artist, paints, and wall,
ideas and ability:
go make a mural
Art on a wall
Reply
Tag Archives: london
Matterhorn
It is hard to say which is my earliest memory. I believe it was going to St Albans church hall in Golders Green (in north-west London) to collect orange juice with my parents. I was born in 1952. In the early 1950s, the government supplied young children orange juice free of charge. The juice, which was free of the ‘bits’ that are found in many of today’s orange juices, was supplied in glass medicine bottles with cork stoppers.
St Albans church hall in 2017
Another early memory dates back to 1955. We had just disembarked from an ocean liner in Cape Town. There were tram-like tracks embedded into the concrete of the quay. Adventurously, I put my foot into the groove of one of the rails, and then could not remove it. This caused quite a commotion as my mother carefully detached me from the rail along which large cranes travelled. This might be an actual memory, or someone may have told me about it later.
I do remember my first morning at primary school, which I entered aged 4 years. My parents took me to Golders Hill School on the first day along with my little friend Anthony. We stood next to each other in the front row of the assembled school. Suddenly, another boy, a complete stranger, pushed himself between Anthony and me. He said: “I want to be your friend.” He was Nick, and we remained friends for almost twenty years. I have only seen Anthony once since that day at school.
Every day at Golders Hill began with assembly. We were lined up in rows while our names were called out. We were required to answer in Latin: “Adsum”. As I did not start learning Latin until after I had left the school, I had no idea why we were required to say this peculiar word, which I later discovered means ‘I am present’.
Following the roll-call, we had to recite something, which to my young mind began with something that sounded like “Our father widgeartahev’n”. This recitation included many other words that were new to me. No one ever explained why we were saying this, or what it was. It was years later that I realised that we had been saying the Lords Prayer at high speed.
Golders Hill School in 2017
During the morning assembly, we stood facing the teachers and the then Head Mistress, Miss Davis. The latter used to cycle to school with her three corgi dogs stuffed into the basket at the front of her bicycle. The dogs spent the day resting in her office. On the wall behind the teachers and facing us pupils there was a black and photograph of a snow-topped mountain. Why it was there, I never found out, but unlike the other mysteries of roll-call, we learned that the mountain in the picture was the Matterhorn.
Sunset reflections
west facing windows
reflecting the sun-
its slowly dying embers
The boys from South London
mobile phone stolen
contacts imag-es vanish:
modern tragedy
For several years I worked in a west London practice near Portobello Road . My patients came from families that had originated in many parts of the world. Almost all of them had lively characters. They were not your average quiet provincial types, who respect professionals – a bit too much in my opinion. They were unpredictable in their punctuality and behaviour. This made every one of my working days exciting, sometimes a bit too much so.
‘J’ was a frequent attender with many dental concerns. Although he made appointments, I could be sure that the appointment times were those that he was least likely to appear at the surgery. His timing was erratic to say the least.
When J arrived, he ignored the reception desk and would come straight into my surgery even if I was already treating a patient. If I was in the midst of treating someone, he would respect my asking him to wait until I was free. He would then hover around outside my surgery, and if the wait was too long for him he would disappear, only to reappear unannounced and unexpectedly a few days or weeks later.
One afternoon when I was free, J, who was not a nervous patient, ran into my surgery. He was too agitated to sit down in my dental chair. Instead, he leant against one of the walls of my small room.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“It’s bad, man.”
“Can you tell me about it? Do you want to talk?” I asked.
“My mobile ‘phone has been nicked.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I know who took it.”
“Really,” I said, “then, can’t you get it back?”
“I don’t know, man. But, I know who nicked it, and I am going to get the boys from South London to put him six feet under.”
Having said those worrying words, he settled into my dental chair.
A sculpture by Christo on the lake
Clouds hover
Over the serene Serpentine:
Hyde park on a Sunday
A long holiday
- To tell the truth
- there is nowt as bad as
- a pain in a rotten tooth
When I worked in a dental practice near Portobello Road in west London, I met a lot of ‘colourful’ characters, many of whom I might have avoided had I saw them approaching me by chance in the street. One fellow, Ted, a large patient whose nose had been broken at least once and been badly fixed, said to me once: “If anyone ever causes you trouble in the street, just say you’re a friend of Ted. That’ll warn them.”
One day while I was standing in a queue at a takeaway counter waiting to order lunch, someone standing near me, a patient of mine, said: “Need a motor, doc?” I answered that I did not need a car at that point of time. “No problem, Doc,” he replied, “when you need one, just tell me what you want, whatever colour and make, and I’ll get it for you.” Not willing to sound ungrateful, I thought that when he said “get”, he really meant “steal.”
I had many patients who had been in and out of trouble with the law. Often, I would be told: “Look what the prison dentist did to this tooth, doc. Bleeding butcher, he was. Ought to be put behind bars.” I never asked why my patients had spent time ‘inside’. I felt it would be better not to know.
The last patient before one lunchtime was an aggressive young man. He was accompanied by his friend, a slightly older man. Before I had time to ask the young fellow what was wrong, he told me. Pointing to a lower left premolar tooth, he said: “Get it out. It’s f…..g killing me.” I looked at the chap. His mouth did not seem to close properly. “Don’t just stand there. Get it out, man”. I looked at the tooth. It looked alright. It was neither decayed, nor wobbly, nor tender. That strange mandibular posture bothered me.
“You’ve broken your jaw,” I said. “Don’t give me that crap. Just take it out.” I said: “If I take it out, you will still be in pain. You need to go to a hospital to fix your jaw.” This only angered the patient more, and I began to fear for the integrity of my jaw. “I’m not leaving until you take it out.” “Then,” I replied, “I’ll ring for an ambulance.” The patient’s friend said: “Come on, mate, let’s go.” Reluctantly, the patient allowed his friend to drag him out into the street. I locked the practice for the lunch break, relieved to see them leave.
Some days later, I met the patient’s friend in the street. I asked him whether the young man had been to hospital. He did not answer my question. Instead he said: “He’s gone away.” “On holiday?” I queried innocently. “Yes, on holiday.” “Long holiday?” I asked, beginning to understand what he meant by ‘holiday’. “Yes, very long holiday”.
- Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com
Gasometers
New developments at King’s Cross, London
Once they stored gas,
now to dwellings converted
where trendy people reside
Don’t ever use aftershave!
When I was a child living in north-west London in the early 1960s, I used to accompany my mother on shopping expeditions in the West End. I loved going into the centre of London because I considered that Hampstead Garden Suburb, where we lived, was pretty, but pretty dull – a cemetery for the living! We used to take the Underground to Oxford Circus. Our first port of call after leaving the ‘tube’ station was Dickins and Jones, a now no longer existing department store on Regent Street. It closed in 2007, long after my mother died.
Like many other department stores, Dickins and Jones devoted its ground floor to displays of cosmetics and perfumes. On one visit, when we were walking through the over-fragrant ground floor of the store, a sales-lady working behind one of the many stalls, each representing a different cosmetics company, beckoned to me. I pointed towards myself, and she nodded, meaning she really did mean me. I walked over to her, and then without my saying anything, she said: “Sonny, never ever use after-shave lotion on your skin. Now, get along.” I have never forgotten her advice, nor disobeyed it. I was about twelve years old then.
As I moved into my teens, and I began needing to shave, I was inundated with gifts of after-shave. Well-meaning friends of my parents and adult relatives gave me numerous gifts of cuff-links, which I have never used, and copious bottles of after-shave, which I dared not use. The unopened bottles piled up in my wardrobe and gathered dust.
Many years later, I became a dental student. From the second year onwards, we treated real live patients. They had either referred themselves for free treatment at the dental hospital or they had been referred by general practitioners who could not handle their problems. Many of them made multiple visits. Treatment at the hands of students was often slow. Some grateful patients gave me gifts either during their course of treatment or at the last visit.
One of my patients was a young lady from the Far East. She was always accompanied by her little son, aged not more than four years. Whenever I gave his mother a local anaesthetic, he would pipe up: “Look Mama, dentist man coming with needle. Look Mama, dentist man… etc.” When her course of treatment ended, she presented me with what I regarded as a wonderful gift, a treasure. It was a Casio digital watch with a tiny calculator keyboard attached to it. This was given to me in the late 1970s, and these watches had only been available for a very short time.
Someone, who came to dinner with my parents in the 1970s, brought us a gift of a box of chocolates made by Floris Chocolates, a company that no longer exists. I remember that the chocolates were far, far better than any I had ever tasted. So, it was with some excitement that I unwrapped a gift which a happy patient had given me after I had made him a set of dentures at the dental school. It was a box labelled ‘Floris’. At the end of the day, I took my gift home, and opened it with great anticipation and high expectations. My heart sunk when I found that the box contained not chocolates, but small bottles of fragrant perfumes. I gifted these to a friend.
J, an attractive young lady, became one of my patients at the dental school. I asked her what she did for a living. She told me that she sold men’s fragrances at a leading London department store (not Dickins and Jones). She asked me: “Have you heard of Brut?” I said that I had heard of the company. “Well, I represent Brut at the store,” she told me. “Do you use fragrances?” she inquired politely. “No,” I answered. “Oh, that doesn’t surprise me. Hardly any doctors or dentists seem to use them.” I was sure how to interpret this and hoped that I was not smelling unpleasant. “I’ll bring you some next appointment,” she told me cheerfully.
On the next visit, the Brut seller, true to her word, presented me with a large box, saying: “See how you get on with these.” I took the box home at the end of the day and examined its contents. It was filled with little bottles labelled with names that I found mysterious: ‘pre-shower splash’, ‘shower splash’, after-shower splash’, pre-shave rinse’, ‘shaving splash’, and (the to be avoided) ‘after-shave lotion’. No instructions were provided, so this well-meant gift was consigned to the wardrobe. After what the lady in Dickins and Jones had advised me, I was not going to risk the after-shave lotion nor any of the other even more curiously named products.
With the exception of the cosmetic products, I have received many other gifts over the years, most of which have given me great pleasure. These gifts, useful or not, have been given by grateful patients who have either also paid me or have been treated free of charge courtesy of the NHS. More than my earnings, which were, of course, very important, even a simple heartfelt ‘thank you’ made me feel that doing dentistry was worthwhile.
Set in stone
Side by side, lying in state,
in solid stone,
… until eternity
photo taken at V&A Museum, London, UK
Why I practised dentistry
University College London Portico
I retired from dentistry exactly one year ago. This is how I got started 36 years ago…
I began studying dentistry after I had completed my PhD in physiology in 1976. My original intention was to obtain a clinical degree so that I would be able to widen the choice of post-doctoral opportunities beyond the field of specialisation relating to my doctoral thesis.
I entered the dental school at University College London (‘UCH’) ‘armed’ with a doctorate. There were two kinds of teaching staff at the school. The academic staff were attached to the University and the clinical ‘demonstrators’ were dentists who came into the hospital on a part-time basis to assist with teaching in the clinics where the students learned to treat patients. All the demonstrators used to address me as ‘Doctor Yamey’, but the academic staff, many of whom did not have PhDs, used to address me as ‘Mister Yamey’.
At the end of each course we studied, we would have to pass an examination. This consisted of a written paper along with a practical examination. All of the examinations included a face-to-face spoken test, a ‘viva-voce’ (or ‘viva’).
During my pharmacology viva, I was asked several questions by a pair of examiners. One of the examiners told me that I had answered one question incorrectly. I was sure that I had answered correctly, so I said: “I am certain that what I have said is right.” The two examiners looked at each other, and I began to worry. Then, the examiner who had not contradicted me said: “You know, he’s right.”
During another viva, the task was to look at a microscope slide, and then to comment on it to the examiners. When I had looked at the slide, I turned to examiners, and thought I heard one of them saying: “Where is it from?” Absentmindedly, I said: “It’s an unusual surname. It originates from Lithuania.” I had thought that I was being asked about my name, rather than the slide. Fortunately, I was able to give a satisfactory account of what I had seen under the microscope.
At the end of the first year, we were examined in general human anatomy. I entered the room where my viva was being held and sat down with the two examiners. One of them, an external examiner, said to me: Do you remember me?” I looked at him blankly before he said: “I used to meet you walking on Hampstead Heath with your parents. Please give them my regards.” At that moment, I knew that I had passed the examination.
The final year examinations, which determined whether you would or would not be awarded a degree in dental surgery were quite harrowing. Most people considered that the viva conducted by the dean of our dental school and a dean visiting from another dental school was the most frightening part of the finals. And, when I took the finals, we learnt that the visiting dean, the external examiner, had a fearsome reputation. So, I was somewhat nervous when I entered the room to face the deans. After answering a couple of questions evidently satisfactorily, the dean of our dental school said: “Well, of course we’re looking forward to you joining our staff when you qualify…” At that moment, I realised that I must have qualified. I said that during the five-year dental course, I had discovered that I enjoyed treating patients, and that I would enter practice rather than academia.
One of the many things that appealed to me about practising dentistry is the constant contact with a huge variety of people. This is not the case in academic research. It can be a lonely business. The other appeal of practising dentistry is that often, but not always, a problem can be identified and solved. Someone loses a filling. The dentist replaces it: problem solved. In academic research, as each question begins to be solved, many others present themselves: it is never-ending.
yamey 