Millionaire bankers with his ’n’ hers Porsches, tragedy made them reassess their gilded lives. Now inner-city GPs, their message could change your values too
WHILE the working-class town of Larkhall, Lanarkshire, is hardly renowned for its architecture, this particular parade of flat-roofed shops could only be described as brutalist.
Among the betting shops and fast-food outlets, facing a busy road where lorries thunder past belching diesel fumes, is the uninspiring entrance to the NHS doctor’s surgery where GP Deepali Misra-Sharp works.
Dressed in clothes chosen for their ability to withstand a 60-degree hot cycle (there is always a danger someone will be sick), Deepali walks past queueing patients in the waiting area.
So begins another busy day’s surgery in a deprived corner of Britain, where all of human life is laid bare. It is a challenge to ensure each patient feels understood and is properly treated in a ten-minute appointment, but one that 44-year-old Deepali relishes.
‘This is a close-knit community, but I hear some extremely sad stories,’ she admits. ‘Many patients are young, they haven’t had a good education and struggle to make ends meet. There are cases of real childhood poverty.
‘Many of my patients are dealing with mental health problems, too.’
For Deepali, no day is ever easy. While she has plenty of support — her husband, Kristian, 42, is a GP at a Glasgow practice, albeit in a more affluent area — there are days when she goes home feeling frustrated and sad.
It is a far cry from her old life 15 years ago, when she and her husband worked as investment bankers. Home then was a multimillion-pound four-storey townhouse in an exclusive Central London enclave, with a full-time housekeeper.
‘After we moved in, I remember seeing a living room display in a top designer furniture store and saying to Kristian how much I liked it,’ recalls Deepali. ‘When we said to the sales assistant: “We’ll have it”, and he asked which pieces of furniture, Kristian said: “All of it, including the ornaments and lights.”
‘We didn’t even think about the cost — around £20,000 — and we paid extra to have it all delivered, unpacked and arranged.’
Kristian kept dozens of expensive suits in his walk-in wardrobe and, in hers, Deepali had more than 300 pairs of shoes from designers such as Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik.
‘I did all my grocery shopping in Selfridges and Harrods and wore only designer clothes — Nicole Farhi, Prada and Ralph Lauren.
‘I’d buy several dresses, jackets and trousers at a time in different colours, and the housekeeper would arrange them in my wardrobe.’
They both drove top-of-the-range Porsches, although Deepali admits: ‘Mine often sat in the garage, as I usually got taxis everywhere.’
They thought nothing of flying first-class, sometimes twice a week, to New york, where they kept a second luxury apartment.
‘We never had to pack suitcases because we had everything we needed there, including walk-in wardrobes stuffed with more designer clothes.’
Whether in London or the U.S., their every need was tended to by their personal housekeeper. ‘She’d cook delicious meals for me and Kristian every night, or we’d eat out at top restaurants.
‘Once, on a Friday, we were discussing where to go for lunch on Saturday and Kristian mentioned he’d read about a great restaurant in Berlin. So we simply booked flights to Berlin for lunch the next day.’
Holidays were to exclusive resorts in the Caribbean, and gifts were always expensive.
‘Once, Kristian was shopping for my birthday, but wasn’t sure which handbag I’d like, so he bought five — each costing around £500.’
SO WHy did they turn their backs on that life? In fact, the change arose from tragic circumstances when the loss of their first baby, who was stillborn at six months, made them reassess their lives.
Impressed by the support they had received from the NHS, they wanted to give something back. The world of banking didn’t ‘cut it’ any more.
Although they are by no means poor, today their lives are far more modest — and, they stress, infinitely more fulfilling.
‘I never think about our old life and wish I was back there,’ says Deepali. ‘In fact, I look back and see how bland being wealthy can be.
‘We were living in a bubble where material things mattered most. But if you eat at the best restaurants every night, after a while you fail to appreciate how good the food is.
‘And being wealthy makes you fuss about things that aren’t important. I remember spending thousands having our house feng shuied to get the flow right. Because the feng shui consultant suggested running water would be good, we even had a fountain in the sitting room.
‘Kristian hated it. He always turned it off when he got home, which used to annoy me. How ridiculous is that? But that was the world we inhabited — one where you lose perspective.’
The couple met at a bar in 1995 as bright, ambitious young things. Both were reading economics at the University of Edinburgh.
After graduating, they both got high-flying jobs in the City, with Kristian eventually becoming a derivatives trader with Merrill Lynch and Deepali working as an investment banker.
Their wedding in July 2001 was attended by 500 people. A lavish honeymoon to South Africa and Mauritius cost £40,000 and when, a year later, Deepali learnt she was pregnant, they were both thrilled.
‘Everything was going perfectly to plan,’ she recalls. ‘We talked schools, nannies and colour schemes for the nursery. Nothing would be too good for our darling boy.’
But then a routine scan when Deepali was 20 weeks’ pregnant found the baby had a serious heart defect. Options were discussed, too painful even to contemplate, then, six weeks later, nature took over and Deepali went into premature labour. Their baby was stillborn.
The professionalism and compassion they encountered from staff at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London touched them to the core.
Nevertheless, two weeks later, the couple found themselves back at work, sitting and staring in blank confusion at their desks.
‘Before, if I was feeling down, going shopping used to cheer me up,’ says Deepali. ‘But no amount of shopping helped after my son died. It just made me feel even more empty.’
Worse, despite their enviable social life, Deepali felt lonely and isolated. ‘Friends in the wealthy world we inhabited didn’t want to hear about our grief.
‘There was no room for something so imperfect as losing a baby. It brought home how shallow our “perfect” world actually was.’
She sought solace in evening voluntary work at an HIV unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Seeing how fulfilled it made his wife, Kristian decided to do the same, volunteering at a hospice.
‘Helping others put the perspective back into our lives. Instead of dwelling on our own grief, it made us realise how fortunate we were.
‘We’d always given to charity, but this was different. It felt so good to be doing something hands-on that we could see was truly worthwhile and making a difference to people.’
In 2004, the couple were cautiously thrilled to find another baby was on the way. Although Deepali went through the same motions, hiring a
full-time nanny and preparing the nursery, her heart just wasn’t in her banking job any more.
‘I knew what I wanted: to train as a doctor,’ she says. ‘Through the voluntary work, I’d found my true vocation in life. I liked being hands-on, helping people, and was fascinated by the various medical treatments.
‘When I told kristian, he backed me 100 per cent, but many of my friends were aghast. They thought I was totally mad. Even doctors I knew said: “Don’t do it.”’ admittedly, it did sound like a crazy plan. nevertheless, she applied to read medicine at nottingham and took her entrance exams shortly after their son, Sachin, now 13, was born.
kristian was so inspired by his wife’s decision that he, too, gave up his job to relocate to nottingham with her, caring for Sachin when he was born.
a year later, he enrolled as a medical student. ‘We were probably the most unlikely medical students on campus,’ says kristian. ‘We drove Porsches and had a baby, so we weren’t exactly your typical impoverished youngsters.
‘But those evenings dining in expensive restaurants became a thing of the past as we juggled studying with childcare.’
Luckily, family helped out, especially during exam times, but their days of spontaneity and excess quickly disappeared. When they weren’t studying, they were busy with childcare.
The six years of their training was a long, exhausting juggling act — with their savings, together with the proceeds of the sale of their London house, financing their new lives.
But it felt totally right to them. ‘Our lives had been changed by the experience with our first son, and I was more than ready for the change. Of course, there have been hard times, but being a doctor was a passion, not just a job. neither of us has ever looked back.’
There were other advantages, too. ‘Our time in banking not only enabled us to finance our studies, but prepared us mentally,’ says Deepali. ‘Investment banking involves long hours, a lot of responsibility and stressful moments. Even now as doctors, kristian and I don’t panic.’
TWO years after having Sachin, Deepali gave birth to their daughter, ambika, now 11. This time, she took a year out of her studies — which meant kristian caught up and they eventually graduated together.
They went through a worrying time when Sachin was admitted to hospital on his seventh birthday and found to be suffering from a rare non-cancerous cyst behind his left ear. although it was successfully removed, his hearing was affected and he needs to have regular check-ups.
‘His excellent treatment on the nHS simply affirmed to us we were doing the right thing in becoming doctors,’ says Deepali. She adds that Sachin hopes one day to become an ear, nose and throat (EnT) surgeon.
The couple, who finally qualified as doctors in 2010 and GPs last year, have now settled in Scotland with their two children.
Little remains of their old life. ‘I have one ghastly sheepskin jacket I never wear, but which cost £4,000 all those years ago, and some high-heeled shoes I couldn’t walk in now, as reminders of my old world,’ says Deepali.
‘These days, I shop in sales at John Lewis or Marks & Spencer. rather than designer clothes, I look for practical items.’
They rarely eat out. ‘I like to cook at home for family and friends,’ says Deepali.
In the little spare time she has, she writes novels — she has selfpublished three works of fiction — and the family go on holiday to Center Parcs or to Portugal.
‘We would never consider flying first-class now,’ she says. ‘It would seem a waste of money.’
There are no housekeepers or nannies, and they rarely see old friends. The days of jumping in a taxi to go to work are long gone — like most parents, she and kristian juggle dropping off the children at school on the way to their respective surgeries.
Two local GPs, serving their community, doing their jobs. Just the way they like it.