Recollections of a Southwold GP - Dr Christopher Hopkins

This is much more than a fascinating family memoir. It is an important piece of local and national social history told through the lens of an individual life which covers so much experience. With plenty of colour and anecdotes Christopher describes his upbringing in a privileged class, with travel overseas from a very early age, and Catholic boarding school life during the Second World War. That's all before we get to his career as a devoted family GP. He is a man of many accomplishments, a great sportsman, affectionate father, with friendships of all sorts.
Mary and Christopher married just before he was called up into the army as a young doctor. I caught up with them when they moved
to Southwold where Christopher became a very active local GP. Mary gave him the fullest support, and they became eventually the proud and energetic parents of two boys and two girls.
The range of their activities is stunning: so many family holidays in places sometimes far away. Climbing Ben Nevis seems like an
afternoon outing. But local sports and parish activities of all sorts too, closer to home. Most impressive was the trip Christopher took out to India for three months when he served as a volunteer doctor in a very poor community in the south. Mary joined him for some of the time. His retirement from the NHS, two years early as a result of policy disagreements, is a significant element in this story - but that by no means meant the end of his medical work because he continued to treat many patients with a variety of therapies.
This is now, as I write, a time of national and international medical crisis. Admiring the bravery and skill of NHS staff, who risk their lives facing a lethal epidemic every day, does not mean failing to recognise, as Christopher does, that the NHS needs both more generous funding and organisational reform.
Towards the end of this book Christopher says: 'Dying can be an anxious time for some'. This book, full of life, hope, good cheer, energy and activity, can do much to reduce such anxiety. I hope it is widely read.
--Bruce Kent.