Life and times

The former GP and writer on home remedies, the wonders of nature and a cure for the Sunday blues

GP and writer James Le Fanu

GENERAL PRACTICE certainly has its rewards, but can scarcely be described as intellectually challenging. My salvation has been writing for The Telegraph for 30 years and interrogating the often-contradictory findings of medical research. Still, I would have run out of inspiration were it not for the ceaseless flow of correspondence from readers. Highlights have included a treasure trove of ‘home’ remedies for most minor ailments (cold sores, night cramps, athlete’s foot, etc) rarely commended by doctors because they suppose modern pharmaceuticals to be more effective.

Then there are the hundreds of diagnostic conundrums that have defied the most thorough medical efforts to establish their cause. Almost invariably, however, some among the thousands of readers are similarly afflicted and able to suggest a probable explanation. And most important of all has been the personal testimony to the harms caused by mass medicalisation. Their vivid accounts of being coerced into taking drugs they do not need and the devastating consequences could not be more compelling. The complexities of how this invidious situation has come about, and what can be done to reverse it, is the subject of my new book. Thus, the irony of my many years in general practice, where the most practical good I have achieved has been to encourage people to take fewer pills.

AN UNEXPECTED DELIGHT of later life is becoming more appreciative of the magical wonders of the natural world. For many years, I have had a ringside view from my study window looking out on to my garden, closely observing the subtle drama of the seasonal transformation. The star turn is a magnificent 70ft yellow-leaved gleditsia, popularly known as ‘The Sunburst’, luminously enchanting in the early morning and becoming, later in the day, a temple of burnished gold. The secret of this kaleidoscope of changing colour lies in its leaves, a delicate fern-like foliage through which it is possible to glimpse the blues, greys and whites of the sky beyond. But the gleditsia, like every tree, is full of impenetrable secrets that lie far beyond human understanding. How come the diversity of those beautiful forms of leaves, whose near-infinite variety botanists struggle to categorise? How come, too, the rising of the sap to nourish them, shifting gallons of water and nutrients from deep within the soil to the topmost branches? Life is a miracle.

THOUGH GENERALLY OF a cheery disposition, I am prone to the curious melancholic state of the Sunday evening blues. But no longer, due to the efforts of my friend the biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, in founding choralevensong.org. Type in your postcode and up pops the times of the services of the churches in your locality and the musical offering of the day. In London, we are well-provided for, so now I make a weekly pilgrimage to one or other on the list. They are all wonderful, but I am particularly fond of St Gabriel’s, Pimlico. At Whitsuntide, the choir were in brilliant form, opening with an Introit by Bruckner, followed by Stanford’s exuberant Magnificat and solemn Nunc Dimittis, an anthem by the 16th-century composer Robert Parsons, and three splendid hymns. The parish priest, Father Owen Higgs, recited Thomas Cranmer’s immortal prayer, Lighten our darkness we beseech thee, O Lord and after the church had resounded to an organ voluntary, we all retired to the vestry for a glass of prosecco. Sunday blues banished.

Too Many Pills by James Le Fanu is out now (Little, Brown, £13.99)

After the organ voluntary, we all retired to the vestry for a glass of prosecco

THE LIST (Re)readingMiddlemarch. Brilliant beyond words.WatchingAnything starring Carey Mulligan.LovingAn early morning swim at Brockwell Lido.HatingNoisy scientists who know all the answers.