Doctor On The Job

by Richard Gordon

‘You always taught me to do my duty, Daddy, without fear or favour.’

  ‘I know there is plenty of good in you, Faith,’ he added, holding out his empty glass again. ‘After all, you are my daughter.’

  ‘And mine,’ said Josephine, filling it up.

  ‘You can’t have seen much of the destitute men this terrible week?’

  ‘I had to give that job up, Daddy. It was only fair. But I’ve got a surprise. On Friday, Mr Clapper took me on as a social worker in St Swithin’s itself.’

  ‘But how absolutely splendid. Quite delightful. You and I, working upon the sick in the same hospital. Have some more sherry. How on earth did you manage it, without any influence from me?’

  ‘I wanted to stand beholden to no man, Daddy. Not even to you.’

  ‘Stout girl. Be independent. That’s what I like to hear. Besides, it would have been no end of trouble, greasing up that awful buffoon Clapper.’

  ‘I had to join ACHE, of course.’

  The scowl reconstituted itself briefly on the dean’s brow. ‘Couldn’t be helped, I suppose. Part of modern life.’

  ‘I’m late home this evening, because of a meeting electing the new shop steward.’

  ‘That little runt Harold Sapworth, I take it?’

  ‘No, Daddy. Me. It was unanimous.’

  The dean’s glass smashed on the floor.

  ‘As you always taught me, Daddy, I shall pursue my duties without obligation to, or intimidation from, anyone. At nine on Monday morning I’d like to see you in the Bertie Bunn, please. I want to put to you the union’s new rules for restrictions on private patients. You may find it a somewhat painful operation, Daddy, but one which I am afraid you must submit to.’

  There was a roll of thunder. ‘Josephine,’ said the dean. ‘Drink.’

  ‘More sherry, dear?’

  ‘No. Brandy. Right at the back of my shoe cupboard there’s a bottle of the cuvée Churchill. It’s pre-war, my father bought it in 1940 to see us through the blitz. We hear enough about the Dunkirk spirit. Now I’m going to consume it. Fetch me a large tumbler.’

  ‘Doctor Series’ Titles

  (in order of first publication)

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Doctor in the House 1952

  2. Doctor at Sea 1953

  3. Doctor at Large 1955

  4. Doctor in Love 1957

  5. Doctor and Son 1959

  6. Doctor in Clover 1960

  7. Doctor on Toast 1961

  8. Doctor in the Swim 1962

  9. Love and Sir Lancelot 1965

  10. The Summer of Sir Lancelot 1965

  11. Doctor on the Boil 1970

  12. Doctor on the Brain 1972

  13. Doctor in the Nude 1973

  14. Doctor on the Job 1976

  15. Doctor in the Nest 1979

  16. Doctor’s Daughters 1981

  17. Doctor on the Ball 1985

  18. Doctor in the Soup 1986

  Humorous Novels

  (in order of first publication)

  1. The Captain’s Table 1954

  2. Nuts in May 1964

  3. Good Neighbours 1976

  4. Happy Families 1978

  5. Dr. Gordon’s Casebook 1982

  6. Great Medical Disasters 1983

  7. Great Medical Mysteries 1984

  More Serious Works

  (in order of first publication)

  1. The Facemaker 1967

  2. Surgeon at Arms 1968

  2. The Invisible Victory 1977

  3. The Private Life of Florence Nightingale 1978

  2. The Private Life of Jack the Ripper 1980

  3. The Private Life of Dr. Crippen 1981

  Synopses

  Published by House of Stratus

  The Captain’s Table

  When William Ebbs is taken from a creaking cargo boat and made Captain of a luxury liner, he quickly discovers that the sea holds many perils…probably the most perilous being the first night dinner, closely followed by the dangers of finding a woman in his room. Then there is the embarrassing presence of the shipping company’s largest shareholder, a passenger over board and blackmail. The Captain’s Table is a tale of nautical misadventure and mayhem packed with rib-tickling humour.

  ‘An original humorist with a sly wit and a quick eye for the ridiculous’ – Queen

  Doctor and Son

  Recovering from the realisation that his honeymoon was not quite as he had anticipated, Simon Sparrow can at least look forward to a life of tranquillity and order as a respectable homeowner with a new wife. But that was before his old friend Dr Grimsdyke took to using their home as a place of refuge from his various misdemeanours…and especially from the incident with the actress which demanded immediate asylum. Surely one such houseguest was enough without the appearance of Simon’s godfather, the eminent Sir Lancelot Spratt. Chaos and mayhem in the Sparrow household can mean only one thing – more comic tales from Richard Gordon’s hilarious doctor series.

  ‘Further unflaggingly funny addition to Simon Sparrow’s medical saga’ – Daily Telegraph

  Doctor at Large

  Dr Richard Gordon’s first job after qualifying takes him to St Swithan’s where he is enrolled as Junior Casualty House Surgeon. However, some rather unfortunate incidents with Mr Justice Hopwood, as well as one of his patients inexplicably coughing up nuts and bolts, mean that promotion passes him by – and goes instead to Bingham, his odious rival. After a series of disastrous interviews, Gordon cuts his losses and visits a medical employment agency. To his disappointment, all the best jobs have already been snapped up, but he could always turn to general practice…

  Doctor at Sea

  Richard Gordon’s life was moving rapidly towards middle-aged lethargy – or so he felt. Employed as an assistant in general practice – the medical equivalent of a poor curate – and having been ‘persuaded’ that marriage is as much an obligation for a young doctor as celibacy for a priest, Richard sees the rest of his life stretching before him. Losing his nerve, and desperately in need of an antidote, he instead signs on with the Fathom Steamboat Company. What follows is a hilarious tale of nautical diseases and assorted misadventures at sea. Yet he also becomes embroiled in a mystery – what is in the Captain’s stomach remedy? And more to the point, what on earth happened to the previous doctor?

  ‘Sheer unadulterated fun’ – Star

  Doctor in Clover

  Now Dr Grimsdyke is qualified he finds practising medicine rather less congenial than he anticipated. But the ever-selfless Grimsdyke resolves to put the desires of others (and in particular his rather career-minded cousin) before his own, and settle down and make the best of it. Finding the right job, however, is not always that easy. Porterhampton is suddenly rife with difficulties – as is being a waiter, as is being a writer. And writing obituaries is just plain depressing. Doctor in Clover finds the hapless Grimsdyke in a hilarious romp through misadventures, mishaps and total disasters.

  Doctor in Love

  In this hilarious romantic comedy, Richard Gordon awakes one morning with a headache. It takes him a while to realise he is ill – after all he is a doctor! Dr Pennyworth diagnoses jaundice and prescribes a spell in hospital. But amongst the bedpans and injections on Honesty ward, Richard falls in love – with his very own Florence Nightingale. However he soon learns that he has a rival for her affections, and unwilling to lose his love to the pachyderm Dr Hinyman, Richard sets out to impress… More medical mayhem from the hilarious Richard Gordon.

  Doctor in the House

  Richard Gordon’s acceptance into St Swithan’s medical school came as no surprise to anyone, least of all him – after all, he had been to public school, played first XV rugby, and his father was, let’s face it, ‘a St Swithan’s man’. Surely he was set for life. It was rather a shock then to discover that, once there, he would actually have to work, and quite hard. Fortunately for Richard Gordon, life proved not to be all dissectio
n and textbooks after all… This hilarious hospital comedy is perfect reading for anyone who’s ever wondered exactly what medical students get up to in their training. Just don’t read it on your way to the doctor’s!

  ‘Uproarious, extremely iconoclastic’ – Evening News

  ‘A delightful book’ – Sunday Times

  Doctor in the Nest

  Sir Lancelot Sprat, surgeon and patriot, is finding that his faith in the British National Health Service is taking a bit of a battering – especially when the ceiling of his operating theatre collapses. It had already been a bad day…a call from Nairobi, a disagreement with Miss MacNish over the breakfast haddock, and a visit from Sir Lionel… Sir Lancelot’s single-handed battle to save St Sepulchre’s Hospital from closure creates a hilarious tale, complicated by two ex-students and three ladies only too willing to satisfy a widower’s sexual desires.

  Doctor in the Nude

  Mrs Samantha Dougal is against it. Nudity that is. In a Soho strip-club, the Dean of St Swithan’s Hospital feigns indifference. Mrs Dougal’s husband, however, is totally in favour – and has just moved in with the Dean, who just happens to be his brother-in-law. The jokes positively spill from this elegantly written and languorously witty tale that includes Sir Lancelot, the Queen, a totally impractical new building, and the voluptuous young daughter of the trendy hospital chaplain.

  ‘The jokes spill forth fresh and funny… Not a book to read on a train: it’s impossible to keep a straight face’ – Sunday Telegraph

  Doctor in the Soup

  This witty medical mystery sees the deeply ambitions Jim Whynn, MP for Churchford, and his wife Charlotte join the list of Richard Gordon’s private patients. Expecting no more than having to prescribe the standard headache tablets and flu remedies, Richard is surprised when the MP pays him a visit of particular delicacy. For after a late night at the House of Commons, Jim did something rather incautious to say the least. He confesses to Charlotte and persuades Richard to refer him to a psychiatrist as a damage limitation exercise. Richard writes the necessary letter – doctor to doctor – but somehow the original goes astray. So when it turns up in the hands of the press…

  Doctor in the Swim

  Dr Grimsdyke was only too pleased to discover that he was sitting next to the luscious Lucy Squiffington on his flight home. Several hours in her company was bound to go well – in fact it went rather too well seeing as how the long-suffering Anemone was waiting for him back home. A fact Grimsdyke seemed to have completely forgotten. And as if juggling two women wasn’t enough, the Jellybone sisters then enter the scene with a troupe of female contortionists neatly in toe – hardly likely to help straighten things out for poor Grimsdyke. As he ponders his options, Grimsdyke falls headlong into a series of hilarious mishaps that leave him almost on the point of drowning.

  Doctor on the Ball

  First there is the actor who confuses himself with his character. Then comes the man suffering from amnesia…and the housewife who has spent all day wrestling with her washing machine. This is all in a day’s work for the local GP in a Kentish town. Yet having done this for twenty-five years Richard Gordon could surely be forgiven for occasionally hankering after an early retirement. This hilarious novel relates the incidents and events in a hapless GP’s life – misadventures that have somehow prevented him from once and for all exchanging his stethoscope for a fishing rod.

  Doctor on the Boil

  In Doctor on the Boil, Richard Gordon’s prescription in as effervescent and hilariously stimulating as ever. The work-shy Dr Grimsdyke is still at St Swithan’s – the same as ever despite the world having moved on around him. Nurses are hitching up their skirts in the name of fashion and the dean is almost certain he is to be knighted. And then a Rolls Royce pulls up at the hospital gates. In it is Sir Lancelot Spratt. Bored with retirement he has returned to invoke a clause in St Swithan’s original charter and resume his work – to the great dismay of just about everyone.

  ‘Mr Gordon is in his way the P G Wodehouse of the general hospitals’ – The Daily Telegraph

  Doctor on the Brain

  On a sunny morning in June, the dean of St Swithan’s Hospital Medical School is struggling to avoid hypocrisy as he writes the obituary for his fearsome sparring partner, Sir Lancelot Spratt. Yet far from being a funereal and moribund tale, Doctor on the Brain is a fast-moving, hilarious comedy where the jokes are liberally dispensed and the mishaps all too common. The dean’s pregnant daughter, his wife’s tantrums, the physician next door and the mysterious willowy blonde secretary all add to the hilarity – seemingly nothing can dampen the medical high jinks of Richard Gordon’s host of entertaining characters.

  Doctor on the Job

  Heavens above! The staff of St Swithan’s hospital on strike! Sir Lancelot can hardly believe it. And when the porters and tea ladies take charge and start ordering him about, it seems that all hell will break loose – well from Sir Lancelot’s quarters at least. Fortunately not all are so badly affected. Philip Chipps for one has more pressing things on his mind – he seems to have misplaced his trousers. In one of the nurses’ rooms… Richard Gordon’s imagined scenario of hospital strikes became all too much a reality in the troubled NHS. Fortunately he provides more than a little comedy to help swallow this bitter pill.

  Doctor on Toast

  In this riotously funny comedy Dr Grimsdyke’s genius for disaster is given full rein. He falls in love with a model, only to find she is already married. His much-anticipated cruise is an unmitigated disaster and his role as Sir Lancelot’s biographer leads them both into misadventure in the extreme. And then there is the hypochondriac the Bishop of Wincanton, the murder specialist Dr Mcfiggie, not to mention the most alarming girl from Paris. With such potential pitfalls, it is not surprising that Grimsdyke and Sir Lancelot avoid imprisonment by only the narrowest of margins.

  Doctor’s Daughters

  The arrival of the new bishop at Mitrebury and his orders for all clergy to take up jogging and a diet of boiled rice sends the men of the cloth scurrying to the Old Chapterhouse Surgery for their dose of sick notes. This added burden seems rather too much for the vastly overworked doctors to bear; they might even have to cancel their afternoon golf to meet the demand. This is simply not on and each doctor silently vows that he would retire instantly if only there were someone reliable to take over. So when they learn that two of their oldest and dearest friends now have qualified doctors as children, they seize their opportunity to escape. After all, these are genes they can depend upon – of course it never occurred to any of them that these valiant new doctors might be women…

  Dr. Gordon’s Casebook

  ‘Well, I see no reason why anyone should expect a doctor to be on call seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Considering the sort of risky life your average GP leads, it’s not only inhuman but simple-minded to think that a doctor could stay sober that long…’

  As Dr Richard Gordon joins the ranks of such world-famous diarists as Samuel Pepys and Fanny Burney, his most intimate thoughts and confessions reveal the life of a GP to be not quite as we might expect… Hilarious, riotous and just a bit too truthful, this is Richard Gordon at his best.

  The Facemaker

  Graham Trevose is an ardent pioneer of reconstructive surgery having seen its huge benefit under the hands of a talented American surgeon. However London is not America and this new form of treatment is received with deep suspicion by orthodox medicine. It is seen as defying God’s will and interfering with matters entirely out of bounds. Yet Trevose is completely committed to this work and uses it to help those in desperate need – whilst also benefiting from performing plastic surgery on the rich and famous. The ethical debates which perplexed medical men in post-First-World-War London are surely the very ones that today’s doctors are grappling with as they face the issues of human cloning, animal organ transplants and embryo-screening (CHECK). Richard Gordon’s The Facemaker is as relevant today as it ever was.

 
‘The novel has a sparkling surface and is full of sardonic entertainment. Mr Gordon’s fertility of comic metaphor is unimpaired by the seriousness of his aims’ – Punch

  ‘I wish some more solemn novelists had half Mr Gordon’s professional skills’ – Julian Symonds, Sunday Times

  Good Neighbours

  Dr Richard Gordon had no desire to leave the idyllic orchards and hop fields of Kent. For him the postcode BR1 2AX has the ring of the Gulag Archilpelago and is to be avoided at all costs. However after a decade living in suburbia he has come to love it – the way Gauguin loved Tahiti. Good Neighbours is a hilarious account of the habits and customs of the residents of Britain’s many suburbs. Using his famed rye wit, Gordon comically exposes the fundamental structures and motivations of suburban society. Essential reading for anyone constantly baffled by those infuriating neighbours down the road!

  Great Medical Disasters

  Man’s activities have been tainted by disaster ever since the serpent first approached Eve in the garden. And the world of medicine is no exception. In this outrageous and strangely informative book, Richard Gordon explores some of history’s more bizarre medical disasters. He creates a catalogue of mishaps including anthrax bombs on Gruinard Island, destroying mosquitoes in Panama, and Mary the cook who, in 1904, inadvertently spread Typhoid across New York State. As the Bible so rightly says, ‘He that sinneth before his maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician.’

  Great Medical Mysteries

  Great Medical Mysteries is a hilarious catalogue of medical mysteries and trivia – medical mysteries of history, mysterious addictions and everyday medical mysteries are all posed and pondered with Richard Gordon’s famed wit. The result is a deeply humorous, often bawdy, novel that explores the fancies and bodily functions of human beings through the ages. It moves ingeniously from the woman who gave birth to rabbits, to George Washington’s teeth and Hitler’s eyesight via cannibalism and arrives at more contemporary enigmas – such as why do so many doctors write books?