Arnie was born on the 20th October 1941 to Ada and Bill Thompson, the youngest of quite a few kids!!!! They all lived on the Waddon Estate in Croydon. He never liked the name Arthur so most people knew him as Arnie!
He met Frances when he was 21 and she was 16. They married on July 2nd 1966 (oh yes, the year we won the football!!!!!) and by the following year their first child was born, Elayne Frances. Within 13 months, Elayne had a new baby sister called Sharon Lisa. Two years later in 1970 Yvonne Caroline was born. Talk about being outnumbered by the girls! Poor Arnie!
They settled into family life with Arnie working as a lorry driver. In 1979 they had a new addition to the family, Michelle Louise. Now he was definitely outnumbered by the girls!!!!!
Time went on and the girls grew up and along came the grandchildren………you can guess……the first 3 grandchildren were girls…..Charlene Louise, Hayley Lauren-Marie and Leah Caroline!
You can imagine Arnie’s delight when the FIRST boy came into the family – Reece Daniel……soon followed by Thomas Michael Patrick. Now we were on a roll with the boys because Ronnie James appeared six years later…………followed by Bradlee……..by this point I think Arnie was being overrun by the boys in the family!!!!! When his youngest daughter Michelle became pregnant in 2005 everyone was expecting a girl ‘cos surely you cant have that many boys in a row can you? WRONG!!! Reggie Stanley was born in February 2006!!!!!!
Not long after Reggie being born Arnie started to become ill. He was diabetic so at times he did get a little ill but this time we knew there was something else wrong. He used to love a pint in the afternoon but even began not wanting this. Arnie was going back and forth to the doctors and they kept fobbing him off with different diagnoses – it was gallstones, it was gout, it was stomach ulcers…..…..it was one diagnosis after another……..none of which were true. Even the emergency doctors and a hospital A&E department didn’t give him the proper diagnosis he deserved.
Arnie was in such pain and still, no doctors took notice. It took until Frances took him back to the GP in a wheelchair because he couldn’t even manage the 5 minute walk to the surgery. At last he was admitted to hospital on the 23rd August 2006, quite some months after going to the surgery complaining and begging to be admitted to hospital. They ran tests on him and a WHOLE 2 WEEKS LATER they diagnosed Cancer of the Pancreas and Liver……..all this time he had been getting turned away and he had CANCER.
As a family we went to have a meeting with Arnie’s Consultant at the hospital………we were told it was terminal…..they were sorry but there was nothing they could do to save him. My mum asked the consultant how long did Arnie have. The answer? Just days. You can only imagine how we felt knowing that. We don’t think Arnie knew much of what was going on…….he was so dosed up on medication for the pain. Whenever we went to visit he tried to keep a brave face on and keep joking the way he normally did. It only hit home when a nurse asked if he wanted to be moved into a hospice. We had a hospital bed delivered to home in the hope Arnie was going to come home. My mum thought that it would be the best place for him to spend his last days, surrounded by familiar people and surroundings. It never happened……after the struggle to get admitted to hospital, Arnie was too scared to leave the place. Arnie died on the 21st September 2006,2 weeks after we were told there was nothing they could do.
During his last days we tried to spend as much time with Arnie as possible. Every day he was just becoming more confused and so weak Arnie was such a joker and always likedto have a laugh and wind people up but he was just too ill to be the same old Arnie that we all knew and loved. It was awful watching him die the way he did……in a way we guess it was lucky it happened fast because he wouldn’t have wanted to be like that but on the other hand we were absolutely gutted because we wanted him to stay with us. At 6.50am on the morning that he died we had been called by the hospital to say they didn’t think he was going to make it through the day…….2 hours later he had passed away with his wife and eldest daughter by his side. The rest of his daughters arrived just minutes after he had passed away.
Going to see him in the Chapel of Rest was one of the hardest things we, as a family, have ever done. Arnie was dressed in his favourite pin stripe suit and a red tie that he wore to Elaynes wedding. He looked so smart and handsome. We held his cremation service on the 4th October 2006, 16 days before he would have been 65. We played his favourite song, Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino on the way in and out and said a silent prayer whilst Blue Heaven by Fats Domino played. We hope we done him proud with the service that we chose.
In November 2006 we finally laid Arnie to rest in Queens Road Cemetery in Croydon. Finally he was at rest and out of pain.
We miss him so much and wish this had never happened. He was the life of the family and it seems so quiet now without him. We hope he rests in peace and watches over us and keeps us safe.
