MAGAZINE EDITION

CONTRIBUTORS

BACK ISSUES

CONTACTS

IN REMEMBRACE OF THINGS PAST

By Peter Murchie
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

In my younger and more vulnerable years one of the things that swung it for me and general practice was that you never quite knew what was going to happen next. With the wisdom of the years I have learned that I should hope that what is going to happen next concerns middle aged men with grubby boiler suits, a cheery demeanour and an infected finger, as opposed to anxious mothers in blue glasses and copper bracelets accompanied by consumptive daughters with relationship issues. Despite it all however, I must admit to a certain initial frisson of excitement during a recent out of hours shift in the Granite City.

It had been a goldenly quiet evening and I had the familiar feeling that life was beginning over again with the imminent defeat of the Glasgow Rangers. So it was that Mike the Driver and I sat languidly in a lay by, delighting in the radio reports of mazy Spanish runs, and two enormous portions of vinegary chips. Abruptly the fax machine in the back seat sputtered into life. Synchronously we swung round and shot it looks that would have been only too familiar to jobies given to floating in swimming pools. Resentfully, I snatched at the offensive white sheet of A4, being sure to smear it liberally with chip grease. I scrutinised it hotly, with as my wife would remark, a face like a melted Wellington. "Ohhooo!" I exclaimed as I took it all back, my face breaking into a wide smile, luminous with the rosy tint of nostalgia. Incredible, I exclaimed, involving Mike in my excitement - a call to my Granny and Grandad's old house. What were the chances! A domicile not darkened by a Murchie shadow since the door was closed for the last time after Grandad's funeral some twenty years hence.

Like Starsky and Hutch on an APB, chips were hastily dumped and the car swung out into the evening traffic. I chattered excitedly, Mike steered us toward Old Aberdeen purposely. Unavoidably, I began to form mental images of the scene shortly to be encountered. A delightful elderly lady with silvery hair, a pinafore and a patina of faded beauty apologetically beckoning us in to quaint and book lined lounge, thence to unfold a tale of genuinely intrusive lumbago. All the while a scrupulously kempt heavy set man, gruff yet twinklingly benign, would look on, feigning unconcern, and peppering the air with such inconsequentialities as "tostilly serenade", "bot grom sahib, bot grom" and "from Kandahar to candy bar." So like the old days, I beamed.

After a journey of two miles and twenty years I stood at the foot of the old familiar steps. With the light step of a shorted and sandaled schoolboy I skipped deftly up. I ignored the slight tingles of an ill served memory engendered by the absence of window boxes and the faithful old gnome. Entering the lobby I was less able to ignore the besmirching scrawling on memories pristine walls. I don't know who Spoons, Gaz and YBrig are (they were certainly never at Mr Cooper's on New Year's Day and they did not seem to like the Police) but they certainly smashed my rosy glasses with a well aimed psychic boot to the face.

Prior to this evening the closest I had ever come to existential horror was having to read Proust for sixth year English. From this point on however, rend followed tear upon the vestments of my soul. From the growled command of entry, the fug of cigarette vapour, the uncarpeted hallway, I reeled successively. Finally I gained admittance into the beast's lair. Where once existed a cabinet full of whisky miniatures, porcelains of literary characters (Tam o'Shanter and Souter Johnny the highlights) and a mess of books, the troll now dwelled. The walls were dressed in deep purple and an enormously expensive television set. Amidst it all an enormously obese woman with a beard, a stained tracksuit and the odour of the Whig's vault* glowered at me truculently. "Fit f**kin' kept ye..."

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there" remarked LP Hartley, presumably during a break from the riverbank. I had always imagined such sentiments to be felt by rueful aristocrats gazing at the crumbling corbels of the family seat, not as now, by a corpulent fleece wearing out of hours GP, casting a backward glance at rusting bent clothes poles on a litter strewn green. "Ah well, I sighed" clambering back aboard our treacherous TARDIS. We sped of on another fax heralded mission.

As we approached the Causewayend roundabout we struck a pothole. Its associated wormhole swirled open. Aberdonian's will recognise it as the one beside Kwik Fit "Not again" I sighed, as we plunged into it with a blinding flash of light and hurtled 30 years into the future. I rubbed my eyes to clear the dancing auroras therein. Mike had gone from the driver's seat to be replaced by a pimply youth in a green boiler suit and baseball cap.

"Crivens, help ma boab" he exclaimed.

It appears the SNP had won the election of 2007.

"Fa in the name of Salmond and Stugeron are you!"

"Hi" I said extending a hand, "I'm Peter, I'm a GP."

"A fit?" This uttered with deeply furrowed brows.

"A general practitioner" I said hopefully.

"For the sake o Tavish's face furniture, fits that?" he exclaimed.

It wasn't looking good for Labour. I outlined my role. Dim flickers of recognition began to play across his pasty features.

"At's kind of like a CDC" he said.

"A CDC?" I queried

"Chronic disease clerk" he said matter of factly.

"Oh" I said. "And you?"

"I'm a 4 O" he said proudly, "an Oot O' 'Ours Operative."

"But..." I began and then thought better of it. "And do the CDC's do out of hours" I asked.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha" he bellowed. "Wisen up min'. Ye need SVQs for this job"

At this point, another pothole supervened. At least Aberdeen City Council hadn't changed. With another blinding flash we arrived back in 2007. I checked a newspaper seller's board - Crises at Pittodrie - to reassure myself. Mike looked none the worse for his suspension in the time space continuum. We returned to the base in silence. As I entered, the patients glowered, management peered up haughtily from its clipboard and I sank to my knees. "O, call back yesterday, bid time return" I wailed.

Other hoolet online articles by Peter Murchie can be found at:
hoolet edition 49 - Sandyjim Saves the Day
hoolet edition 48 - And The Winner Is...
hoolet edition 47 - A Christmas Caper
hoolet edition 46 - The Edinburgh Festival
hoolet edition 45 - Struck By Enlightenment
hoolet edition 44 - The Pendleton Code
hoolet edition 43 - Christmas Eve at The Pole
hoolet edition 42 - An Unexpected Reunion
hoolet edition 41 - The Complementary Garage
hoolet edition 40- Up General Practice!!
hoolet edition 39- Ten Years From Now
hoolet edition 38 - Finlay and the Contract Summit
hoolet edition 37 - Johnny the Bow and the New Contract
hoolet edition 36 - Science For Football's Sake
hoolet edition 35 - Evidence-Based Golfing
hoolet edition 34 - Dr. Marlowe

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.