It’s been a busy month with the Chinese New Year and another fun-packed reunion.  And I’ve now got two books in preparation.  Both are about hospital politics and badly behaved people.  One is set in our modern St. Angela’s University Teaching Hospital and the other is set in its predecessor 100 years ago.   At the heart of both is rivalry, and a nasty contest about how things should be done.  Both ended in ruinous court cases, trashed reputations, acres of negative press and criminal convictions.

There is much to research and I’ve discovered how much fun it can be to while away the hours in libraries disappearing down rabbit holes pursuing new lines of inquiry.

And I’ve made a new marvellous friend – the Archivist.  She brings my requests up from the stack on the hour – photos, letters and minute books from the late 19th century hospital records.

After hours of reading and viewing the forgotten documents, I feel transported to that world.  I even have the weather reports for each day of the year of the dispute.

Continue reading →