Popular Bedfordshire one-man band musician Roger Butler – known to his fans as “Chucklefoot” – had life-saving surgery cancelled for the third time this week – on April Fool’s Day!
Grandfather Roger, 79, had waited all day from 7am in the ward at St Thomas’s Hospital in London wearing a surgical gown and with a drip already placed in his arm.
Doctors had assured him that he was first on the list to go to the operating theatre for a stent to be fitted after being diagnosed with an aneurysm that he was warned could kill him at any time.
But then at 4pm, an embarrassed nurse sidled over to his bed and whispered: “Sorry, Mr Butler, but the operation is off again. Our anaesthetic machine has conked out.”
And Roger, who suffers from mobility problems, had to fork out £200 for a taxi all the way back to his home in Maulden.
“What a blooming AWFUL day,” he said. “And, even worse, now I’ve got to go through it all again!
“I was hoping that this week it would be third time lucky and they would finally sort out my health problem.
“But I feared the worst when I realised the op was scheduled for April the first! You really couldn't make it up."
Roger also spent all day waiting at St Thomas’s before his last operation was cancelled in January., with hospital staff blaming an A&E emergency.
He said: “Well, after the doctors told me the aneurysm could kill me at any time, I think I might be a bit of an emergency too!"
During the 1960s and 70s, Roger rubbed shoulders with stars like Donovan and Don Partridge on the blues and folk music scene and released several albums.
These days he still performs from time to time with his guitar or banjo to amuse regulars in the popular Queen’s Head pub at Ampthill.
Regular Charlie Garth, 76, said: “He doesn’t do his one-man band stuff much any more, but we love it here when he brings his guitar or banjo along in the evening.
“The hospital needs to pull its finger out though and sort out his operation. We want old Chucklefoot back on song.”