Actually, it wasn’t so Victorian. And it scared the wits out of Dad, who thought she might have died.
It seems that on waking yesterday, Mum experienced a crushing pain in the chest and, on sitting up and swinging her legs out of bed, she fainted and was out for long enough to give Dad a bad scare.
She came round (“why is the light on?”), feeling woozy and wondering whether she should make an appointment to see the doctor. Dad called an ambulance, which arrived very quickly, and Mum went off to Musgrove Park; Dad followed later with clothes, etc.
I called Musgrove on the way to work this morning and they put me through to Mum. She sounded quite herself and said she felt like a hypocrite (I’m not sure I understand why). Apparently, it wasn’t a problem with her heart, as they found no tell-tale enzymes in her blood; they have no idea what it was. They’ll be doing a treadmill/ECG test later though they expect to find nothing of interest.
Mum sounded cheerful and unworried: looking forward to going home later. Let’s hope it was just a one-off. (Though, she did experience this pain two or three times during the week preceding this incident).