When Stefan Kiszko was 18, life dealt him a devastating blow with the death of the man he referred to as ‘my dear dad’. It was to be a permanent setback for Stefan and, with the removal of the only effective male influence in his life, the female domination of the young man became total, and he was tied still closer by his mother’s apron strings. Ivan Kiszko was only 56 when he collapsed in the street, suffering a heart attack as he and Stefan walked home from a visit to Alfreda’s house. Unable to help his father, Stefan lumbered home to seek assistance. Ivan Kiszko was a giant of a man of massive build with a huge head and shovel-sized hands, and he had seemed to his son to be indestructible. Now he was gone, and the family unit, reduced to two, meant that Stefan became more dependent on his mother and she on him. She smothered Stefan with even more affection, to try to help to fill the void left by his father’s death. Stefan Kiszko had been a boy of weak personality who had idolised his father and whose weakness sought compensation in his father’s strength. With his father gone, Kiszko was obliged to seek that strength elsewhere, and he was fortunate to find it in the fortitude of his mother. Ivan’s death meant that Stefan moved from the shadow of his father to the shadow of his mother.
The grieving son resigned himself to never going to college again. His mother now needed his wages, and he immersed himself in work at the tax office, intending that his labours should take his mind off his terrible loss. His grandmother Hedwig had died only ten months earlier, and he had in no way recovered from that bereavement before death had struck again.
Stefan’s father had always promised him a car when he had passed his driving test. His death left the vow unfulfilled. But four days after Stefan passed his test, on 1 November 1971, Charlotte discharged her late husband’s obligation, buying Stefan a bronze Hillman Avenger which he kept in the covered backyard of Crawford Street.
The devoted son and nephew was able to abandon the bus, for work each weekday and for pleasure at weekends. Now he was able to drive his mother and aunt to the garden centres which lay on the edges of town. Now he could take the car shopping – even to the local corner shop. Kiszko need never walk anywhere again, and rare it was that he did do. For a man already very overweight, the new car was both a blessing and a curse, for what little exercise he had previously obtained by a stroll to the shops, or even to the bus stop, was now replaced by the splendour of his car. Every weekday at 10 p.m. he drove to the mill and met his mother at the end of her 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift, to take her home in comfort.
Another blow was dealt when Stefan was 22. His mother’s chest complaint worsened, confirmed as byssinosis. Typically, despite the fact that her work had almost certainly caused her illness, and continued to exacerbate it, Charlotte refused to heed the advice to retire. It ran against the grain, and anyway, she could not afford to. One concession she made was to obtain a job with Courtaulds at Castleton, where they worked only with man-made fibres.
One night in April 1974 Stefan failed to arrive for the 10 p.m. rendezvous with his mother who, after making a short search outside the mill, caught the bus home. Charlotte was anxious, knowing that her son would not willingly let her down. She fretted throughout the tedious bus journey, fearful that some terrible thing had caused her son to be unavoidably detained. Arriving home she found a note in Stefan’s meticulous handwriting: ‘Dear Mother,’ it read, ‘I have had a fall and think I may have broken my ankle. I have gone to Rochdale Infirmary …’ Charlotte did not remove her coat, but headed back to the bus stop where she caught a bus to the hospital. She could not then have been aware how significant the injury would become in later years, and even had she known it would not have detracted from her primary concern, which was to ensure that the boy was all right.
In the casualty department she found Stefan with his leg heavily bandaged. His first words to her, typically, were an apology for failing to meet her at the mill. Charlotte pacified him, telling him that she had been fine, and that he would be fine once she had him in the comfort of their home. She would take a few days off until he was able to work. The bandage hid the true severity of the injury. X-rays soon revealed that Kiszko had sustained a complex break known as a Potts fracture which required surgery. Stefan was released after four days but, to Charlotte’s chagrin, was transferred for convalescence to the local Springfield Hospital. He remained there for five weeks, gamely trying to master his crutches, which proved difficult for one who was normally so inept on his feet.
He returned home to hobble around the house, but was, of course, unable to drive his beloved Hillman car. He immediately secured a rebate on his motor tax and insurance payments, reasoning that the money saved would pay for transport on the now-hated bus. The injury proved more debilitating than Stefan had at first thought, and more plaster casts were fitted during the next six months. After seven months in the hospital and at home Kiszko was able to drive again and then to return to work, but the effects of the injury remained with him. When mother and son moved to a new house in Kings Road in 1975 Stefan tackled the wallpapering, but he was frequently in agony from leg pain, which consigned him again to the office sick list.
In August 1975 Kiszko had visited his GP, Dr George D’Vaz, complaining of tiredness. The doctor had immediately realised that there was something seriously wrong, for his patient had a grey pallor and, even whilst sitting down, was panting. He had the appearance of acute anaemia, but refused to be admitted to hospital despite the doctor’s insistence. In the face of this refusal Dr D’Vaz gave Kiszko a prescription, and arranged for him to be seen at his home the following day, Tuesday, 5 August, by Dr Gerard Duffy, Consultant Physician.
Dr Duffy found Kiszko to be severely anaemic, and arranged for his immediate admission to Birch Hill Hospital in Rochdale. There, Dr Duffy also found Kiszko to be hypogonadal, in that he had no testicles in his scrotum and an immature penis.1 The treatment administered for the anaemia was not successful, and Dr Duffy arranged for his patient to be transferred to Manchester Royal Infirmary, on 18 August, where he remained until 15 September.
At the Manchester hospital it was determined that Kiszko was the subject of long-standing hypogonadism and testosterone deficiency, and that the appropriate treatment for Kiszko would be replacement of the hormone testosterone. This was to be achieved by intramuscular testosterone injections administered once every three weeks.
Daily, Charlotte dutifully caught the bus for the fifteen-mile journey to the Manchester hospital. The consultant readily quashed her fears that the problem was leukaemia, but explained to Charlotte that her son could not have sexual contact with girls. For a woman of her background, who continued to regard her son as little more than a child, such information was bound to cause only confusion and embarrassment. Hence Charlotte did not ask the consultant to explain, and was equally unable to bring herself to discuss this matter with her son. She shut the matter from her mind: Stefan had never needed girlfriends anyway and, most importantly, he was going to recover and be allowed home.
On 15 September 1975 Stefan was discharged from hospital and returned to the cloying bosom of his tiny family. Almost three weeks later he had to return for an injection, but he was home by tea-time. He told his mother only that it was a routine injection and that she need not worry. Charlotte had not forgotten the consultant’s reference to a sexual problem, but had pushed it to the back of her mind. It surfaced again, but again she chose not