Duncan Wilson was a busker and musician, well-known in pubs and clubs around Bradford. But tragedy struck when he was given a cigarette spiked with heroin by two men trying to rob him, overdosed and fell into a coma. His family were told he was in a Persistent Vegetative State similar to that of Hillsborough disaster victim Tony Bland, from Keighley, whose story became nationally known. But Duncan amazed doctors when he awoke from his coma. Heather Bishop spoke to his father Derrick about how he copes with looking after his brain-damaged son, who now lives in a nursing home in Manningham

DERRICK WILSON has finally come to terms with the fact his son will never be the same again.

He visits him daily at The Orchards nursing home in Manningham where his room is covered in pictures of his family and his former days as a musician, when he toured with artists such as Dave Berry.

At the end of the month Duncan will be 40 - a date that also marks two years since he woke up from a coma.

"The hardest thing has been coming to terms with the fact that Duncan might not get any better," said Derrick, 71. "There are little improvements, and people who haven't seen him for a few months notice the difference, but it's a slow process.

"It's like having a baby again as everything needs to be done for him and he breathes and is fed through tubes.

"It is difficult because we just don't know how much Duncan can understand. He will smile at me and sometimes if I ask him if he can hear me, he moves his hand.

"I tell him all the news and talk to him as if he was the old Duncan. I don't think he knows me as his dad but I feel sure he recognise voices, especially his family.

"If I don't visit him for a day, he'll sulk and turn his head away when I speak to him," said Derrick. "He used to love music so we have the radio playing all day and sometimes if he hears one of his favourite songs, he starts sobbing.

"He played instruments and used to write his own songs and toured professionally with a lot of bands. When he was in St Luke's after the overdose we organised a benefit concert to raise money for the ward and more than 13 bands played on the day.

"I met so many people who were telling me stories about Duncan. He was well-liked and people still ring up now and ask how he is."

Duncan lapsed into a coma after he was given a spiked cigarette by two men who were trying to rob him while he was living in Derby in October 1996. He was transferred from a hospital in Derby and spent more than a year in St Luke's Hospital in Bradford.

Police never caught the men who robbed him, but Derrick says he has forgotten them.

"I was angry at the time but I have put them out of my mind," he said. "They were drug addicts and I pity them that they had to go to such lengths to get money. I've tried to forget about them as they have probably forgotten about Duncan by now." Derrick said he and his wife Joyce, who have another son and two daughters, managed to cope. "We just get on with things and remember there are always other people in worse or similar situations to us.

"My wife is ill and has been virtually housebound and she gets upset that she can't get up to see Duncan.

"But we manage to cope with the help of the nursing home staff who are wonderful and we know that he's in good hands.

"We don't know how much he is aware of although we know he's brain damaged.

"Originally we were told that he was in a Persistent Vegetative State and was brain dead, which meant that after 12 months or so we would have had the option of turning his life support off .

"But thankfully a neurologist saw him and said this wasn't the case. If anything, it gave us too much hope for the future but we know now that Duncan will never be back to normal.

"One big hope of mine is that we can eventually develop some form of communication which really would be wonderful.

"We just don't know what's going on in his world."

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