Category Archives: between books

The Monday Book – The Sinner

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The Sinner – Stuart MacGregor (J Philip O’Hara 1973)

There are many facets to the city of Edinburgh – cultural, historical, academic and poor suburbs. I lived most of my life within easy distance and rode the thirty minute train journey most weeks in the late 1950s and early 1960s to go to jazz clubs and folk clubs. It usually involved climbing the steps from the station to the high street, stopping at the pub halfway, then on up to Bunjie’s coffee bar and finally to number 369 and the jazz club before racing for the last train home.

MacGregor’s book is set around that time and captures the atmosphere well.

There are really three strands to the story – the main character is Denis Sellars who has an on-off relationship with Kate and is a folksinger. Then there is a debate between traditionalist folkies and entertaining folkies. There are many thinly disguised real people who emerge in this strand. Denis is caught in the middle and his brother is being groomed as an entertaining folksinger.

I could fairly easily recognize many of the ‘real’ people who were referenced and I worried about that, as I don’t think they were as ‘right and wrong’ as MacGregor suggests. My memory is of a much more understanding time and Hamish Henderson (who is one of the thinly disguised ones) always encouraged guitar wielding youngsters like me.

I do believe, however, that he captured a particular atmosphere of cultural Edinburgh at that time really well. That I recognized!

The relationship with Kate was also believable and, I’m sure, would chime with many of my generation.

MacGregor was a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, helped start one of the first folksong clubs in Scotland, and wrote songs and poems. After graduating, he married and moved to take up a job as a doctor in Jamaica. He died in a road crash around the time this book was published.

I was amused that the cover looks like a reference to Bob Dylan’s second album.

His best known song is ‘Coshieville’ a bittersweet love song set in a small hamlet in Perthshire when the hydro-electric dams were being built – here’s a nice performance –

Doctor. Doctor – – –

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I had an appointment yesterday with an ENT doctor to have impacted wax removed from both my ears. He was a very nice young guy and after the procedure he checked my throat and my nose – I guess wax removal is boring and he maybe hoped for something more interesting (or maybe lucrative). It reminded me of another ENT visit many years ago in Scotland.

I was touring Brittany in France with my band in the 1970s and towards the end had a couple of days of dizziness and nausea which I put down to something I’d eaten. But then gradually over the next few years I began to have hearing problems in my right ear. About ten years later I spoke to my family doctor about polyps in my nose and he sent me to the ENT doctor in my local hospital. He quickly gave me an appointment to have them removed, but as I was leaving he asked if there was anything else and I told him about my hearing issue. He immediately brightened up!

So I had numerous tests including a full brain scan and it was concluded that back in Brittany I’d contracted a viral infection of the inner ear that would have been treatable then but had done permanent damage.

It must be very boring most of the time for these doctors – dealing with ear wax and nasal polyps.

But the best medical story I have is about that same family doctor in Scotland. About thirty years ago I had suffered dreadful pain in my stomach for a few days one summer. When he came to the house he sounded my stomach and said “that’s strange – I don’t hear anything’ (his ears were fine). Continuing he said “The last time I had this experience was with someone who’d just been run over by a bus”. It turned out that my small intestine had double knotted and was gangrenous and causing sepsis. I very nearly died!

That surgery and follow up treatment was, of course completely free on the Scottish NHS, whereas I’m not sure if my ear wax removal is covered by my Medicare – I may receive an invoice in a few weeks. The last time I had ear wax removed by a doctor I was booked at a festival while touring in the US and went to the ER. I eventually got a bill back home in Scotland for $600.

What did you say? What?