During the two years that I attended King’s College London, I lived with my parents. Our relationship had been turbulent in my mid-teens. There had been pointless battles over hair and clothes, the common intergenerational battleground of the time. These things mattered to them because they retained a fierce working class pride. I thought that […]
Archive | Politics
Hospital porter Part 4: A fit-up
I have often attended courts as a psychiatrist. My experience of the justice system, criminal and civil, has ranged from matters trivial to grave. As a student, I was a plaintiff in a case in the small claims court. I was awarded the value of the faulty goods plus costs. At the other end of […]
Hospital porter Part 2: Every comrade’s dream
©Steve Hammond My girlfriend, who was away studying at York University most of the time, was very cross that I had joined the Workers Revolutionary Party. She was left-wing but she saw Trotskyist groups as no different to the religious cults that pestered young people at the time, such as the Moonies and the Children […]
Hospital porter Part 1: Balancing on two wheels
Bloomsbury, 1987 I attended my last British Medical Association conference as a junior doctors’ representative one sunny Saturday. I had finished long years of postgraduate training and I had applied for a post as consultant psychiatrist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (I did not get the job). The conference concerned a document called “Hospital Medical Staffing: Achieving a […]
Small betrayals, Isaac Newton, John Milton and me
Most people might think that Isaac Newton and John Milton have very little in common with me, but they would be wrong. Despite some disparities with regard to stature within our chosen fields of endeavour, we belong to a select group. We (I like to think of the three of us as ‘we’) are all […]
One step forward, two steps back
I was never entirely sure about my mother’s attitude to religion, as she often criticised my father for being too dogmatic in his atheism. When she was dying, I asked her if she wanted any religious element in her funeral. “Of course I don’t!” she snapped back, “what would I want that for?” Then she […]
We have been here before
As I write, the news is dominated by the Grenfell Tower disaster. Yesterday it was confirmed that in the recent refurbishment flammable plastic cladding was installed rather than the recommended fire-proof alternative. This gave rise to a saving of £2/square metre. It is far too soon to say whether this was the main reason for […]
“Can I just check that your health insurance is up to date?”
Much of my time is now spent staring at a computer screen, and consequently information technology has inexorably put me back in touch with my contemporaries from medical school. I am sorry to report that there appears to be an epidemic of occupational burnout within the group. My Facebook feed is alive with news of […]
The Lonesome West
Amid a world-wide shift in political alignment, we have yet another once-in-a-generation call to the ballot box. Tony Blair cannot bring himself to support Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister. Tony Blair is extraordinary, even amongst a group of people as unusual as ex-Prime Ministers. I find him every bit as unlikeable as Donald Trump. […]
À la recherche du temps perdu
Theresa May seems to have been dreamily reminiscing about her childhood in an Oxfordshire vicarage. She wants to open new grammar schools in order to create a Great Meritocracy. It may be a stage-of-life thing. I find it takes very little provocation to make me think about my youth. Simon Wessely writes an entertaining blog […]