The Summer of Sir Lancelot

the name ‘Clement E Dinwiddie, MB, BS.‘
    ‘I‘ve been beating on this blasted door since daybreak,‘ he continued, shouting through the letter box.
    A window flew open upstairs. ‘Just coming, just coming! Is Mrs Peckwater in labour?‘
    A few seconds later Dr Clement E Dinwiddie himself stood blinking in the doorway.
    ‘Good heavens, Sir Lancelot-‘ He scratched a head just off the pillow. ‘I didn‘t expect you so soon.‘
    ‘Good morning to you, Dinwiddie. I thought we might get the consultation over early, then I could drive straight home to Wales. I have my luggage in the car.‘
    He indicated the Rolls at the kerb. He had left the Harley Street house before seven, his brother-in-law having got up specially to escort him down the front steps with great solicitude.
    ‘I‘m afraid I was asleep,‘ apologized Clem, adjusting his big round glasses. ‘I was up most of the night with a haematemesis. I‘ll go and put some clothes on, sir.‘
    ‘I assure you that won‘t be necessary,‘ declared Sir Lancelot, removing his damp overcoat in the narrow hall. Though he had to admit Dr Dinwiddie — who as a student was never a flashy dresser, with holes in his socks and elbows and sometimes suspending his trousers with string — standing in moth-eaten dressing gown, odd pyjamas, and an old pair of plimsols, presented a rather unprofessional appearance.
    ‘Would you like a cup of tea, sir?‘ Clem invited. ‘I‘m afraid Mrs Bowler, who usually does for me, never turns up on a Sunday.‘
    ‘Thank you. Milk but no sugar.‘
    Sir Lancelot followed him into a kitchen which seemed to have been ransacked during the night by a gang of burglars-and famished ones, too, from the scraps of half-eaten food lying all over the place.
    ‘Sorry the place is a bit rough,‘ Clem apologized as an afterthought. ‘I was meaning to have the house done up, but I bought one of those new electrocardiographs instead.‘
    Sir Lancelot frowned. ‘But surely the National Health Service pays for your equipment?‘
    ‘No such luck!‘ Clem gave a dry laugh. ‘Though I gather some of my fellow GPs use the modest expense allowance for papering the parlour.‘
    Sir Lancelot stroked his beard. The haziness of consultants towards family doctoring matches that of generals towards bayonet-fighting.
    ‘Tell me,‘ he asked, as he sipped his tea, ‘what on earth induced you to plunge into general practice? You could have stepped straight from your finals into a research laboratory. Or you might have taken up surgery. You‘d have got your Fellowship blindfold and in handcuffs.‘
    ‘It was you, sir,‘ replied Clem, shifting a microscope and the remains of some egg and chips.
    ‘It was I?‘
    Clem nodded. ‘Yes, you were always telling us how your lather was a GP up North, and the family doctor was the backbone of the profession. The front-line troops in the battle for survival — you remember, sir? I was most impressed.‘
    Sir Lancelot shifted on the kitchen chair.
    ‘And that last lecture you gave, sir, on the importance of the tamily doctor. I still recall every word of it. I‘d only just qualified, and I decided there and then that becoming a family doctor would be my best contribution to suffering humanity. Unfortunately,‘ he added, tidying aw ay a skull and two empty tins of baked beans, ‘humanity now doesn‘t seem to be suffering half as much as I am.‘ He gave a brief sigh. ‘Shall we get on with the consultation, sir? Naturally, I‘m terrifically honoured that you asked me. The surgery‘s through here,‘ he indicated, leading the way to a damp and chilly apartment at the front.
    ‘You‘ve got some decent equipment here, Dinwiddie,‘ Sir Lancelot remarked approvingly.
    ‘Though it‘s a bit disorganized, I‘m afraid.‘ Clem straightened the greyish cover of the examination couch and tipped a half-eaten tomato sandwich into the dirty-dressing bin. ‘I expect I‘ll get straight one day, when I‘ve a moment.‘
    ‘You find the work hard?‘ Sir Lancelot demanded.
    ‘Some of the patients are rather exacting.‘ He broke into a wheezy cough. ‘And this devilish asthma plagues me every summer, which doesn‘t make the job any easier.‘
    ‘But why don‘t you take a summer holiday, man?‘
    Clem shrugged his shoulders. ‘Can‘t afford to pay a locum,‘ he wheezed.
    ‘Can‘t afford it?‘ Sir Lancelot frowned. ‘But surely, the National Health Service provides a holiday replacement free of