By Elliott West
“I’ve enough food in here to feed an army, but I can’t eat a bite. It’s too painful to swallow this stuff now.”
Alex Higgins
Introduction
Alex Higgins will always be best remembered for his flamboyant shots and a player who not only lit up a snooker table but also changed the direction of snooker for the better. Yet beyond the bravado of this Belfast-born snooker player lies in a man who in the end was a shadow of his former self, weighing only 6st 7 lbs, barely able to speak due to ravaged vocal cords caused by intense chemotherapy treatment for throat cancer and a vicious mugging in 2008 where he was violently strangled. The once-showman was reduced to a man who whispered when he spoke and shuffled when he walked, only recognisable from the faint twinkle in his eyes.
Living now in sheltered accommodation, a small flat, situated in Sandy Row, Belfast, his former lavish house in Cheshire seemed to be a distant memory, Alex lived his last days in relative comfort with his sisters Jean Simpson and Anne Brown helping him keep his food cupboards stocked, his flat heated and checking up on him periodically to make sure he was coping. Yet the irony of this help was that Higgins was spiralling towards an irreversible fate, a demise that was tragic and a life that could have been so different if Higgins had not chosen the hedonistic path that he did in life.
The Final Bell Tolls
Having researched some of the last interviews of Alex Higgins, I must say I was left tearful with a sheer feeling of emptiness. This relatively young man, only 61 when he died, didn’t bear any resemblance to a man of his age. His skeletal appearance displayed someone who had almost had the life sucked out of him. When a journalist knocked at his flat door, the person was met with a man who was only able to inch open the door, frail and a ghost-like figure who whispered “Come in, take pictures and talk to me”. Walking into his kitchen, the reporter saw cupboards laden with medicines, ready meals and protein shakes, enough to feed an army but lay redundant due to the two-time world champion finding it too difficult to eat, having lost all of his teeth. Alex had to resort to sucking down pate and pureed meals despite having 10 sets of dentures which left him in agony if he wore them.
Although extremely ill, Higgins was still extremely house-proud with his wardrobe and airing cupboard stacked with clean sheets and clothes. Yet when you moved into his living room, it was as if Alex was saying goodbye to snooker. His trophies and a treasured set of snooker balls lay discarded on the floor and Alex had to step over them to reach his beloved armchair where he slumped in torturous pain. Now bespectacled, this snooker legend took off his glasses but dropped them on the floor. Slowly bending down to retrieve them, a pained gasp reverberated around the room with Alex uttering the words “I’m getting old… I’m the walking dead”.
The End
Alex Higgins was found dead in bed on the 24th of July 2010 by his sister Jean who was delivering a food parcel and found him with a plate of untouched food fallen to the floor next to him. A death that resulted from malnutrition, pneumonia and a bronchial condition. Ironically before his demise, Alex was looking forward to taking part in a veterans’ tournament that November, hoping to get back to good health but sadly it never materialised. This is a tragic end that may have been avoided if Higgins had accepted an offer to get him dental implants at a cost of £20,000 after a number of players contributed to a collection. However, a subsequent visit to a Spanish dentist in Marbella would result in being turned away for being underweight. Alex was sadly his own worst enemy and decided to turn his back on many who loved him and wanted to help him. An end that could be largely blamed on the pressure thrust on him at an early age and one that he struggled to cope with.
His best friend Jimmy White was reduced to tears when he heard the tragic news, claiming that Alex wasn’t actually a heavy drinker as claimed. Rather it was his choice in life to refuse to eat at the best of times, choosing to be a picky eater that would ultimately be the start of his spiralling downfall. A body that was already ravaged by the effects of cancer and hard living. In the end, Higgins barely had the strength to lift a cue, a snooker genius that sadly paid the price for his life choices.
