A voyage round my study

My study used to be the reception area cum drug dispensary when my parents and their partner, Andrew Smith, were looking after 10,000 patients, all of whose medical records were kept in that room. The room was connected to the private hose and was the first room on the way to a two consulting room surgery. The first receptionist working in that room that I remember as a child was Miss Grey. Sylvia Ellerby and Joan Calvert followed and Sylvia lives in Fryston and is in her 80s. Joan became the practice manager for a neighbouring General Practice and we were so pleased to be invited to her retirement dinner. The room had a connecting door to the house as well as a door to the corridor of the surgery.

The present day study is the first one above. On the goblet on the window ledge one can just see  a photograph.  This is of my father (a GP)  making up some medicine in the same room. You can see that smoking a fag helps him concentrate.

My study is houses a collection of all sorts of objects, photographs, pictures, certificates etc. Each has a memory for me.

Below are photographs of items in my study taken in December 2014. They are in no particular order and each has a commentary.

The instrument shown is the Zero Gradient Aural Thermometer. Professor Bill Keatinge and I developed this in the 1970s and Muirhead Ltd manufactured it. It sold a few including one to NASA. It is featured in The Science Museum's online collections.

The card on the left is of Albert Durer's The Rhinoceros (1515). We saw the actual drawing in the Germany Exhibition in the British Museum in December 2014. The two on the right are from Barbara Hepworth's Hospital Drawings. They were created in the 1940s and were part of an exhibition in 2012 in the new Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, 10 miles or so from us. The one on the left is of (Sir) Reginald Watson-Jones, who became othopaedic surgeon to The Queen. He taught us at The London Hospital. He had a maroon Rolls Royce car and his chauffeur wore a matching maroon uniform. There is a tiny battery driven lamp in front of these.

The box contains compact discs of the complete works of Mozart. There are about 160 discs and it would take over a week of continuous listening to hear the lot.

On the left is a photograph of our late good friend Geof Mair. I had the honour of being asked to write his obituary for the British Medical Journal. The photo is with a copy of that. He died in 2002 from a serious lung disease. He did have a heart/lung transplant which only helped him for a short while. The main body of this picture is of Kath and I having a meal with my second cousin Lorna and her husband Stuart. She started work as a GP in Allerton Bywater which is only 4 miles from us. Stuart is also a GP. Lorna has now retired. They own a lovely apartment near Pisa, Italy.

Next door to the surgery, there was a street called Park Dale which, despite having a lot of money spent on it in the 1980s, became dilapidated again. In 2011the houses were demolished and replaced with ann estate of eco houses. These have greatly improved the area. Wakefield and District Housing got approval to have a street named after our family - after Kath, me, my mother and father - all of whom worked in the surgery at one time or another. This calendar was skilfully made by my neice, Mary and given to us a s a present. There is a Sloan Street in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, called after my grandfather, the teacher.

On the right is a mug that Tony Nicholas had made for me and presented to me at my leaving lunch at the Wakefield NHS Primary Care Trust in 2010. I worked really closely with Tony on the education programme for General Practitioners. He went to the same school as I (Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield) and is ace at his job. We were a great team.

This is my mother. I think it was taken in Berlin. I am not sure.

This was drawn many years by my niece, Carol, She did a degree in ceramics and has a lot of talent. However, she has not done much art work in recent years because of ill health.

This is 6 week old (in November 2014) Angel. Both I and Kath sponsor a guide dog for the blind. We get photos and news sent regularly until an owner is found.

This was given to me for my 50th birthday by my brother Frank. It is of our father and his siblings. My father is on the left. . From left to right - George, Winnie, Sam, Florrie, Howard, Angel. The last three are cousins.

This is an oil painting of my Irish grandfather Francis Sloan. It was presented to him by friends and past pupils on his retirement in 1935 as a headmaster of what is now called Sloan Street School in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. It was painted by Maurice Canning Wilks who is moderately famous. When she was a little girl, a relation, Joanna Smith, slept on a camp bed in the study. My grandfather looked very stern to her and she asked us to cover the painting with a sheet.

There are some photos on a glass cabinet and the central one is of Kath when she was a bridesmaid at our good friends, Kath and Alan's wedding. On the left is a photo of me getting my BSc in Anatomy. On the right is my German great grandmother, Alice, with my grandmother, Lilly, in her arms.

This is one of my very favourite photos taken on our wedding day on June 3rd 1978.

Showing off now!! On the left is my new best friend with a lovely smile as she is talking to me. The small broach can be worn in the lapel by anyone associated with The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Kath gave me it as a present when I got the MBE.

This is a drawing I bought frim an art gallery in York. The artist is Brian Lewis who lives in Pontefract. I know him pretty well. Kath and I were friends with his first wife, Jean, who was a fellow GP and who died at a tragic young age in her 50s.

Showing off again!! Every 4 years people with the MBE or any other Order of the British Empire award (OBE, CBE,  KBE etc) can apply for a seat at a service in St Paul's Cathedral. I was lucky to get one in 2012. The service was stunning. Prince Philip is the Grand Master of the Order and he and The Queen are wearing the colours of the Order. I have a DVD of the service. The bells rang out and the music and choir were fabulous. I shall apply again in 2016. The only problem is that I am not allowed to bring Kath.

This was the brass plate from Leckhampton Road Surgery, Cheltenham. I was a partner there for about 4 years in the 1970s. When I left the practice gave me this as a memento. 

This is a Fez I bought on a holiday in Morroco in the early 1980s. We met a couple from Liverpool. We have exchanged Christmas cars every year since then. He also bought a Fez. The rule is that the Christmas card has to have a red Fez  drawn in somewhere - on an angel or sheep's head for example.

These were poker chips owned by my German grandfather. He was a great gambler. The chips were made in Chicago. He liked poker and roulette. His favourite numbers on a roulette table were 8,11, 30 and 17. 

This is a painting given to me by Abdul Paliwalla. Abdul was at University College with me. He became a GP. He has Parkinson's disease and the 2014 Parkinson's Society Calendar  has one of his paintings.

You can hang this round your neck and if you blow into the yellow thing it makes the sound of a duck quacking. Once a year a gang of us who were training together at  The London Hospital  meet for a reunion. A few years ago we went to Philadelphia and went on a duck boat on the river. A duck boat can run both on land and water. The guide issued us with these instruments and played music that we all had to quack to. It was really corny but great fun. I have a photo of the Dean of Students quacking away.

This is Professor J Z Young - a cutting of his obituary He died at the age of 90. He was still working. Those at University College, London, studying Anatomy for a BSc with his went to Naples for 6 weeks. Wee undertook research with him on octopuses and squid. It was great fun and a fantastic experience. He is one of my heroes. Very eminent man. Look him up on youtube - dissecting a squid!!

 This is is my German grandmother's handbag. It is Italian and when opened has all sorts of compartments including small glass bottles with perfume. Looks pretty ragged just sitting there on a shelf.

It is difficult to capture this wooden box properly. It has a hidden inner compartment and can only be opened by sliding bits of the outside in unexpected directions. It is a real challenge to open it. Over 30 years ago I gave it to Jo Smith in Herbert Brace's house in Fryston. Jo took it down Fryston coal mine and a gang of miners spent a significant amount of time trying to open it. Not much coal obtained that day!

This is a voodoo doll bought in the deep south of the USA - perhaps in New Orleans. In the mid 1990s we appointed a new young partner for our medical practice. He seamed ideal but gave us back word. He did not want to work with us as he felt the partners were too familiar with the staff. We had had a party in our house for the partners and staff to welcome him. We were all very upset and angry. One morning I put the doll in the receptionists room with some pins and a note stating: "Think of someone you have recently met at a party and use the pins accordingly". I returned to that room after I had done my morning surgery to find that most of the pins were stuck in the doll's groin. Hazel, the senior receptionist, said to me: "you didn't even feel the slightest twinge?"

 This is the Hippocratic oath in French. It is an oath that Doctors swore in the old days. The first part is : "I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, likewise Hygeia and Panacea, and call all the gods and goddesses to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment.

I will reverence my master who taught me the art. Equally with my parents, will I allow him things necessary for his support, and will consider his sons as brothers. I will teach them my art without reward or agreement; and I will impart all my acquirement, instructions, and whatever I know, to my master's children, as to my own; and likewise to all my pupils, who shall bind and tie themselves by a professional oath, but to none else.

With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgment and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage". Source  - Wikipedia.

This French version was given to me by Bill Message, the partner, of Dr Jean Lewis, who were good friends. He gave it me after Jean's untimely death in her 50s in the early 1990s.

This is the Member of the British Empire medal. 

On the left is a photograph of my German grandmother, Lilly, and me in the garden of this house where we live and where i lived as a child. On the right is my Aunt Sania. She was Russian  married my mother's brother, Herbert. She walked out of Russia at the time of the revolution (she was a white Russian). She and Herbert had to get out of Germany with the onset of the second world war and they came to Britain. They were interned on the Isle of Man for 5 years. They returned to Germany after the war. She was a lawyer and got significant compensation from the German government for some members of my family.

This is the koala bear my uncle Ernst and aunt Erna sent me from Australia when I was a very small child. I used take him to bed with me.

This jack in the box releases a frightening and horrific puppet that makes me jump out of my skin.

The music box plays the theme tune to the film "The Godfather". I was asked to say something a few years ago at my Goddaughter, Samantha's 21st birthday. Despite being very nervous with all those young people there I ended up playing the tune to her on this musical box.

  Click here to see it being played.

I have a duster somewhere in the room. New Year's resolution for 2015 - get the study cleaned.

That is the end of this voyage. It is a very personal and somewhat self indulgent journey. It has given me a lot of pleasure researching and writing it.