An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea

 

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To Dr. James “Jimmy” Taylor, squadron leader, RAFVR (Ret.),

and

all those of his generation who at huge cost fought

and overcame great evil

 

 

 

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

we will remember them.

Ne Obliviscaris.
Lest we forget.

 

My father, “Jimmy” Taylor, MB, RAFVR

 

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

Real life is not monochromatic. It is painted from a varied palette. In ancient Greece, drama, the staged representation of life, was represented pictorially by two masks: one smiling, Thalia, the muse of comedy; and one crying, Melpomene, the muse of tragedy.

This book, number ten in the Irish Country Doctor series, is home to both.

It continues in part to follow the fortunes of the doctors and the villagers of Ballybucklebo in the mid-1960s. It answers questions from readers of earlier works about the futures of the well-known characters, and introduces newcomers to the story. This is Thalia's half of the book.

I hope you will enjoy the goings-on, and if anyone tries to sell you Woolamarroo quokka herding dogs (and many thanks to Jill Evans, friend and author of
The Time Traveller: The Development of the Great Dane,
for invaluable advice on doggy miscegenation and reproduction), please remember, forewarned is forearmed. But if you still go ahead, I'm sure Donal Donnelly could as well get you a
really
good price on the Giant's Causeway and the Mourne Mountains.

While Donal may take a liberal interpretation of the truth, I always strive for accuracy. Scenes here set in the Dublin and Ulster of the '60s, and the medicine of the time, are as realistic as memory serves and ordnance survey maps and my old medical texts from my student and trainee days allow. I should tell you that back in Ireland, Davy McMaster did run a bar in his farm at Lisbane when I was a young man. Lars and Fingal go there. Many's the hot Irish I've had at Davy's after a day's winter wildfowling on frigid Strangford Lough. Today it is an elegant roadhouse, the Saltwater Brig. Dorothy, my partner, and I went back to it in September 2014 when we were in Ulster for the fiftieth reunion of the Queen's University medical graduating class of '64.

In the author's note in my last book,
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War,
I made a solemn promise that I would conclude the adventures of Surgeon Lieutenant Fingal O'Reilly, RNR, and his bride-to-be, Deirdre Mawhinney, during the Second World War. I have kept that promise. This part of the book has its dark moments, and is Melpomene's—and I make no apology.

Fingal and Deirdre together spend time in Gosport in England, where Fingal has been seconded for anaesthesia training to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar. Later, Deirdre goes home to Ulster and Fingal returns to his battleship HMS
Warspite
in the Mediterranean in 1941. (All battle scenes there are taken from the writings of eyewitnesses, to be found in the books cited below.)

Haslar naval hospital opened in 1753, three years before the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). During that war, 1,512 sailors were killed in action, but there were 133,700 other losses—most died of disease. The need for such a facility was obvious.

In describing the anaesthesia of the '40s, I owe a great debt to Doctor Roger Maltby, an old friend from Calgary who provided a rich source of material about the techniques. He also put me in touch with Surgeon Commander Mike Inman, RN (Retired), who read and corrected my naval descriptions in
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War.
Mike Inman introduced me to a remarkable man, Eric Birbeck MVO, Royal Victorian Order (for service on HMY
Britannia
). Eric served in the Royal Navy Medical Branch for forty-four years, retiring as a senior chief petty officer. After retirement, he then became an anaesthetic technical officer in the British Civil Service. Eric, as the chairman of the Haslar Heritage Group, has been associated with Haslar for more than fifty years and has provided me with invaluable source material (see later). Last September, he walked me through the old hospital and took me to see the places in Hampshire like the Crescent, Alverstoke, Gosport, the Paddock, and the Gosport/Portsmouth ferry that you will visit in this book. There really is a pub called the Fighting Cocks, and it was nicknamed “the Pugilistic Penises” by the staff of Haslar. As if that were not enough, Eric has read every page of the manuscript and kept me right on matters of naval custom, naval medicine, and the workings of Haslar hospital. The book and I owe him a very great deal. Thank you, Eric. The accuracy is his. The errors mine.

I have chosen to populate both stories with both real and fictional characters. The real people in the Ballybucklebo story are doctors and one bandleader. Graham Harley, a superb clinician and mentor, taught me and fostered my interest in human infertility. “Buster” Holland delivered my daughter Sarah. Nigel Kinnear was Regius Professor of Surgery at Trinity College Dublin. Sir Albert Liley's contribution to the treatment of Rhesus isoimmunisation revolutionised its management until a vaccine against Rh positive red cells was developed, making the disorder a thing of the past. Ron Livingstone was a classmate and later a distinguished academic Canadian obstetrician and gynaecologist. Teddy McIlrath became a consultant radiologist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, in 1965. Bill Sproule was a classmate at both a private school and when we were trainee obstetricians. And Charley Whitfield, who also taught me, was Regius Professor at the University of Glasgow. They have all served medicine with great distinction.

Clipper Carlton's Showband, a seven-piece dance band from Strabane, was fronted by Fergie O'Hagan and played at dance halls and functions. Dorothy and I danced to them in the late '50s.

There are many real people in the 1940–41 story as well—at Haslar, on the Takoradi run, on
Warspite
in the Mediterranean, and playing parts in '30s and '40s medicine.

At Haslar, two admirals commanding, Surgeon Rear Admiral T. Creaser, and his successor, Surgeon Rear Admiral A. B. Bradbury; the matron, Miss M. Goodrich; the chaplain, John Wilfrid Evans.

On the Takoradi run, Squadron Leader Ludomil “Effendi” Rayski, a gallant officer who had been commander of the Polish air force before Poland's defeat by Germany. Rayski escaped from his native land to fight for the Allies.

In the Mediterranean on HMS
Warspite
, Admiral A. B. Cunningham; Commander Sir Charles Madden, executive officer; Commander Geoffrey Barnard, fleet gunnery officer; Commander B. J. H. Wilkinson, fleet engineering officer; Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell, who so ably commanded the outgunned British cruisers at Cape Matapan that he was knighted. He subsequently survived the sinking of the battleship HMS
Barham
in November 1941
.
Patrick Steptoe, medical officer on HMS
Hereward,
who was sunk with his ship on May 27, 1941, off Crete, became an Italian POW, and after the war went on to advance laparoscopy (and teach me the technique). Steptoe was one half of the team with Professor Sir Robert Edwards, Nobel Laureate, that produced Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby.

In medicine, Professor Robert Macintosh, who headed the first-ever British academic department of anaesthesia located at Oxford University; and Sir Archibald McIndoe, who revolutionised the plastic surgical treatment of burned aircrew.

And in other theatres, Douglas Bader, the legless fighter pilot; and Captain Edward Fegen RN, VC of HMS
Jervis Bay,
who gallantly held off the German commerce raider
Admiral Scheer
so his convoy HX-84 could try to escape.

It is with great admiration and deep respect I have chosen to be as true as I can to the parts each played in real life that I have borrowed to give my story authenticity. I am using them too as a metaphor for everyone who served in World War II, a conflict that sadly is now slipping from memory even though the year of publication of this work, 2015, marks the seventieth anniversaries of both VE and VJ Days.

Their being and actions are matters of history. Any dialogue has been put in their mouths by me, with the exception of Admiral Cunningham's speech after the evacuation of Crete (see below.) The rest of the characters peopling these pages are the progeny of my overheated imagination.

When it comes to being accurate, may I make a few more general observations about the wartime story and in a scene back in Ulster?

I have modified time reporting from the civilian clock I used in
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War
. While for simplicity of understanding it has been retained in pure narrative, in battles reported by Tannoy, the military twenty-four-hour clock is used, as it would have been in real life.