Nick Swainey was one of those characters in One Foot in the Grave who showed a kind of Jekyll and Hyde, there were moments where he had somebody lurking underneath that cheerful facade. In the last season of the series, Nick Swainey received a clip of a news report where an American war correspondent who looked like him was giving a detailed report in the way an artist would expertly use paints to create a masterpiece and he became depressed because he wondered if he should have been that person.

But what was Margaret thinking at the time?


Who's going to wheel me about?

"Who's going to wheel me about?"

Margaret Meldrew had been friendly with Nick Swainey for a long time, and she had never seen him so brooding; oh, sure, Margaret had seen moments where her friend was incredibly depressed, and she guessed it made some sense, given how long he had been caring for his bedridden mother who was apparently mad before her death, but even when she'd gently broken the news to him that Tanya the nurse and his love interest was actually involved with someone else, she had only seen pure disappointment and upset on his usually friendly and outgoing face she had never before seen him like this.

It was so hard listening to him now, speaking about an American war correspondent who only had a vague resemblance to him and talking about how that was the life he should have led.

Margaret, despite being unsettled by the way a normally upbeat man who was so compassionate and caring to people over the age mark. In Margaret's mind, that compassion was one of Nick's most defining qualities and what made him such a wonderful person to be around. But his talk about being an overgrown boy scout worried her.

Was that how he really saw himself? Alright, she could understand his views about wishing he'd lived a different kind of life, but Margaret had a few guesses which would explain the kind of path of life Nick had taken on; she had always speculated that the need to look after his mother had made Nick reach out for help when he discovered he couldn't cope on his own, and he had discovered a calling for taking care of the elderly and it had gone from there.

In Margaret's mind, being an OAP herself especially after she lost her florist's job, someone willing to step up and aid the elderly was one of the nicest gestures that anyone could make. But Nick's question went both ways, and he knew that. She had been horrified when she heard the story of how Victor had stumbled across a retirement home where the carers were systematically bullying and abusing the residents - Victor's response and the way he and Nick had turned them into scarecrows had made her roll her eyes and be horrified at the same time. What if nobody found them and released them in time before they became dehydrated? But at the same time, she and Jean had been horrified by the knowledge a retirement home was practically on their doorstep and such abuse was taking place. What if she and her best friend were residents? What if their needs were being deliberately ignored to punish them?

Nick's reaction during that time had been telling; she and Victor had known Nick for a long time, but they had never seen him look so angry. He took his job and everything he did for the elderly very seriously, and once he had learnt the full facts of the abuse, and even saw signs of bruising on the residents, he had eagerly helped Victor turn the staff into scarecrows. Learning someone was in the same profession and yet was abusing it too much for him. But Nick's current frame of mind, while worrying, was one that Margaret was having a lot of trouble working out what to say, what she could do to reassure Nick that there would be people like him, people who compassionately helped and aided the elderly for centuries to come, but she was lost about how she could honestly help him.

In a way, the window upstairs smashing and Victor being held outside of it was the best distraction.


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