Recollections of a Southwold GP

BY DR CHRISTOPHER HOPKINS, (A44)

Chris Hopkins and my Father, John Bunting, were good friends. Both born in 1927 and, unknown to each at that time, spent their early years in North London: Christopher in Hampstead Garden Suburb and my Father in Highgate and Barnet. Both were sent to Preparatory School in Kent, Christopher at Kings Rochester and later Gilling Castle, while my Father was sent to St Lawrences (as it is today) in Ramsgate. It seems likely they both took the same train north from Kings Cross to York in early September 1939, to arrive at Ampleforth College – Christopher to St Aidan’s and John to St Wilfrid’s both representing the school in the 1st XV for rugby. Child birth is an unpredictable event as Christopher knows better than most, though it’s clear from his recollections of life (94 years to date and still going strong) delivered at pace, in what has been a whirlwind of experiences neatly summarized across four parts in his recollections.

The first three cover the period from childhood to qualification as a General Practitioner and the fourth covering no less than forty-four ‘topics’, representing half his story and clearly demonstrating both his passion and compassion as husband, father, sportsman and medical practitioner.

To an Ampleforth audience one such topic is that of religious belief as a Catholic doctor. He recounts how, on his arrival at Southwold, the vicar immediately left his list though he gained a number of non “conformists” as well as Jehovah Witnesses. He also describes some amusing encounters around the problem of contraception.

Included in this list are no fewer than ten sports – if you include Fun and Games together with Social Life - all described with humour and delightful anecdotes. One such topic is that of holidays of which Christopher recounts several with two of which I can claim association. The first was the Hopkins family holiday on the North Yorkshire coast at Runswick Bay where I have particularly fun and happy memories of Christopher’s second daughter Tina and secondly, Christopher has had the good fortune to have danced Boomps-a daisy (bumping bottoms) not once but thrice –with a “very willing Queen of Norway” a fact I shall remember on the off chance that I meet her since her husband King Harald V is a past Colonel-in-Chief of The Green Howards, a Regiment with which I served, and a Friend of the Green Howards Museum in Richmond, North Yorkshire, of which I am the Chairman.

Over the course of the last decade of his career as a General Practitioner, Christopher describes how his interest in complementary medicine, hypnotherapy and acupuncture in particular, had a profound effect on his medical practice. After 35 years in practice, it was with this knowledge that he took a sabbatical in India visiting first Tamil Nadu State and subsequently Sri Lanka. One of several experiences he describes is a trip with four Indian doctors to an orphanage in Madras where in four hours they conducted a total of no fewer than 142 cataract operations - operating time for the quickest surgeon was an impressive four minutes …. with which no doubt Roger Bannister, himself a doctor, would approve!

One can understand on his return from India, and having served the NHS from its inception in 1948, that the changes through the 1980’s “in the interests of economic conservation” raised frustrations. Christopher did not join the college of General Practitioners and acknowledges that he practised as he thought best: “the government paid us of course but after that left us alone ….. I could then prescribe what I liked and send patients to consultants and hospitals wherever I liked.”

Matters came to a head in 1990 when Ken Clarke set out a special contract for all to follow in General Practice: this was the last straw for Christopher and he resigned from his practice in the NHS …… but with excitement at the prospect of continuing his practice in complementary medicine ….. privately!

[Since this review was written, Christopher Hopkins has died. His obituary appears later in this issue.]

“Recollections of a Southwold GP” is available from Southwold Books, Ford House, Wangford, Beccles, Suffolk NR34 8RR Price £20, postage free.

REVIEW BY MISS GABRIELLE FOSTER OF