt, a done deal. Contracted at The Valley until June 30th, he seems resolved to dishonour that contract by refusing to play in any of the three games scheduled during his last month of employment.

Charlton’s fourth game is a mischievously timed home engagement in early July with Millwall, the club whose alleged mistreatment of Taylor embittered the discarded teenager but set him on course to be the independent spirit he is today. It was a crying shame that a golden opportunity to seek vengeance on Millwall at the Den in November was torpedoed by an inconvenient injury sustained while on international duty with Montserrat. Lucky old Lions, we sighed, but looked ahead to their visit to The Valley on April 4th as their overdue comeuppance day. Lockdown put paid to that fixture of course and it now looks like Gary Rowett’s men are off the hook a second time, with a conscience-free Taylor exercising his rights to down tools a day or two before they arrive.

Patient and philosophical during Taylor’s long spell in the New Eltham treatment rooms, Lee Bowyer hardly needs his star forward going on strike. His side’s chances of avoiding relegation have taken a body blow which reference, for instance, to the typically resourceful goals Taylor scored against Luton (h) and Nottingham Forest (a) clearly shows. Charlton’s No. 9 is a uniquely gifted footballer and on-field leader.

However disgruntled he may feel, if Taylor felt any sense of responsibility to the Addicks he would buckle down to the unfinished business of the nine game campaign which will decide in which division his current employers play their football next season. The club stood behind him when he picked up that unnecessary injury in Montserrat. Now it’s his turn to repay their loyalty and help them out of the jam they’re in.

Clearly his own man and hardly the type to dance to any to any agent’s tune, it’s not too late for Taylor to change his mind and do the right thing. Respecting the club which has paid his healthy wages for two years is the right thing. Respecting the fans who have made an icon of him is the right thing. Respecting teammates, to whom relegation would be both humiliating and costly, is the right thing. He isn’t being asked to work down a coal mine, but to play nine more times for a fine old football club which needs him, before parting on good terms.

Do the right thing, Lyle, mate. We know what it is. So do you. You’ll sleep better and thank yourself later for it. So would Betty Hutchins (“fly high, Betty”), Les Turner and Seb Lewis, who, like an overwhelming majority of us, thought the world of you.

I was 11 years old on July 5th 1948, when the NHS was born. It’s safe to say that I was totally oblivious to the greatest act of social legislation ever passed into law by any government for the good of the people it served. My shameful ignorance at the time has been overtaken down the years by a deep appreciation and an even deeper respect for the dearly loved but constantly threatened institution.

Before Health Minister Aneurin Bevan’s ideal that “good health should be available to all regardless of wealth” became reality, so-called ordinary Britons shifted uneasily for themselves in fighting off injury or illness. Most parents adapted into self-taught medics and developed a commonsense range of skills in taking care of their families. With his bill an unpleasant deterrent, calling in a doctor was an option considered only as a last resort. In other words, next to never.

Women became diagnostic savants as well as prescriptive wizards. A ruthless gang of them, which included my mum, paternal gran and maiden aunt Mary Ellen, once fell upon me during one of our summer-long evacuations to the Irish countryside, when I reported back to the farmstead after an afternoon of blissful lawlessness, sporting an angry, red stripe climbing up an arm from a wound I’d hardly noticed on my hand. Within hours, a series of bread and porridge poultices routed the poison and staved off possible amputation. Likewise, boils were popped or lanced, headlice were shown the door by Nitty Nora and iodine took care of complaints unmoved by germolene. You took off fast when iodine was mentioned.

The feeling of relief and gratitude with which the post-war population welcomed the NHS is tough to convey to people who were born under its umbrella. No longer was good health care the exclusive birthright of privileged toffs. While under its benign auspices, formerly fatal diseases like tuberculosis or meningitis (Mum lost an older brother I never knew to meningitis) were conquered by research made possible under the new, revolutionary phenomenon. Life expectancy increased, with the quality of life itself enhanced for countless millions by what Danny Boyle called “the institution which more than any other unites our nation.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960) spent the rest of his life battling to defend the NHS’ integrity against covetous attacks to limit its reach and effectiveness. Voted 1st in a list of 100 Welsh heroes as recently as 2004, recognition of his selfless endeavours is largely confined to Wales; within his own country he is properly considered a prophet with honour. The Prime Minister he served – Clement Attlee – whose government made possible the NHS and, among other good works, addressed a grossly unfair education system, meanwhile goes disgracefully overlooked.

Both Nye Bevan and Clem Attlee would have shifted uncomfortably in their graves earlier this week as the NHS was briefly pawed by a creepy American bloke, a cynical speculator who was unmoved by the majesty of its noble ambition but instead sensed in it only an inviting moneyspinner. Rarely before did the adage about “knowing the price of everything but the the value of nothing” ring with more truth. Our most cherished British institution must be removed from any table where he is balefully sitting. It ain’t for sale, pal. So do one!