Visiting Doug

Later in the week I paid my usual visit to Doug. We discussed my foolish behaviour. ‘I will not die in the name of some false-Messiah.’ (Neat bit of melodrama for you there). Doug said he had passed Andy on the street and had given him a ‘murderous look’. And it was indeed murderous. I asked him to demonstrate it and I have to say I shall be having nightmares for weeks to come. Anyway, it was sufficient to make Andy turn and scurry away. What a coward.

Doug and I discussed life before the NHS was introduced. He talked about how the poor and dying had to pawn their belongings in order to obtain treatment. His face was mottled with fury when I told him about an ultra-Conservative friend of mine who believes it should be abolished. He remembered what happened when his own father was dying. His stepmother had to pawn many of their valuables and even then they couldn’t afford a doctor (who probably couldn’t have done much anyway) so they employed a nurse who, according to Doug, was ‘huge and red-faced’ and ‘as Irish as a Shamrock’. She did an excellent job of looking after his father though and eased him through his final days. She was very experienced – she had been a nurse out in India. Some very experienced nurses are just as competent, if not more so, than many doctors.

Doug said he found her ‘terrifying’ at first but soon grew to admire and respect her and they remained friends until she died.