His name was John. I never knew that. To me he was always Doctor Masterson, our family doctor. He passed away a few week’s ago, aged 98 years, but I can’t let him go quietly. My childhood experiences were the antithesis of the beige, corporate efficiencies of modern medical centres.
Shortly after my big brother was born, my father ran into Dr Masterson on the street and he enquired after my mother. “She didn’t think much of childbirth and doesn’t think she’ll have any more,” my father said. The doctor stood in the same brown jacket he always wore, frowned and clenched his pipe to facilitate a clear response. “Bloody tripe and onions,” he said. “She’ll forget; they all do.”
And so it was. Two and a half years later, I entered the world with such velocity the nurse didn’t even have time to put on gloves before she caught me. My hasty entrance didn’t allow the doctor time to arrive. GP’s delivered babies in those days, charging out of their rooms as required, leaving their bewildered patients short of an appointment. Dr Masterson attended 30 minutes after I was born, announcing, “That’s the way to have a baby Mrs Paynter.”
The good doctor’s rooms were on Knight Street and were a grand and mysterious place to visit. I’d sit beside my mother while she recounted some issue or other. The doctor sat on a swivel chair on the far side of a vast wooden desk, centred in what seemed a proportionately vast and high ceilinged room.
He listened patiently and without interruption. When silence fell, he reached for his pipe and used some obscured implement to gouge out the spent tobacco, banging on the desk to dislodge the last. He slid open his drawer and a judicious pinch of pipe tobacco emerged in his fingers. He packed the pipe, struck a match and took two short gasps that demanded the flame enter the bowl. He sat back as great plumes of smoke billowed forth. Since the demise of San Remo, the smoke from tailor-made cigarettes has been vile, chemically and nauseating. Dr Masterson’s pipe tobacco was quite the opposite; opulent aromas of rum and cedar filled the room, not that I knew yet what rum and cedar smelled like. This smoking ritual was grand, hypnotic and gloriously theatrical to my young eyes.
All this took a full two minutes, which gave the doctor a respectable length of time in which to formulate a considered response. It stands in stark contrast with the anxiety ridden production lines of today’s medical centres. I once had a doctor who’d regularly start writing the prescription before I’d finished talking.
All this might lead you to conclude that I spent my childhood in Victorian Britain, but this was Hastings in the 1980s.
Memories of such vivid intensity seem only possible to acquire as children. I can still see his face, his steady gripping of the pipe and smell the rich aromas.
While smoking in a surgery might offend modern sensibilities, it was wonderful and such theatrics should be taught at med-school. I knew then, as I do now, that I was in the presence of a gentleman of the highest order and a deeply practical family doctor.
I owe him a debt I never acknowledged, nor could repay. Rest in peace Dr Masterson.
Very fond memories of my mother’s uncle, Dr Paul Fogarty, who for 5 decades was a well-loved & respected family GP based in Blenheim. He delivered several thousand Marlborough-born “Kiwi kids” during his family focussed medical career. He was a wonderful husband to my maternal grandmother’s eldest sister, Eileen Goodson, and ever-loved father to his four children. He made it happily to 99 – a great life, very well lived – with a heart full of grateful service to others.
Paul P, a fine tribute for a true gentleman.
Dr Masterton was also our family doctor, the nice aromas from his pipe and softly spoken words of wisdom will be fondly remembered.
RIP Doc Masterton