My Anus Horribilis

Dear Techos,

A huge thank you for all the support Sandra and I have received from so many of you over the last few months.

Most people will know the story - I fell asleep while driving home after a day shooting last January.

It wasn’t a long day. This Screentime-Communicado production was a reasonable 10-and-3/4-hour day, 5-day-week job, and virtually no O/T. (Almost a luxury these days!)

I was just a little tired and the drive home was further than usual since we had recently moved to Pukekohe.

I spent three months in Middlemore Hospital, where daily life on the ward was somewhere between The Singing Detective and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. But I made it through with the help of some great medical professionals, but unfortunately sustained some damage to my eyesight.

I’ve been recovering at home for a few months now, am starting to feel better; but the eye situation hasn’t improved much, and I await the possibility of an operation that may give me some vision back. In the meantime, I am waiting for speech and enlarged print programmes so I can use the computer for reading and writing.

I thank you for the life membership of the Guild, for your financial support, and those of you who have called regularly to help around the garden and house.

It’s a very humbling experience to be part of a film community that has been so caring. The response has blown us away, and means more than you can imagine.

A special thanks to Ken Saville for keeping everyone up-to-date with my progress. As well as Techos, a good number of producers, directors, writers, and actors have come to Pukekohe to cheer me up.

My goal is to be able to get back to work and I hope to see you all on the set in the not-too-distant future.

Now that I have come out of my blue period, as Picasso once said, I look forward to catching up with everybody.

Yours,

Al G.

​

Editor’s Note: Observant readers with long memories will note that Allen’s joke about having had a "shitty" year has not been “over-proofed” (to Annus) this time, as it was in 2003! But this time the spelling of “horribilis” has been corrected…