TAGGART star James Macpherson was well on the way to recovery yesterday after an operation to correct a collapsed lung.
Speaking from his hospital bed in London, he said: ''I'm feeling much better and my family and I would like to thank everyone for their concern and warm wishes.''
According to Scottish Television, Macpherson, 40, who plays DCI Mike Jardine in the long running drama, went to see a doctor in London on Wednesday after feeling unwell, and was diagnosed as having a collapsed lung.
He had an emergency operation on Thursday to reinflate the lung followed by another routine operation yesterday morning, and is due to be released from hospital in two or three days' time.
Macpherson's wife, Jacqueline, accompanied by a friend, drove overnight on Thursday from the family home in Bearsden, near Glasgow, to be at the actor's bedside.
The couple's children, Jamie, 12, Katie, nine, and Jack, seven, were yesterday in Bearsden being cared for by Mrs Macpherson's mother, who said the family was ''just concentrating on him getting well''.
She said: ''We have been told not to expect him to be working again for a very long time, maybe as long as three months.''
Macpherson had recently felt unwell, but had no idea his condition was so serious, she said.
His co-star, Blythe Duff, said yesterday she was surprised by the news. ''I have known James for a long time and he has always been very fit. I'm sure he'll make a full and speedy recovery.'' A spokesman for Scottish Television said his illness would not affect the filming of Taggart, as the current season had been completed, and work was not due to start until the spring.
Collapsed lungs, which are commonest among young men, are not usually life-threatening. They occur when the inner membrane of the lung is punctured and air escapes into the pleura, the cavity between the lung's inner and outer membranes.
Each breath pumps air into the cavity, eventually causing the lung to collapse. The thorax then has to be punctured to drain the air.
Dr Kristofer Skwarski, consultant chest physician at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, said that, provided that treatment was prompt and there were no complications, there was no reason why patients should not make a full recovery. ''So long as there is drainage and the air escapes, the patient should recover,'' he said.
The most dramatic case of this happening was on an aeroplane coming back from Hong Kong in May 1995 when two doctors used a coat hanger sterilised in brandy to relieve the trapped air in the chest of 39-year-old Aberdeen woman Pauline Dixon.
Her illness is thought to have been triggered by fractured ribs she sustained in a motorcycle accident. Doctors believe that air travel is one trigger for pneumothorax. Macpherson is thought to have flown from Glasgow to London some time before feeling unwell.
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