Doctors and Cancer: Firewall

Abstract

My mother telephoned.

“I’m worried about your father. He’s not right. You know how good his memory is”

My father worked as a psychiatrist, and work was what he did. He loved his job almost as much as he loved my mother. When he retired from the National Health Service, he continued in private practice and, at the age of 76, walked to his private consulting rooms in Harley Street every darned day. He was a great “carer”, taking responsibility for everyone around him, and the love that he gave in his dealings with patients made him a local celebrity. As a child, I spent a lot of my time with him in school holidays, and walking through our North London streets was the suburban equivalent of a royal procession. We’d always meet people that he’d know, and he’d stop and chat en route to the bank for his pocket money or to the tobacconists for his carton of Senior Service cigarettes and tin of four square pipe tobacco.