Doctor On The Ball

by Richard Gordon

  Jilly appeared unexpectedly at lunchtime.

  ‘I suppose you know that Bertie Taverill’s the president of Sanctuary?’

  I started, over my cholesterol-free steamed cod.

  ‘But that’s like making John Peel patron saint of the Anti-Blood Sports League.’

  ‘Sanctuary has to deal with both men and women, so chose a president who was both.’ She hesitated, compressing her lips. ‘I don’t know what Mr Taverill thinks of your conduct, Daddy, but it won’t…won’t at all help…my professional career, ug.’

  She left the room quickly again.

  I took the rest of the day off. I felt we would get on well over a couple of malts, if I met King Lear in the golf club. I went to bed deciding to shirk the surgery for my final day. At 3 a.m. the telephone rang. It was Mr Clew, with violent abdominal pain.

  I drove through the icy night. It could not be his habitual couvade, Mrs Clew not being due for a couple of months. The two children were screaming. Mrs Clew was distraught with scarlet-spotted cheeks. Mr Clew was in bed groaning. I examined him and telephoned the General.

  ‘Jilly? It’s Daddy. Sorry to rouse you, but I think I’ve a nasty appendix here.’

  ‘Pop him in an ambulance, go back to bed, and I’ll do the rest,’ she told me cheerfully.

  ‘I’ll have to take the children with me on the demo tomorrow morning,’ said Mrs Clew flusteredly.

  I asked crossly. ‘What demo?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear, doctor? The big one Re-Birth is holding outside the General. Oh, I couldn’t possibly miss it, even with my husband a patient inside. It’d be like missing my own twenty-first birthday party. There’s coaches booked overnight from Manchester, Birmingham and Bath.’

  ‘But you can’t hold a demo tomorrow,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ll clash with the Queen.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ she told me.

  I slept an hour. I supposed I had better go to the surgery. A vanquished soldier must fight till the armistice. I arrived late. In my consulting room was Mrs Radnor, sobbing.

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it, honest, doctor.’

  ‘What didn’t you mean to do?’ I demanded shortly.

  ‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of it in a month of Sundays, if it hadn’t been for that big lady from the greengrocer’s carrying on about women’s rights.’

  ‘You’ve made it up with Fred?’

  ‘No, doctor, I’ve put him in the General with a fractured skull, from hitting him with a saucepan when he complained at breakfast his bacon was cold. Oh, it’s terrible! The police are threatening to shop me, there was reporters everywhere at the hospital for some demo or something, nosy parkers the lot of them, you’d have thought I’d won the pools, and come to think of it, doctor, Fred never hit me in the first place, not even with his elbow by mistake, I caught myself on the kitchen door, but at the time I was that mad at Fred, oh dear, what shall I do, I am a wicked woman.’

  ‘Your husband’s not seriously hurt, I hope?’ I asked with concern.

  ‘I don’t fancy he’s too bad, he’s being looked after by a lady doctor who was ever so nice to me, and funny thing, she’s got the same name as you.’

  The telephone rang. Mrs Jenkins had a call from the General.

  ‘That appendix?’ I asked Jilly at once. ‘Complicated?’

  ‘Don’t know, Daddy,’ she told me brightly. ‘It’s still inside.’

  I was surprised. ‘Really? I thought the surgeons’ motto was, “If in doubt, cut it out.”’

  ‘I might have done, before I got my Fellowship. But I was suspicious. It wasn’t quite right, somehow. Wrong white count, Now he’s fine and opening a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘Do your patients pretty well on the surgical wards, don’t you?’

  ‘But didn’t you hear about Mrs Clew? She arrived for the demonstration this morning, made such an impassioned speech she went into labour, and Bertie Taverill’s just delivered her of a little boy. Bertie says he does so wish you GPs would help the consultants by getting the patients’ dates right.’

  ‘The couvade!’ I exclaimed. ‘Mr Clew must be the only case of a father admitted to hospital with labour pains before the mother. Thank God you didn’t cut him open.’

  Mrs Radnor blew her nose.

  ‘And I hope Bertie Taverill isn’t upset about the backlash from my Sanctuary patient?’ I asked hastily.

  ‘That’s another thing he wanted me to say. He’s eternally grateful for the wonderful turn you’ve done him. He says it’s going to make Sanctuary look as ridiculous as the Two Ronnies and a wonderful excuse to resign. He was only talked into heading the paranoic outfit by a Lady someone or other with fibroids.’

  ‘I can’t think of any better news to ensure my happy retirement.’

  ‘Oh, and Daddy, Peter Taverill and I are getting married next month. Damn! My bleep. Must go. See you with the Queen.’

  The opening ceremony was delightful, freed from the agony of a speech. But… Well… Perhaps my elegant sentences from a patient’s record card would have gone better than a half-hour of Basil Barty-Howells, and it would have been a moment worth recalling to my now prospective grandchildren before they took me away to the St Boniface Twilight Home. Still, the Queen smiled at me. I wondered, what was she thinking about?

  I had only that Friday evening to clear my files from the consulting room to which I should never return. Alone, I wrote my letter of resignation to the Family Practitioner Committee. It was growing late, on a bloody night pissing with rain. I sealed and stamped the envelope. The doorbell rang.

  I frowned. Nobody called at the surgery that time of night. Patients telephoned for the partner on call. I opened the front door. Tracey was outside, dripping.

  ‘Doctor,’ she said solemnly. ‘Come at once.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Mum’s having one of her turns.’

  I knew the code. Moira was back on the drink.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked.

  ‘Seems asleep now, though she’s been sick all over.’

  I said kindly, ‘Really, the other doctor who’s on duty tonight is now in charge of Mum’s case.’

  ‘Mum told me, if anything happened like this to get you. She said you’re the only doctor who can help her.’

  I said wearily, ‘All right, Tracey, I’ll come.’

  I went back to the surgery for Mrs Jenkins’ red plastic brolly. I saw my letter on the desk. I said, ‘I’m buggered if I’ll retire.’ We left.

  The rain drummed fiercely on the top of my opened umbrella. The little girl nestled close to my side and clung to my left arm as she had been bidden. We passed, this odd pair, across the rain-slashed oblong of light that the window cast.

  ‘Doctor Series’ Titles

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Doctor in the House 1952

  2. Doctor at Sea 1953

  3. Doctor at Large 1955

  4. Doctor in Love 1957

  5. Doctor and Son 1959

  6. Doctor in Clover 1960

  7. Doctor on Toast 1961

  8. Doctor in the Swim 1962

  9. Love and Sir Lancelot 1965

  10. The Summer of Sir Lancelot 1965

  11. Doctor on the Boil 1970

  12. Doctor on the Brain 1972

  13. Doctor in the Nude 1973

  14. Doctor on the Job 1976

  15. Doctor in the Nest 1979

  16. Doctor’s Daughters 1981

  17. Doctor on the Ball 1985

  18. Doctor in the Soup 1986

  Humorous Novels

  (in order of first publication)

  1. The Captain’s Table 1954

  2. Nuts in May 1964

  3. Good Neighbours 1976

  4. Happy Families 1978

  5. Dr. Gordon’s Casebook 1982

  6. Great Medical Disasters 1983

  7. Great Medical Mysteries 1984

&n
bsp; More Serious Works

  (in order of first publication)

  1. The Facemaker 1967

  2. Surgeon at Arms 1968

  2. The Invisible Victory 1977

  3. The Private Life of Florence Nightingale 1978

  2. The Private Life of Jack the Ripper 1980

  3. The Private Life of Dr. Crippen 1981

  Synopses

  Published by House of Stratus

  The Captain’s Table

  When William Ebbs is taken from a creaking cargo boat and made Captain of a luxury liner, he quickly discovers that the sea holds many perils…probably the most perilous being the first night dinner, closely followed by the dangers of finding a woman in his room. Then there is the embarrassing presence of the shipping company’s largest shareholder, a passenger over board and blackmail. The Captain’s Table is a tale of nautical misadventure and mayhem packed with rib-tickling humour.

  ‘An original humorist with a sly wit and a quick eye for the ridiculous’ – Queen

  Doctor and Son

  Recovering from the realisation that his honeymoon was not quite as he had anticipated, Simon Sparrow can at least look forward to a life of tranquillity and order as a respectable homeowner with a new wife. But that was before his old friend Dr Grimsdyke took to using their home as a place of refuge from his various misdemeanours…and especially from the incident with the actress which demanded immediate asylum. Surely one such houseguest was enough without the appearance of Simon’s godfather, the eminent Sir Lancelot Spratt. Chaos and mayhem in the Sparrow household can mean only one thing – more comic tales from Richard Gordon’s hilarious doctor series.

  ‘Further unflaggingly funny addition to Simon Sparrow’s medical saga’ – Daily Telegraph

  Doctor at Large

  Dr Richard Gordon’s first job after qualifying takes him to St Swithan’s where he is enrolled as Junior Casualty House Surgeon. However, some rather unfortunate incidents with Mr Justice Hopwood, as well as one of his patients inexplicably coughing up nuts and bolts, mean that promotion passes him by – and goes instead to Bingham, his odious rival. After a series of disastrous interviews, Gordon cuts his losses and visits a medical employment agency. To his disappointment, all the best jobs have already been snapped up, but he could always turn to general practice…

  Doctor at Sea

  Richard Gordon’s life was moving rapidly towards middle-aged lethargy – or so he felt. Employed as an assistant in general practice – the medical equivalent of a poor curate – and having been ‘persuaded’ that marriage is as much an obligation for a young doctor as celibacy for a priest, Richard sees the rest of his life stretching before him. Losing his nerve, and desperately in need of an antidote, he instead signs on with the Fathom Steamboat Company. What follows is a hilarious tale of nautical diseases and assorted misadventures at sea. Yet he also becomes embroiled in a mystery – what is in the Captain’s stomach remedy? And more to the point, what on earth happened to the previous doctor?

  ‘Sheer unadulterated fun’ – Star

  Doctor in Clover

  Now Dr Grimsdyke is qualified he finds practising medicine rather less congenial than he anticipated. But the ever-selfless Grimsdyke resolves to put the desires of others (and in particular his rather career-minded cousin) before his own, and settle down and make the best of it. Finding the right job, however, is not always that easy. Porterhampton is suddenly rife with difficulties – as is being a waiter, as is being a writer. And writing obituaries is just plain depressing. Doctor in Clover finds the hapless Grimsdyke in a hilarious romp through misadventures, mishaps and total disasters.

  Doctor in Love

  In this hilarious romantic comedy, Richard Gordon awakes one morning with a headache. It takes him a while to realise he is ill – after all he is a doctor! Dr Pennyworth diagnoses jaundice and prescribes a spell in hospital. But amongst the bedpans and injections on Honesty ward, Richard falls in love – with his very own Florence Nightingale. However he soon learns that he has a rival for her affections, and unwilling to lose his love to the pachyderm Dr Hinyman, Richard sets out to impress… More medical mayhem from the hilarious Richard Gordon.

  Doctor in the House

  Richard Gordon’s acceptance into St Swithan’s medical school came as no surprise to anyone, least of all him – after all, he had been to public school, played first XV rugby, and his father was, let’s face it, ‘a St Swithan’s man’. Surely he was set for life. It was rather a shock then to discover that, once there, he would actually have to work, and quite hard. Fortunately for Richard Gordon, life proved not to be all dissection and textbooks after all… This hilarious hospital comedy is perfect reading for anyone who’s ever wondered exactly what medical students get up to in their training. Just don’t read it on your way to the doctor’s!

  ‘Uproarious, extremely iconoclastic’ – Evening News

  ‘A delightful book’ – Sunday Times

  Doctor in the Nest

  Sir Lancelot Sprat, surgeon and patriot, is finding that his faith in the British National Health Service is taking a bit of a battering – especially when the ceiling of his operating theatre collapses. It had already been a bad day…a call from Nairobi, a disagreement with Miss MacNish over the breakfast haddock, and a visit from Sir Lionel… Sir Lancelot’s single-handed battle to save St Sepulchre’s Hospital from closure creates a hilarious tale, complicated by two ex-students and three ladies only too willing to satisfy a widower’s sexual desires.

  Doctor in the Nude

  Mrs Samantha Dougal is against it. Nudity that is. In a Soho strip-club, the Dean of St Swithan’s Hospital feigns indifference. Mrs Dougal’s husband, however, is totally in favour – and has just moved in with the Dean, who just happens to be his brother-in-law. The jokes positively spill from this elegantly written and languorously witty tale that includes Sir Lancelot, the Queen, a totally impractical new building, and the voluptuous young daughter of the trendy hospital chaplain.

  ‘The jokes spill forth fresh and funny… Not a book to read on a train: it’s impossible to keep a straight face’ – Sunday Telegraph

  Doctor in the Soup

  This witty medical mystery sees the deeply ambitions Jim Whynn, MP for Churchford, and his wife Charlotte join the list of Richard Gordon’s private patients. Expecting no more than having to prescribe the standard headache tablets and flu remedies, Richard is surprised when the MP pays him a visit of particular delicacy. For after a late night at the House of Commons, Jim did something rather incautious to say the least. He confesses to Charlotte and persuades Richard to refer him to a psychiatrist as a damage limitation exercise. Richard writes the necessary letter – doctor to doctor – but somehow the original goes astray. So when it turns up in the hands of the press…

  Doctor in the Swim

  Dr Grimsdyke was only too pleased to discover that he was sitting next to the luscious Lucy Squiffington on his flight home. Several hours in her company was bound to go well – in fact it went rather too well seeing as how the long-suffering Anemone was waiting for him back home. A fact Grimsdyke seemed to have completely forgotten. And as if juggling two women wasn’t enough, the Jellybone sisters then enter the scene with a troupe of female contortionists neatly in toe – hardly likely to help straighten things out for poor Grimsdyke. As he ponders his options, Grimsdyke falls headlong into a series of hilarious mishaps that leave him almost on the point of drowning.

  Doctor on the Ball

  First there is the actor who confuses himself with his character. Then comes the man suffering from amnesia…and the housewife who has spent all day wrestling with her washing machine. This is all in a day’s work for the local GP in a Kentish town. Yet having done this for twenty-five years Richard Gordon could surely be forgiven for occasionally hankering after an early retirement. This hilarious novel relates the incidents and events in a hapless GP’s life – misadventures that have somehow prevented him from once and for all exchanging his ste
thoscope for a fishing rod.

  Doctor on the Boil

  In Doctor on the Boil, Richard Gordon’s prescription in as effervescent and hilariously stimulating as ever. The work-shy Dr Grimsdyke is still at St Swithan’s – the same as ever despite the world having moved on around him. Nurses are hitching up their skirts in the name of fashion and the dean is almost certain he is to be knighted. And then a Rolls Royce pulls up at the hospital gates. In it is Sir Lancelot Spratt. Bored with retirement he has returned to invoke a clause in St Swithan’s original charter and resume his work – to the great dismay of just about everyone.

  ‘Mr Gordon is in his way the P G Wodehouse of the general hospitals’ – The Daily Telegraph

  Doctor on the Brain

  On a sunny morning in June, the dean of St Swithan’s Hospital Medical School is struggling to avoid hypocrisy as he writes the obituary for his fearsome sparring partner, Sir Lancelot Spratt. Yet far from being a funereal and moribund tale, Doctor on the Brain is a fast-moving, hilarious comedy where the jokes are liberally dispensed and the mishaps all too common. The dean’s pregnant daughter, his wife’s tantrums, the physician next door and the mysterious willowy blonde secretary all add to the hilarity – seemingly nothing can dampen the medical high jinks of Richard Gordon’s host of entertaining characters.

  Doctor on the Job

  Heavens above! The staff of St Swithan’s hospital on strike! Sir Lancelot can hardly believe it. And when the porters and tea ladies take charge and start ordering him about, it seems that all hell will break loose – well from Sir Lancelot’s quarters at least. Fortunately not all are so badly affected. Philip Chipps for one has more pressing things on his mind – he seems to have misplaced his trousers. In one of the nurses’ rooms… Richard Gordon’s imagined scenario of hospital strikes became all too much a reality in the troubled NHS. Fortunately he provides more than a little comedy to help swallow this bitter pill.