Hello Andrew,
Thank you for your personal email
and for the collation of other old friends' and colleagues' updates.
You sent me photos of your recent
lunch in Bowral with Tamara who doesn't seem to have aged at all (love the
hair) and Mike Campbell-Smith who, similarly, looks no different to when I last
saw him 40 odd (occasionally very odd) years ago. Was always a lovely bloke.
Yes, I am retired too. Six years
now. I'm sure there must be similar pressures and stresses in Australia but
working in the NHS in the UK was no easy matter. The patients were great but
every five minutes there was a new Health Minister hoping to make a name for
him/herself by upending the system and introducing costly and, ultimately,
unnecessary changes. And all of them seemed to have a vendetta against a
semi-independent General Practice.
Still, I sat at the same desk for 34
years. I did not climb Everest or trek the Kokoda trail or sail in the Sydney
to Hobart as some of our Uni and my School mates have done. I have led a rather
quiet, safe existence firstly in Essex and, for the last 20 years, in St Albans
Hertfordshire.
As you know, I had a NSTEMI in 2017
and 1 stent. Since then, no problems....oh, apart form Type 2, B12 deficiency,
Hypothyroidism, BCC et al. For someone who would refrain from ever taking a
paracetamol to now taking 9 different medications daily!!!
I prescribed all this stuff for all
those years but never thought I would end up taking them myself. I calculated
once that I had probably signed my name 400,000 times on scripts (repeat and
acute) and other documents. At the end my signature was a flat line without any
of its former glorious curves and loops. At one stage, I realised I had started
signing my name with 3 e's! That's what the NHS does to you!
I went to an opera once. It was on my bucket list. La Boheme at the Royal Albert Hall. Bloody hell, Mimi took a long time to die! The waiters in the banquet scene were on roller skates ... I assumed that was standard for Puccini. Did he write any parts for people on jet-skis?
As you know, I'm an adherent of Duke
Ellington's assertion that "it don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that
swing".
My wife of 46 years (whose father
was a famous British jazz drummer and composer) and I are ardent jazz fans as
well as devotees of the recently departed and beloved Stephen Sondheim.
I started learning piano a few years
ago in a very unstructured (and so far unsuccessful) way but my F sharp minor
seventh flat five is a delight! Ahh....jazz chords are truly wonderful.
And, of course, I am a fan of The
Arsenal. Football here, soccer to you. Winter weekends at the Emirates Stadium.
There is no colder place than a football stand on a January afternoon in
England. Well, perhaps, there are. I imagine it gets a bit nippy in the Antarctic.
Lynn and I have 3 kids. Dylan who is
a drummer and composer (and on Spotify!!), Lily who is a marketeer and her twin
sister, Rose, in-house counsel for a media company. And one grandchild who is
so clever, cute and funny and, happily, seems quite fond of "Pops".
We sold the French farmhouse I
mentioned in a an email to you many years ago. Just before lockdown so good
timing. I do miss France but our brilliantly conceived and constructed Brexit
would have made life more difficult
So, there you have it. Approaching
69 wondering (like the rest of us) where the time went and what lies in store.
Now that my Mum has died (2018), I
am not getting back to Sydney as often as I used to but perhaps, one day, I
will be able to raise a glass of Henschke with you and toast the old days.
I send my very best wishes to you and to anyone you care to share this with,
Ian Freed
