Audio Clip

Ann Buchanan
Talks about her father’s GP practice

He had a huge practice in my youth, I was aware that father did have one of the biggest practices in Glasgow. And upon asking mother why, I was told that before the National Health came in father didn’t charge the patients if they couldn’t afford it. He wouldn’t charge them, he would go deliver their baby for free. If you couldn’t afford the medicine for your child somehow it would just come clattering through your letterbox. This built up some huge loyalties and when the Health Service did come in all these patients remained with him. Consequently, he had a practice where he would have delivered the father, the child and probably the grandchild as well, and all these people were incredibly loyal to him.