The best (and funniest) piece the BMJ published while I was the editor

The best thing the BMJ published in the 13 years I was the editor was a review of a truly dreadful autobiography, a book so dreadful that it threatened to become a classic (but never did). The review follows my introduction.

The book was the autobiography of Lord Walton of Detchant, a man who “has written more than he’s read” and “who is known to his friends as Lord Walton.” The review was written by Ruth Holland, a kindly, witty woman who was our books editor and loved by all but, as the review shows, could eviscerate so skilfully that the victim didn’t know he had been eviscerated. She died in the Watford Train Crash of 1996.

The autobiography was 643 pages, a doorstep of a book. It was filled with labyrinthine and tedious detail that, as Ruth wrote, “tells you absolutely everything [but] by the end of the book you really know nothing about him except that he has a colossal memory.” Ruth and her friends would take down the book, open it at random, read a sentence, and guffaw. The first paragraph of Ruth’s review captures the book perfectly.

I thought that it would be unkind to review the book, but Lord Walton rang me not once but twice to ask if we would review the book. On the first occasion I avoided any commitment, but the second time he rang me he laid it on thick: “I’ve been president of the BMA twice, president of the GMC, and I think I have a right to have my book reviewed.” Lord Walton, who always called me “Smith,” and I had run-ins before. I wrote a series of articles on the General Medical Council when he was the president, arguing that it was a 19^th century organisation unprepared for the 20^th let alone the 21^st century. He wasn’t pleased. “I can’t promise a good review,” I said weakly. It was wicked of me to ask Ruth to review the book.

On the day the review was published Ruth received three phone calls, one from Stephen Lock, my predecessor as editor, praising the wit of her piece, and two from Lord Walton himself. In the first he said how he pleased he was by such a positive review. In the second call he was angry, presumably somebody had pointed out to him that the review was a piss take.

Should the review inspire you to read the book you can buy it through Amazon for £48.50 plus £2.79 delivery.

The Spice of Life: From Northumbria to World Neurology

John Walton (Lord Walton of Detchant)

On 18 June 1993, I was sitting at my desk in the BMJs editorial department on the second floor of BMA House, a fine redbrick pile in Tavistock Square designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Theosophists, when I received a visit from the BM s editor, Richard Smith, the son of Syd Smith, who was a prisoner at Colditz, the notorious German fortress, and brother of Arthur Smith, the well known playwright and alternative comedian. To get to my desk he would probably have used the most direct route, which would take him past the offices of the deputy editors, Tony Delamothe, who, though born in Australia, has spent several years in this country, and Jane Smith, who is no relation of Richard Smith and who, by a curious coincidence, of which the import will be seen below, comes from Newcastle. He would also have passed Alison Tonks, the correspondence editor and no relation of Tonks the eminent artist, Liz Crossan, the obituaries editor, who, however, was not at her desk, being absent from the office on two days of her annual leave entitlement, and Linda Beecham, the medicopolitical editor, who was also not then at her desk as she was attending a BMA meeting. I remember that on this particular occasion Richard Smith was wearing a striped shirt, red braces, and a rather feverish glint in his eye as he handed me The Spice of Life and suggested that I review it.

If you think the above paragraph is a bit heavy on the circumstantial detail, let me tell you you ain’t seen nothing. Lord Walton, bless him, tells you everything you never wanted to know about the rise and rise of a lad from Spennymoor to the heights of the medical trade (professor of neurology, president of the BMA (twice), chairman of the GMC, warden of Green College, etc etc), not failing to mention that his mother’s mother was well cared for by a companion called Mabel, that he spent much time in the church choir hoping for a glimpse of his future wife’s knees as she swung round on the organ stool, that his elder daughter was a wakeful baby, that Dulwich has a splendid picture gallery and Lichtenstein lovely mountain scenery, that Holland is flat, and that in 1963 he and Betty (of the knees) while house hunting in Newcastle found that several “were attractive but had significant disadvantages, even including some in Elmfield and in Graham Park Road.”

I suppose the auditory equivalent of the mind’s eye is the mind’s ear, and I was surprised to hear persistently in this organ while reading Walton’s autobiography the voice of the late Noel Coward singing “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.” Why? I stopped reading to listen to the words: “It seems such a shame when the English claim the earth! a shame when the English claim the earth! That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth.” In this case to puzzlement as well because curiously, although Walton tells you absolutely everything, by the end of the book you really know nothing about him except that he has a colossal memory. If he has hidden depths-or, indeed, hidden shallows they remain hidden. The undoubted distinction of his career also unfortunately gets obscured in the fog of total recall.

From the reader’s point of view it doesn’t really matter, because this is a glorious book, a 1990s’ equivalent of the Diary of a Nobody, with its unerring eye for daily trivia and its grasp of the function of the commonplace in human relationships. Although it is impossible in a short review to do it justice, one sentence may give you something of its flavour: “But I haven’t quite forgiven George, in writing a year or two later to Jack sending his apologies for not being able to attend Jack and Joan’s golden wedding celebrations in Bamburgh in 1990, for saying that in one match in which I played with him against Sir Raymond and John, my golf was ‘a mixture of Amold Palmer and Houdini’.” It only needs some enterprising Radio 4 producer to find the right slot for it and The Spice of Life could become a cult of Adrian Mole proportions and its author a media hero. I’m sure he would rise to the occasion and enjoy it.