Henry Handel in Lyme Regis

We went away for a few days last week – to beautiful Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast. Joyfully, I started reading a proper book for the first time in several weeks (since my sojourn at the John Radcliffe).

I found the book itself in the tiny but excellent second-hand bookshop down on The Cobb – The Way Home by the Australian novelist Henry Handel Richardson. It’s the second part of her triple-decker, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.

It opens in Lyme Regis. Her house and garden, Westfield in Cobb Road, still stands, rather neglected. She was so rude in the book about the snobby natives in the town. No wonder she's not much celebrated there. One wonders how much things have changed in that department in the intervening century.

Born Ethel Richardson in Melbourne in 1870, she was educated at Melba’s old school, the Presbyterian Ladies’ College, before going to Germany as a young woman to study at the Conservatorium of Music in Leipzig. She was to write a damning novelised version of her schooldays at PLC, The Getting of Wisdom, .

Deciding that she was not going to make it as a musician, she went on to become Australia’s first really significant novelist.

By the way, she wanted to be judged as a writer, not as a woman writer, so Ethel was ditched in favour of Henry Handel (which she borrowed from a cousin).

Not a picnic. More a miracle.

Having triple-bypass cardiac surgery, as happened to me last Tuesday, is definitely not a picnic. I got back home yesterday after five days post-op at the Heart Centre of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. In another six weeks, God willing, I’ll be able to drive (and work) again. I’d only realised something was wrong on my recent working trip to the Philippines.

How can one begin to express one’s gratitude to all the staff involved at the famous JR? The wonderful surgical team led by Rana Sayeed, the doctors and anaesthetists, the inspiring physio team, and all the skilled and supportive nursing colleagues.

I couldn’t count how many nationalities, cultures, styles and backgrounds were involved, all working seamlessly and professionally with each other twenty-four hours a day. Truly the global village in action. Heart-warming. And a quite different kind of experience to my only previous with that hospital, working on innovation programmes with them.

The first three days were the hardest, and in truth I am by no means out of the wood yet. But I have felt better each day that has passed. And my native optimism seems to have made a return. The love and practical support of close family and friends, day by day, has made a massive difference.

I must say that, having invested in private health insurance over several decades, I’d hoped to take advantage of all that, to travel first. But it was not to be. The small print meant that I travelled NHS. And I can’t imagine it could have been better or timelier. Genuinely first-class.

To bring together all that innovation and organisation developed over the past half century or so. That’s the miracle.

With my heartfelt thanks.