Linda beside Loch Linnhe in 2019, when we climbed Ben Nevis, in an image reminiscent of Local Hero
Music in Cars
A couple of weeks ago, I was watching something on
television, I can’t remember what, and at one point, the background music was a
heartland rock number which sounded extremely familiar. Where had I heard it
before? I didn’t focus my mind on this question, as that is futile, I just came
back to it every so often and eventually I remembered. In 1982, Mike Dixon and
I were presenting some results from our trial of intraincisional antibiotics in
biliary tract surgery at a conference at the University of East Anglia in
Norwich. Mike had his car with him as he was staying for the full three days of
the conference. I had come up on the train from Sutton where I was living at
the time (see last month’s blog). At the end of the session, Mike drove me to
Norwich station for my train back, and he was playing a cassette on the car
stereo which included this number.
After a little internet searching last week, I found that
the song was The Waiting, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, from their
1981 album, Hard Promises. It’s a perfectly good example of its genre.
The strange thing is that I can’t remember what on earth I was watching which
included it in the soundtrack, but I can remember the occasion of hearing it in
Mike’s car 44 years ago.
Mike Dixon is a breast surgeon of considerable brilliance
and world renown. However, in 1979-81, while I was working as a research
associate in Edinburgh Medical School, he was a junior doctor in the Royal
Infirmary. He was training in general surgery at the time, and I enjoyed
working with him on some of his projects, including the trial of
intraincisional antibiotics mentioned above. Many years later, in 2008, he and
I were both speaking at a symposium in Glasgow, and the chairperson took the
opportunity to congratulate Mike on his recent appointment as Professor of
Surgery. In conversation later, I remarked that I was astonished that he hadn’t
been made a Prof years before. Mike said, ‘The time and the circumstances have
to be right. It can be almost like a demotion for a surgeon. They make you a
professor to get you out of theatre.’
I don’t know if that was true or not, but you can imagine
from this that he had a disarming and unassuming manner. The most appropriate
tribute to Mike that I have heard was a comment made to me privately by another
colleague, ‘He’s a brilliant surgeon, he does good research, and the patients
love him.’
*******************************
I may have already mentioned in a previous blog that when I
worked in Northwick Park in the 1980s, I got a lift home one Friday evening
from my colleague, the late and much-missed Doug Altman. On BBC Radio 1 in
those days, there was a programme early on Friday evening, in which they would
play new or upcoming releases and ask the listeners to guess who the artists
were. On this occasion, one of the numbers was a very lilting melody with a lot
of guitar and saxophone.
Doug said, ‘No idea what the tune is, but the sax player
sounds like Michael Brecker.’
I said, ‘The guitarist is definitely Mark Knopfler.’
Later, the DJ announced that the tune was the theme for a
soon-to-be-released film starring Fulton Mackay and Burt Lancaster. Doug and I
looked at each other with a wild surmise. When they announced that the players
were indeed Mark Knopfler and Michael Brecker, however, we were pretty pleased
with ourselves.
****************************
I apologise if I am repeating myself again, but do you
remember when stealing car stereos was pretty much a national industry? Well,
when Linda was pregnant with Bill in 1993, our car stereo got pinched and there
was the usual protracted war of attrition with the insurance company to get it
replaced. So for the few months in which we didn’t have the device, I would
sing to Linda. One of our favourites was Smugglers, by The Men They
Couldn’t Hang. I like it because it name-checks Lendalfoot in south-west Scotland
and Ailsa Craig in the Irish Sea. It also evokes the Auld Alliance between
Scotland and France, and the Scottish liking for Claret. I have been told that
up until the Entente Cordiale of 1904, being born in Scotland entitled you to
French Citizenship.
Anyway, Smugglers is a great tune. The Men They
Couldn’t Hang were part of the punk folk movement of the late 1980s. Indeed, I
have a feeling that their leading light, Stefan Cush, had been a roadie for The
Pogues. Linda and I saw them live several times in the late 1980s and early
90s. They were a terrific live act. My son Bill saw them last year at a venue
in Shepherds Bush and said they were still brilliant.
******************************
In case you have missed me banging on about it, I have just
been treated for prostate cancer. I had my last hormone injection on May 30th,
and I had the last of the twenty sessions of radiotherapy three days ago. The
advanced practitioner said to expect the side effects to get worse in the first
few days afterwards, and then to begin to improve after a week or so. He was
dead right. I am spending so much of my life in the lavatory at the moment,
that I am thinking of making a day of it and bringing a packed lunch. I bet you
really wanted to hear that.
However, it is great not to have to take the laxatives every
night, to be free of the dietary restrictions which included a ban on beer (the
bastards!), and no longer to have to go down to the hospital ever day. I should
say that the Oncology and Radiotherapy staff at Addenbrookes were unfailingly
kind, sensitive and professional. My family and friends have been ever so kind
and supportive. I also owe a debt of gratitude to friends and fellow-patients
Kevin Connelly and Alec Hawkes, and to my colleague Hash Ahmed.
Here are Youtube clips of the music recalled above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pR1cVgk7Is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqHzjrkdHAA
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