An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War (49 page)

So here we go.

I was born in 1941 shortly after Hitler invaded Russia, and Britain and her empire no longer stood alone in the midst of World War II. My father, Doctor James “Jimmy” Taylor, was an Ulsterman and hence not liable for call-up. He had nevertheless, in 1939, volunteered for the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and was initially stationed in England before my birth. He later served overseas in, among other places, Egypt, which is germane to some of this book. He was demobilised with the rank of Squadron Leader (Medical) in 1946. He had been mentioned in despatches. He maintained an abiding interest in the history of World War II.

We lived in a small house by the Bangor seaside (see etching by Dorothy Tinman in
Country Wedding
). My father stored his books in my bedroom. It is one of the reasons I am a writer. I devoured them all. It is no accident that my first published fiction was a collection of short stories,
Only Wounded: Ulster Stories,
to be republished in June 2015. After falling in love with the collected works of W. Somerset Maugham and Anton Chekov's short stories, how could I not try to emulate the masters?

A Sailor's Odyssey
by Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope was one tome among many that I discovered in my teens. It was in this book that I first read of the admiral's flagship in the Mediterranean, HMS
Warspite.
I read the work when I was a member of the naval section of my school's combined cadet force, a kind of ROTC for schoolboys, and was considering a naval career. Although I can still tie a sheepshank and a bowline and signal with semaphore flags, I confess that since the invention of GPS my skills with a sextant are now rusty. My reading about
Warspite
served to reawaken my interest in battleships, which had first been stimulated by my father's hands-on approach for an even younger me.

Royal Naval vessels in the pre- and postwar periods often anchored in Bangor Bay, and opened themselves to the public. It was a proud boast of my father's that he had, as a youth, explored the mighty battlecruiser HMS
Hood
. In 1951, I held Dad's hand when we were taken out in Jimmy Scott's fishing boat to visit the great ship HMS
King George V.
She was one of the warships that in May 1941 sank the German
Bismarck,
which three days earlier had destroyed the
Hood
. I was born three months later in that very year.

My father, for a souvenir of my visit to
KGV,
as she was fondly called, bought me a blue triangular pennant with
KGV
and her crest and motto on it. Until we moved house in the year of my twenty-first birthday, the flag hung proudly on my bedroom wall.

So are seeds sown.

After qualifying as a physician and beginning specialty training, I supplemented my salary by moonlighting for country GPs, one of whom was Doctor Ken Kennedy. He had two charming daughters, Phillippa and Julia, and a son, Kenneth William Kennedy, a famous Irish rugby football international. The son, KW, had been a classmate of mine at both grammar school and medical school.

When I started writing humour columns about Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly (published earlier this year in a collected volume,
The Wily O'Reilly
), the seeds that had been planted in my boyhood germinated. By chance, like my father and my father's contemporary and friend Doctor Ken Kennedy, Fingal O'Reilly had seen wartime service. The father had been a surgeon lieutenant on—where else, but on the ship Admiral Cunningham had called “The Grand Old Lady?”—
Warspite.
Her photograph hung in Doctor Kennedy's home, as a similar one would come to hang at Number One, Main Street, Ballybucklebo.

Now, if O'Reilly's story of his time on her was going to be told, it was incumbent upon me to tell it accurately. To that end on matters naval I consulted the following volumes:

A Sailor's Odyssey
by Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope. As an aside, although it removes a certain amount of authenticity, for more easy understanding of time I have used the convention Lord Hyndhope used in his work. Time is expressed in civilian terms as, for example, six
P.M
., not eighteen hundred hours. I hope this makes it simpler for those unfamiliar with the twenty-four-hour clock.

Warspite
by Iain Ballantyne.

Battleship Sailors
by Harry Plevy.

Battleship Warspite
by V. E. Tarant.

The Battleship Warspite
by Ross Watton, which contains her marine architectural drawings. Her sick bay really was on the main deck and the wardroom on the upper deck aft on the port side.

In addition, I was delighted to be presented with an accurate scale model of the great ship by my longstanding friends Doctors David and Sharon Mortimer. By the courtesy of Doctor Roger Maltby, I was put in touch with Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Mike Inman, RD, RNR, who read and corrected my naval descriptions. The accuracy is his, the mistakes mine.

While on the subject of accuracy, Fingal wonders, in July 1940, about the location of the Spitfire that his mother and Lady Ballybucklebo's fund had presented to 602 Squadron. Clearly that specific aircraft is fictional, but 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, was very real. Under the command of Squadron Leader “Sandy” Johnstone, they were with 13 Group in Scotland at Drem Airfield. In August 1940, 602 moved south to Westhampnett, a field in the tactical area controlled by 11 Group, which bore the brunt of the aerial combat. The City of Glasgow Spitfires fought with distinction throughout the thick of the Battle of Britain.

On matters naval I have, when necessary, referred to some real-life figures by name. It is correct that Captain D. B. Fisher CBE relieved Captain Victor Crutchley VC as
Warspite
's commanding officer on April 27, 1940. Her medical branch and many of her other officers and men are all figments of my imagination, with one remarkable exception from another actual ship.

Doctor Patrick Steptoe was in fact a real person and
was
the medical officer of HMS
Hereward
in 1940–41. After the war, he became a pioneer in gynaecological laparoscopy. In concert with the late Professor Sir Robert Edwards, Nobel Laureate, he was half of the team that produced the world's first “test tube” baby in 1978. In 2010, Sir Robert was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work. Regrettably, the honour is not awarded posthumously. Patrick Steptoe died in 1988 and therefore was not eligible for consideration. Patrick taught me laparoscopy in 1969 and I was proud to consider him both valued colleague and dear friend. In 1987–89 I worked with him and Bob Edwards at Bourn Hall Clinic near Cambridge, England. He was a truly great man and my including him here is in tribute to his memory.

I have taken two other liberties. HMS
Touareg,
nominally one of the Tribal class of twenty-six destroyers, never existed. She too, has been conjured up for dramatic purposes. Her description conforms to that of her real sisters, one of which, HMCS
Haida,
is still afloat in Hamilton, Ontario, as a naval museum. HMS
Vixen,
an old 1918 V-and-W-class destroyer, is also a figment of my imagination.

I have striven for geographical accuracy. Describing settings in Ireland was not difficult. I lived there for thirty years and went back from 2007–10. My knowledge of Greenock and the River Clyde and the anchorage Tail of the Bank, and Glasgow area hospitals is also drawn from my own memory. As a very young doctor, I took six months training at a maternity hospital in nearby Paisley. The unit was affiliated with the Royal Alexandra Infirmary.

Scenes set ashore in Alexandria, Egypt, owe a great deal to an old photograph album of my father's containing pictures he took with a Kodak Brownie during his service in Egypt. Further details were gleaned from
A Midshipman's War
:
A Young Man in the Mediterranean Naval War 1941–43
by Frank Wade, a fellow Canadian. But for the efforts of our Saltspring librarian, Karen Hudson, I would not have been aware of this invaluable source. She was indefatigable in contacting her friend Lieutenant-Commander Mark Cunningham, RCN. He in turn sought the advice of Sheryl Irwin, librarian at the naval base at Esquimault, British Columbia. Thank you all three.

I hope that explains my interest in
Warspite
and how, to the best of my ability, the authenticity of that part of the book was established.

I also said I had to make an apology. I have received numerous letters asking for information about O'Reilly's first marriage and how he came to be widowed. Honestly, this book was supposed to answer both of those questions, but …

But, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, at least so I am told by no lesser authorities than Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1150), Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Samuel Beckett, Søren Kierkegaard, and Karl Marx. Once more I found myself becoming intrigued with the things O'Reilly and company were getting up to—and ran out of space. Sorry. But—and it's another big but—I also said I will make you all a solemn promise.

The author's note is always the last thing written when a novel is finished, and at the end of this paragraph (after proofreading, of course) the manuscript will be going off to my agent. I will be going off on holiday, but the day after I return, I will start work on book ten, as yet untitled, and in it the story of Fingal O'Reilly and Deirdre Mawhinney will be concluded. Honest to God, it will, so it will—and from an Ulsterman there is no more binding oath.

Until then my very best wishes.

P
ATRICK
T
AYLOR

Saltspring Island

Canada

August 2013

 

G
LOSSARY

I have in all the previous Irish Country novels provided a glossary to help the reader who is unfamiliar with the vagaries of the Queen's English as it may be spoken by the majority of people in Ulster. This is a regional dialect akin to English as spoken in Yorkshire or on Tyneside. It is not Ulster-Scots, which is claimed to be a distinct language in its own right. I confess I am not a speaker.

Today in Ulster (but not in 1939–40 and 1966 when this book is set) official signs are written in English, Irish, and Ulster-Scots. The washroom sign would read Toilets,
Leithris
, and
Cludgies
.

I hope what follows here will enhance your enjoyment of the work, although, I am afraid, it will not improve your command of Ulster-Scots.

acting the lig:
Behaving like an idiot.

aluminium:
Aluminum.

amadán
:
Irish
. Pronounced “omadawn.” Idiot.

anyroad:
Anyway.

arse:
Backside. (Impolite.)

at himself/not at himself:
He's feeling well/not feeling well.

away off (and feel your head/and chase yourself):
Don't be stupid.

aye certainly:
Of course, or naturally.

back to porridge:
Returning from something extraordinary to the humdrum daily round.

bang his/her drum about:
Go on at length about a pet subject.

banjaxed:
Ruined or smashed.

barmbrack:
Speckled bread. (See Mrs. Kinkaid's recipe,
An Irish Country Doctor.
)

been here before:
Your wisdom is attributable to the fact that you have already lived a full life and have been reincarnated.

beezer:
First-rate.

bettered myself:
I rose in the world by my own exertions.

biscakes:
Biscuits (cookies).

bisticks:
Biscuits (cookies).

bit the head off:
Gave someone a severe verbal chastisement.

blether/och, blether:
Talk, often inconsequential/expression of annoyance or disgust.

bletherskite:
One who continually talks trivial rubbish.

blue buggery:
Very, very badly.

bollix:
Testicles. (Impolite.)

bollixed:
Wrecked.

bonnet:
Hood of a car.

boot:
Trunk of a car.

bottle:
Naval.
Reprimand.

boys-a-dear or boys-a-boy:
Expression of amazement.

brave
: Very.

British Legion:
Fraternal organisation for ex-servicemen (veterans).

brogue:
a) A kind of low-heeled shoe (from the Irish
bróg
) with decorative perforations on the uppers, originally to allow water to drain out. b) The musical inflection given to English when spoken by an Irish person.

bull in a china shop/at a gate:
Thrashing about violently without forethought and causing damage/charging headlong at something.

bully beef:
Salted, preserved, and canned beef. Also known as corned beef (the salt came in units called “corns”). That used by the navy was usually produced by Fray Bentos of Uruguay. My mother made a marvellous corned beef curry that my father (RAF) had learned from Indian soldiers in World War II. It is not the recipe given by Kinky here.

camogie:
A stick-and-ball team game akin to hurling, but played by women.

candy apples:
Apples dipped in caramel glaze.

candy floss:
Cotton candy.

can't for toffee:
Is totally inept.

chemist:
Pharamacist.

chips:
French fries.

chissler:
Child.

clap:
Cow shit.

clatter:
Indeterminate number. See also
wheen
. The size of the number can be enhanced by adding
brave
or
powerful
as a precedent to either. As an excercise, try to imagine the numerical difference between a
brave clatter
and a
powerful wheen
of
spuds
.