in england now

1077

In England NowA Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents

THERE are so many sleek and shiny monsters on theroad now, all speeding along at rates fabulous to me inmy 1932 (late 1932 mind you) baby Morris. They over-take me and look supercilious ; they’re off first when thelights become green, and sneer ; they’re next to me in apark when I’m cranking the engine round, they pulltheir starters and are away with a haughty snort. Whenthis has gone on for a time I get what they call a complex.Original describers of diseases have the honour ofnaming them, and I’m going to call mine " Auto-mobile Hypochondriasis." In my admittedly smallseries of one case (my own) there are two mainmanifestations.

Shame. It embarrasses me when my car shows its short-comings. I flush and sweat, or pretend that it’s not my car,and join in the laughter with the others. I decide that I willovertake that arrogant bounder and I flog the last guts outof the old engine till every rivet shudders. When mybrakes screech and squeal and send children scurryingto their mothers, I stare accusingly at the glistening sedanalongside.Anxiety.-What’s the rattling at the back ? My back

axle’s going. Another Y,10. I get out and look. The backof the car looks crestfallen and sunken. I drive the nextten miles at 20 m.p.h., and then realise my stethoscope is

vibrating on my ’Thermos’ flask. Then, my Good Heavens,there’s a knock in the engine. This is it this time. A BigEnd-whatever that means-but I know they knock in theengine. I accelerate and it gets worse. I stop at thenext garage and ask the man-always superior and omniscient- Piston slap," says he and charges. 9d. I stop an A.A.man. " Ah," says he, " it’s your tappets, they need a fewthou. more." Depressed, I arrive home to discover it wasthe B.M.A. badge on my radiator.

Every new noise, every new smell, every new sensationnow spells doom to me. I am a complete hypochondriac,and have taken to patent medicines and quackery. Icannot resist a new petrol, a new additive, a new tabletto put in the petrol or the oil. " Fill your tank withZoomph," say the adverts., and I do. " Put Zwish inyour oil," and I do. Everyone knows more about carsthan I do, and I take everyone’s advice. They alldiagnose something different, but always sinister andalways likely to involve stripping the car to pieces. Theyall look so wise, and I know now what patients must feellike.Of course, I know the real cure-but I can’t afford a

new car. I spend all my money on " Zwish," " Zoomph,"

and advice.* * *

We take most of the national dailies in our hospitalcommon-room. But newspapers are long, lunch-time(like life) is often short, and most of us are selectivein our reading, hurrying feverishly from paper to paperin search of our favourites. It occurred to me the otherday that the Ministry, or perhaps the B.M.A. in itswisdom, might issue a composite daily newspaper formedical common-rooms, made up of the items mostoften read-a sort of Excerpta Journalistica. Withwhat cries of gratitude would hard-pressed hospitalstaffs fall on a layout such as this :Page 1. The strip cartoons of the Daily Mirror.Page 2. The Daily Express editorial, the Times fourth

leader, and Cassandra. -Page 3. The marriage and engagement columns of the

Daily Telegraph (medical protagonists in heavy type).Page 4. The crossword puzzles from the Times, the

Daily Telegraph, and the Manchester Guardian.Pages 5 and 6. Sport.Page 7. Advertisements for women’s clothes and second-

hand cars. -

Page 8. Top half : Such topics as Parliament, internationalaffairs, and so on. Bottom half : left blank for crosswordclues and anagrams.

.* . * ,

Now that I am thoroughly accustomed to the free andeasy life of retirement, it was quite a shock to receive theagenda of a medical meeting and see the weighty subjectsdown for discussion. Was this the world I used to livein-with its abstruse problems and policies, its questionsand answers, its day-to-day activities, its dark searchingsinto the future ? It seems a strange reality comparedwith the reality of my present life of fine freedom-myjust-you-wait-for-it attitude to a ringing telephone, thecalm of an afternoon nap, the solace of no night calls.I shall go to the meeting, not just to keep in touch withmy friends, but to strengthen my firm belief that I amlucky to have reached this quiet backwater after a fairlylong and sometimes stormy voyage.

* * *

African gates have the same fascination as Englishgates, and we were leaning over one surveying a fieldwith a miscellaneous collection of livestock. Comparedwith the African breeds of goats and cattle, the Yorkshirepigs looked like animals in a toy farmyard which hadbeen bought a size too large. " What you doctors wantto do," said my companion, " is to keep the milk whichshould be going to the rising generation of animals, to feedhuman infants. But feeding during weaning is a problemwhich concerns all the young animals of this country."My own sympathies lay with the human animals, but Icould see his point when he talked about the next genera-tion. " When an animal is stunted during weaning," hesaid, " it never recovers. It takes longer to mature, andthough it may ultimately reach almost the same weightas a normal animal, it hasn’t got the same stamina andresistance." This, I felt sure, was what was happeningto most human animals in Uganda, but one cannotbe so dogmatic about humans as one can aboutcows.

My attention returned to the Yorkshire pigs, and Iasked whether, with English rations, the local cows andgoats would grow as big as the English animals. " Youcan’t alter the size of an animal’s frame," he answered," but a well-fed animal is better covered and reachesmaturity more quickly." Here again was somethingwhich applied to humans ; for I have read that Englishchildren nowadays are bigger because they grow fasterand reach maturity more quickly. " Of course," he wenton,

" being small has an advantage when the food-supplyis uncertain." This was a new idea to me. And with aworld shortage of food threatening perhaps we should becultivating a smaller size of human.

* * *

At the age of nearly four, one should be allowed completefreedom in one’s choice of subjects for study. At leastso Andrew thinks. If my wife decides to teach himarithmetic, he says firmly, " I think I do read." Thelesson then develops into a polytechnic session until oneor the other, usually not Andrew, gives way. The resultsof this method became apparent some days ago when hemet me on the doorstep and proudly flourished a sheet ofpaper on which he had written OE.

" Do you know what that spells, Daddy ? "

" Er ...," I murmured cautiously." No, not er."" Oh."No."This sort of conversation was going to lead us straight to the

stage of Moss Empires, so I tried a quick guess before thetheatrical agency boys could sign us up.

" I mean we," I said.He shook his head patronisingly. " It spells naughty."It took me the remainder of the evening to work out

the solution.* * *

MUTUAL AID

. With litigation what it is,A doctor’s life is harassed ;

But I’ve ensured that my two sonsWill never be embarrassed.

An Orthopaedic Surgeon one ;A Barrister his brother ;

No matter then if either slips,It benefits the other.