JOHN FAGAN fromEasterhouse,Glasgow has just survived cancer for the third time.Itwas his first illness which led to the canonization of the BlessedJohn Ogilvie in 1976. There have been further twists to hisremarkable story. Fagan himself,now approaching 76 ,reveals them toJack Webster...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IN a very private existence,John Fagan relaxesto the mellow music of Radio 2, gets up to make himself a lightevening meal,consumes a can of Guiness---then settles down to asession of prayer which generally tapers off in the premature onsetof sleep.
His prayers are for other people and he hopesthat he they will find as much response as other people's prayershave found for him.
For John Fagan,former Glasgow dock worker,wasthe Miracle Man of the Seventies,so inexplicably cured of stomachcancer that the Roman Catholic Church put it all down to theintervention of a long-dead Banffshire priest ,John Ogilvie,who wasthen declared a saint.
Thrust into the world spotlight of aspectacular ceremony at St. Peter's in Rome, the wee man from Glasgowtook it all in his stride,then withdrew to his chosen obscurity inthe new town of Livingstone,from which there has been very littleword of him since 1979.
The extraordinary news,which can be revealedtoday,is that John Fagan has now been declared as cured of cancer forthe third time. No claims of a miracle on this occasion, just thesuccessful surgery of a team at Bangour Hospital, West Lothian,whohave removed a malignant tumour from the large bowel.
At the Catholic Press Office in Glasgow,FatherTom Connolly told me:
"This is the first I have heard of it. But I amabsolutely delighted to hear of John's cure-and I know the Archbishopwill be too.
Theextraordinary story of John Fagan and St. John Ogilvie is a source ofencouragement to some and will strengthen the faith ofothers"
The frail little figure,who came back from thedead in miraculous fashion one bewildering morning in 1967,gatheredhis depleted strength to give me the sequel to that remarkablestory:
"This latest episode began last April, when Ifound that food was going straight through me. I'm always reluctantto bother a doctor so I took medication of my own.
''But I let it go too far and by the time Icalled for help I was in a terrible condition. The surgeon wasworking with a very dicey situation and they had to build me upbefore they could operate.
''However,the cancer was removed and I have nowbeen told that I am cured again.Fortunately,the surgeon had known mebefore. About five years ago I had the prostate operation and ,atthat time,they found trace of cancer in the bladder. That was removedand the surgeon joked that I had two for the price of one Now I havesurvived a tumour in the bowel as well. ''The lesson for other peopleis to go to the doctor as soon as they have their suspicions.
The other lesson is that ,if you are told youhave cancer ,don't give up .You must fight on regardless,withdetermination. If you happen to be religious,then prayer will proveto be of great help. That will to survive has never had a finerchampion than John Fagan,a quietly humble soul who still cannotunderstand why his God selected him as an instrument of wondrousthings.
Even for those with no belief at all,his storyleaves a trail of question marks.
John Fagan was born just before the First WorldWar and brought up in the tenements of Whitehall St,Anderson,wherehis future wife,Mary,was also raised.
Even in marriage, they remained in the streetof their birth before moving out to the perimeter sprawl ofEasterhouse and raising their six children. John continued to work atthe Glasgow docks,destined to a life in the anonymous masses whichsuited his nature to perfection.
But the fates had a curious pattern in storefor him. In 1965,he fell ill and was taken to Glasgow RoyalInfirmary,where surgeons operated on a massive tumour of the stomach.They expected him to live for about six months. Secondary tumours haddeveloped by the end of that year and Mary Fagan was told nothingmore could be done for her husband.
John regarded himself as apretty wishy-washy Roman Catholic but that did not prevent aconcentration of prayer among the people of Easterhouse, whichhappened to be the only parish in the world named after the religiousmartyr, John Ogilvie.
Ogilvie was a Banffshire aristocrat who washanged at Glasgow Cross in 1615 for refusing to accept the supremacyof King James in spiritual matters. A heroic figure in Roman Catholiceyes, he had already been beatified and there was a ground swellmovement to claim him as a saint, an ambition which would requiresome evidence that he had interceded in miraculousfashion.
In the intermediary manner of Roman Catholics,the Easterhouse prayers for John Fagan were channelled through theBlessed John Ogilvie, whose medal was pinned on his pyjamas.But time was running out for Fagan. Dr.ArchibaldMacDonald, the family GP, realised that the stomach was finallybreaking up and administered what would almost certainly be the finalshot of pain-killer.
Now down to a pathetic five stones ofweight,which included a mass of tumour,John Fagan looked up andsaid:"I'm going doctor." They would surely be his closing words. Hereceived the last rites and his wife,Mary,settled down on thearmchair for an all -night vigil.
At 6am,John lay motionless. There was noheartbeat. As all life drained away,Mary buried her face in her handsin a final acceptance of the inevitable. Thencame a voice which said:"Mary I'm hungry....Mary,I feel so different"She rose in disbelief and fed him an egg.
In came Dr Macdonald, expecting only to signthe death certificate. Instead, he found his patient alive andimproving, a bewildering sight which sent him slumping into a chair,with the involuntary exclamation:"Good God, I don't understandit."
His temptation to call it a "bloody miracle"was undermined by the fact that he himself had no religious beliefs!No such difficulty presented itself to Father Thomas Reilly, parishpriest at Easterhouse, who had become Vice-postulator of the JohnOgilvie cause:
When John Fagan was taken back to hospital andthe massive cancer was found to have vanished from his body, the biginvestigation was under way. Was this the miracle needed forOgilvie's Sainthood?
The Vatican tends to resist such overtures, onthe basis that a subsequent explanation in medical terms coulddestroy all notion of miracles. A panel of experts took nine years toconclude that they could find no other possibleexplanation.
There was one dissentingvoice in Dr Gerard Patrick Crean of Glasgow Southern General Hospital,who put forward the theory that the growth could have been anabscess. He did not, however examine Fagan.
So the Vatican accepted the verdict and ,in theSpring of 1976, Pope Paul declared that John Ogilvie had had a handin the survival of John Fagan, who was promptly paraded beforejournalists at the Catholic Press office in Glasgow. Despiterumours,his identity had been a very well kept secret.
By the Autumn of that year, 20 plane-loads ofScots, more then 4000 people in all, were heading for Rome and amemorable celebration under the great Dome of Michelangelo, withinthe biggest church in the world.
Among those who filed into St Peter's that daywere Princess Alexandra and her husband, Mr Angus Ogilvie, a relativeof the man about to be canonised.
As Pope Paul pronounced that John Ogilvie fromBanffshire was a saint in Heaven -Scotland's first Saint in 700hundred years-the crowd burst into such spontaneous cheering as theymight normally have reserved for Celtic Park."Honour to you, therepresentatives of a Scotland which has given to humanity such agreat hero of freedom and faith,"said His Holiness.
As proof that there are always two sides to astory , the 15,000 people emerging into daylight were confronted onthe steps of St Peter's by Paster Jack Glass and followers of the20th Century Reformation Movement, who had driven all the way fromGlasgow .
There banner proclaimed that "Four millionScots are against this canonisation. Ogilvie was a traitor , not aSaint."There were minor scuffles but the appearance of the Pope onthe balcony diverted the attention of the crowds, who became moreinterested in recieviny the papal blessing .Backstage at what seemedlike a Hollywood extravaganza, His Holiness received John and MaryFagan and said :"John, I hear you nearly died."
It was the greatest moment in the lives of thetwo Glasgow citizens who suddenly found themselves with their hour ofGlory. Mary had never been further than Blackpool. But John had beenhere before,as he told me outside St Peter's that day. Serving withthe Amourded Crops in Italy during the Second World War, he had madehis own way to Rome one day and stood alone upon these steps,neverimagining that he would return more than 30 years later,as the livingproof of a miracle.
But here he was; and tonightthe Eternal City would belong to the Scots. Then it was back home tonormallity-and a weird sequence of events which led John Fagan towhere he is today.
After all he had been through, he suffered amild heart attack but, much worse, his cheery wife, Mary, fell victimof a stroke and died. Mary's brother to whom John was very close,hadalso died.Tragically, the young Dr Macdonald, who had come to signhis death certificate, took ill and died and so did Father Reilly,who had guided the whole John Ogilvie movement to itsconclusion.
Among others who had been particularly close toFagan was my Herald colleague, Colm Brogan, member of a well-knowRoman Catholic family. Before long he, too, was dead, while still inhis thirties.
A bewildered John Fagan was left to wonder why,amid the rejoicing for his own survival, so much of the life aroundhim had been taken away.
He went willingly to Livingstone to be near twoof his daughters, May and Margaret, and there he lives alone in aterraced, new-town flat.
That was where I found him this week,reflecting on the unlikely pattern of his days on earth:"I have liveda fairly quiet life here, with no regrets about leaving my nativecity. It's not my Glasgow any more. The Camaraderie of places likeAnderson has never been matched and my landmarks havegone.
"This last operation took a lot out of me and Idon't feel strong enough to go out. I get up about 7.30 and have teaand a biscuit, then a sandwich at lunchtime and a main meal atnight.
I turn on the radio and listen to people likeDerek Jameson, Jimmy Young and David Jacobs and I wouldn't missFriday night is Music Night. Sometimes I listen to a radio play.That's my life."
What about those critical days of 1967,particularly that moment when he seemed to be dead?
"I had 24 hours to live and the house wasfilled with people who knew that the end was near. There came amoment when Mary thought I was dead; then something very strangehappened.
"I thought I was at the gates of Heaven,looking in. And there I saw my Auntie Annie, who had been dead for along time. She was dressed in her Sunday best, black taffeta,and shewas beckoning me to come in. I was one step from Heaven.
"That scene finished and thecurtain came down,as if to keep the audience in suspense.That waswhen I woke up and said I was hungry. The more I look back on whathappened, the more I believe it was a miracle. I hadn't eaten forseven weeks and there seems no other answer.
"I am more strongly religious than before and Ihave a list of people I pray for every night. I pray through JohnOgilvie, who's medal I wear regularly around my neck, and I pray toGod.
"I am not unhappy with life but I think back onall those people around me who died-and I do sometimes ask God aboutwhen my own time will come..."
Courtesy of The GlasgowHerald