MEETING of the SOCIETY on WEDNESDAY 21 March 2001
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MEETING OF THE SOCIETY ON WEDNESDAY 21 March 2001 A meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society was held on Wednesday 21 March 2001 at 8.30 pm at the Postgraduate Education Centre, Nottingham City Hospital NHS Trust. The President, Dr Jim McCracken was in the chair. Apologies for absence were received from Dr A Shetty, Dr J P Caley, Mr D Harriss and Mr M Henley Minutes A précis of the minutes of the previous meeting of the Society held on 21 February was read and the minutes were approved and signed. New Members: The following were elected: Dr M Mowbray (Anaesthesia), Dr D Gray (Cardiology/General Medicine), Dr R Fox (Psychiatry) and Dr A Watts (General Practice) The President thanked the pharmaceutical representatives of Bayer, Losec and SKB and acknowledged the continuing sponsorship of the Society by Knoll Pharmaceuticals. The President then introduced the guest speaker, Mr Colin Dexter, best known as the crime writer behind the “Inspector Morse” novels. Mr Dexter had graduated in classics from Christ’s College, Cambridge in 1953 and became classics master at Wigston School in Leicester and at Loughborough Grammar before becoming senior classics master at Corby Grammar in Northamptonshire. From 1966 onwards he lived in Oxford. He has won both Silver and Gold Dagger awards from the Crime Writers Association and in 1997 was awarded their Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding services to crime literature. Mr Dexter introduced himself and apologised for not being John Thaw (the actor who plays Inspector Morse), nor the former chairman of the England Cricket Selectors (also called Colin Dexter). He said he had disappointed many previous audiences also! He related a story of once arranging to meet a Finnish journalist at a London train station and asking how he could recognise her. She described herself as tall with long blonde hair and good looking and enquired how she would recognise him. He modestly described himself as “short, fat and deaf”. When they met up at the train station she walked straight up to him saying “You’re Colin Dexter” to which he replied “How did you recognise me?”. She said he fitted the description exactly. He went on to talk about the writing of crime novels, using examples of his many books. He didn’t start writing until the age of 45 and started with “The Last Bus to Woodstock”. He felt that the secret to creative writing was to take an ordinary everyday event and change just one thing. For example in this book he had visited a local pub in the area and changed the name of the pub to “The Black Prince”. On returning 15 years later he noticed that the pub had also changed its name and is now called “The Black Prince”! Through his deafness he had taken up lip reading classes which featured strongly in his second book “The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn”. He went on to describe some of anecdotes from the writing of Morse, the protagonist of his most famous novels. It was based around Jericho, a suburb of Oxford, and had become an internationally famous TV series, of which there are over 33 hours of episodes in existence. He had played a cameo role in each of the episodes, which he had enjoyed, although he had had some difficulties whilst filming in Magdalen College Cloister where they had had to re- take his part on a number of occasions because he could neither hear the commands to walk on, being rather deaf, nor see the director waving because he was too short! He had also had very good treatment at a local Oxford pub called “The Mitre” when being pushed for time he had not changed out of his bishop’s robes for lunch. During the question and answer session Mr Dexter revealed that both he and Morse were great crossword fans and in fact the characters of Morse and Lewis were named after his two favourite crossword writers. He had spent his life at public school either as a pupil or teacher and never really referred to anyone by their first names, hence there were no first names throughout the series. A producer had put E Morse on the bed-head and he had never actually decided on his first name. The betting shops were full of suggested names for him to pick so he chose the most obscure one he could – Endeavour – but never got round to placing bets himself. He had not modelled Morse on any particular character but saw elements of him in both himself and his friends, particularly his love of Wagner, crosswords and being frugal with money. He had written 14 Morse novels and estimated that on average each had taken around 18 months. This was mainly because he wrote them between the two hours after the Archers and before going to his local. His style was to write the first and last chapter of the book and let the plot wind its way to its final destination. He never kept specific details of the characters and hence confessed that his novels were often full of errors, e.g. the change of Morse’s eye colour from mild grey to steely blue. He was forever receiving letters pointing these changes out, much to his amusement. A vote of thanks was given by Dr Alan Smyth, Consultant Paediatric Respiratory Physician and long time admirer of the Morse series. He thanked Colin Dexter for a truly memorable evening of good humour and anecdotes. …………………………………………… .