A prescription for good health

The automatic doors swung open and I found myself in the corridor of the Medical Centre in Kirkwall. It was all so new and so modern. I approached the Reception Desk under a sign that announced the Skerryvore Practice, listing the names of several GPs. I stood for a moment to take in the scene – a large, busy office, a sea of faces, desks overflowing with paper, phones ringing and computer screens flickering. That moment for me was frozen in time – it was almost surreal.

I completed the new patient registration formalities and was shown to the waiting area. “Changed days!” I thought.

In the spring of 1939, my father, William Emslie, purchased from the widow of Dr Peterkin the practice, goodwill, drugs, and the property at 7 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, called Skerryvore. The dispensary was in the house; the waiting room and surgery were in a single-story building attached to the house, forming one side of the courtyard and right next-door to the original building of The Orcadian.

Thereafter, and until Dad passed on the practice and sold Skerryvore to Dr Sydney Peace in 1963, the practice was known as Dr Emslie’s and joined the other two Kirkwall practices, Dr Gordon’s and Dr Sibbald’s.

As I sat in the centre, waiting for my name to be called, I looked around the bright, comfortable room, with its upholstered chairs, toys to amuse children and tables overflowing with miscellaneous reading matter, and I recalled the dark, rather dingy waiting room endured by Dad’s patients all those years ago.

A narrow wooden bench ran around three walls; there were no cushions and no reading matter. An electric fire, fixed in one corner, just below the ceiling, was the only source of heat apart from the collective body warmth of the waiting patients, packed in like sardines in a tin. Many had to stand, and some even had to “queue” in the courtyard.

Dr William Emslie, in holiday mode in 1956, sitting on the running board of BS 3041.

Dad ran two surgeries every day at 2 pm and 7 pm except Wednesday and Sunday; on Wednesday morning he held antenatal and post-natal clinics; Wednesday afternoon was his half-day off. There was no appointment system; the patients just had to be patient, and wait.

They knew that, when it was their turn, Dad would give them the time that they needed. This meant that the one-hour surgeries ran into two or even three hours – and then there were hospital visits or home visits thereafter.

And Dad had no secretarial help for his evening surgeries; he had to go backwards and forwards to the dispensary to find patient notes, as well as answering the phone.

Mum – that was Grace Emslie – handled the requests that came from folk calling at the house in the evening. She was a fully qualified nurse and midwife, so was a great support to Dad throughout his days as a GP.

Until the advent of the National Health Service in 1948, Dad’s practice was private. He did his own dispensing with the help of a lady called Mrs Sharp, who also did the accounts and gave me piano lessons. To this day I can see, in my mind’s eye, the row upon row of bottles containing different coloured liquids and bearing strange Latin names. When doors banged – as they frequently did in our wonderful, old, draughty house – the bottles would clink and tinkle.

Mrs Sharp would make up medication for patients outside of Kirkwall, placing it in stiff brown cartons; these she would then take to the country buses waiting at the harbour end of Great Western Road. As a small child, I often accompanied her, and delighted in seeing the precious packages being handed over to the drivers of the buses, who would undertake to drop each off at the end of the relevant farm road or at the patient’s gate.

In 1950, Dad employed his first medical secretary. In the previous 11 years, the practice had expanded and Dad’s workload significantly increased. There was a small amount of dispensing for a few patients who wanted to remain private, but a growing number of prescription requests kept the phone and door bell ringing.

Country patients had their prescriptions taken to a local chemist from where the medication was posted. Town patients collected their prescriptions from a large box, fixed to the wall of Skerryvore, close to the waiting room door. Prescriptions would be typed out on the large, black, manual typewriter with its special “medical” keyboard and then pinned to the inside of the box, folded so that only the patient’s name could be seen. The box also served to receive prescription requests, as well as various samples for testing. For its time, it was considered to be pretty ingenious!

In the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s, there were no mobile phones; several households didn’t even have a regular phone. When Dad went on his house calls each day, he would leave the list of his visits with his secretary. Beside each he would give the patient’s phone number or that of a neighbouring farm or house. Thus, if he was needed in an emergency, his secretary was always able to get hold of him. The system worked perfectly.

I loved to go out in the car with Dad when he made house calls in the country. Our big, black “smiley” Rover – BS 3041 – with its polished wood dashboard, had the luxury of a radio, so this kept me amused as I waited for the visit to be over.

What was especially exciting was when Orkney was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Dad always did his best to reach the remotest of patients needing his attention. Chains were placed over the car tyres, and in the boot Dad carried a large spade, bits of sacking, his thigh-length, fur-lined “flying” boots and a tartan rug.

No, Dad being teetotal, there was no “winter warmer”! In need, Dad would dig his way along a narrow farm track in order to reach a patient. Changed days!

One part of his work probably gave Dad the most joy and that was delivering babies. He attained his DRCOG in 1948, and was soon considered to be something of a specialist by several of his GP colleagues. Whenever they had an obstetric emergency, they called on Dad. When Mr McClure (the Balfour’s surgeon) had a Caesarean section to perform, he called on Dad. Dad would be called out at all hours – he was assuredly a 24-7 GP.

It was some time before a maternity ward was built at the Balfour, so in the early years of Dad’s practice most births were home births; indeed, I was born at home in Skerryvore. I can recall many an occasion when Dad would meet one of “his babies.”

He would smile tenderly at the child, gently run his fingers over its head and then announce to the proud and beaming mother that her child would most certainly become a brain surgeon or a concert pianist! I have no knowledge of any of “Dad’s babies” attaining either of these distinctions, but I know that several are now very successful in local businesses.

And one part of his job caused Dad much pain and discomfort. Funnily enough, it was the part that, with modernisation, he came to focus on, taking him away from the islands and seeing him end his clinical days as an accomplished and greatly respected anaesthetist in the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

On Tuesday and Friday mornings – and for any “difficult” surgical cases – it was Dad’s duty to give the anaesthetic for the operations performed by Mr McClure.

A family portrait in the garden of Skerryvore around 50 years ago. Dr William Emslie, his wife Grace, and children, William James and Ruth Anthea, with Bruno the chow-chow.

And it was the smell of the ether, the anaesthetic of the 1940s and ’50s that turned Dad’s stomach and made him reject many a tasty lunch morsel prepared by Mum. She was a wonderful cook, but became very dispirited when she saw Dad turn away his lunch because his head was pounding and his stomach was so upset by the ether. But it never prevented him from taking the afternoon surgery – patients always came first.

Apropos Mr McClure – or Mac as Dad lovingly called him – Dad and he had a very special working relationship, as well as a precious friendship, both encompassing dear Sister Rosie. I wonder how many patients in those days realised just what a professional surgical team they were privileged to experience.

In the early 1950s, it became apparent to Dad that he could not cope with the volume of work now demanded by a practice that had grown to around 3,000 patients. He needed help. However, the government of the day would only provide financial help to practices where each GP partner was responsible for a minimum of 2,000 patients.

Although Dad employed a succession of Assistant GPs, he had to pay their salaries out of his own pocket; and he wasn’t even granted any financial assistance for the very necessary secretarial input to the practice.

This was the reason that we, as a family, on more than one occasion spent Dad’s annual holiday – two weeks in August – at home in Orkney. Each day, come rain or shine, we would drive to a beach in Deerness or Birsay. Mum was truly marvellous at packing a picnic.

I can recall one memorable trip to Birsay. The rain was lashing down but we managed to erect my brother’s small scouting tent on the beach. Dad, my brother William James and I crammed into the tent, determined not to touch the sides of the tent because this would let in the rain. Being people of some significant poundage, this was not an easy thing to achieve! Mum knelt in the entrance to the tent, complete with large raincoat and fetching rain hat, crouched over a small Primus stove on which peas, chipped potatoes and fresh lemon sole were cooked to perfection; and they never tasted better!

I cannot blame any reader for believing that I have idolised my father – I did.

I know that he was not a perfect person; there were some patients who decided that he did not serve their purpose, and they changed to another practice; but such were few and far between.

Since returning home, I have, however, been touched by the expressions of respect, love and admiration for both Mum and Dad by former friends and patients.

Were my parents here today, they would be so delighted that I have returned to the islands of my birth, islands that always held a very special place in their hearts.