Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
While contemplating the return of the blood pressure monitor to the GP surgery I had a thought. Two words rarely heard in juxtaposition these days — “family doctor.”
The doctor used to take blood pressure, now it’s do it yourself. I wonder how many other health checks will end up as DIY. Not that it doesn’t make sense as it saves going back daily to the surgery which is convenient for the patients as well as for the GP. Ultimately we’ll all have to own our own BP monitors.
It goes like this. The doctor used to come to us, then we had to go to the doctor, then we only spoke to the doctor by phone and now a lot of people can’t get an appointment at all.
I have been lucky health-wise. No major glitches. Until recently. What you might term a “health scare”. Smart work by a GP referred me to the cardiac clinic post haste. No complaints on the grounds of efficiency. All the tests done in 10 days and a chat with a consultant just over two weeks after the original referral. Readers will be glad, or sad depending on their opinion of the column, to know that I have no plans to go AWOL yet for a while.
I have had, by phone, face to face visit and letter, contact with five separate doctors recently. But how does anyone form a person to person relationship with their doctor these days? The reality is you don’t. So when you visit the surgery the doctor you see has no idea how sickly you appeared last time they looked you in the eye.
I don’t suppose GPs were too chuffed to hear Labour’s shadow health minister Wes Streeting espousing evening walk-in centres to help alleviate pressure on A&E units. If Labour wins the next election he plans a “shake up” of the NHS. Where have I heard that before?
I got my name(s) from our family doctor. My mother gave birth at home, as most did back then, and the GP came to supervise. Afterwards he asked my mum if she had thought of a name. She said she had been mulling it over, but our family male names were unfashionable even in 1947 — Herbert, Albert, Ernie and Walter.
Dr Kirkpatrick had just been on holiday to Ross and Cromarty which gave him an idea. I could so easily have ended up as Cromarty Brewster. My middle name is Tom, which was the doctor’s first name. I wonder how many hundred babies were christened Thomas at that time.
Incidentally, the BBC is scrapping Doctors, the lunchtime TV soap. So soon you won’t even get to see a family doctor on the telly.
Speaking of doctors…
Nothing will persuade me to become a Whovian and get to like one particular doctor.
It dates back to 1963 when Doctor Who first appeared on our TV screens, filling the gap on Saturdays between Grandstand and Juke Box Jury.
The Doctor elbowed one of my favourite programs into touch; Garry Halliday, the adventures of a commercial airline pilot and his mate Bill, played by Terence Alexander, later to re-appear as Charlie Hungerford in Bergerac.
Halliday (actor Terence Longdon) was a Biggles-like character. His enemy was arch-villain The Voice, whose face was never seen. Elwyn Brook Jones, who played The Voice, died during the filming of a second series.
I watched one or two Doctor Who episodes, but I was never caught hiding behind the sofa when those tin dustbins, the Daleks, appeared. The Voice, now he was sinister. But the Daleks and other monsters did not scare me.
Doctor Who has recently returned to the BBC with three new programmes. Great news for celebrity Whovians like Stephen Fry and Kylie Minogue. The original run of Doctor Who was from 1963 to 1989 and it initially came about after the Beeb called a feasibility study to come up with ideas for a sci-fi series.
Poor old Garry Halliday. Booted off our tiny nine and 11 inch black and white screens. Only one episode was saved by the BBC. It’s been gathering dust these last 60 years while the good Doctor has amassed fans young and old.
An extreme comparison
Grey squirrels have been accused of being the Hamas terrorists of the animal world.
I don’t know how far the greys have infiltrated into areas like the Lake District, but DUP MP Jim Shannon reckons they are spreading fast into his part of Northern Ireland. So much so that, speaking in a Parliamentary debate on the control of the greys, he described the unwelcome rodents as the equivalent of Hamas.
The militant group killed 1,200 civilians and took 240 hostages on October 7, sparking the desperate events in Gaza as Israel threatened to eliminate their presence.
It may seem extreme to compare squirrels to a terror group, but they are wiping out a lot of the more loveable reds by dominating their territory and food sources and spreading a fatal virus. When Jim says c’mon you reds he means the squirrels not a football team.
