The incident started me thinking about this question of people’s reactions to the sight of blood and other disturbing realities. Even though it was only my second year of practice I had already formulated certain rules about this and one was that it was always the biggest men who went down. (I had, by this time, worked out a few other, perhaps unscientific theories, e.g. big dogs were kept by people who lived in little houses and vice versa. Clients who said “spare no expense” never paid their bills, ever. When I asked my way in the Dales and was told “you can’t miss it,” I knew I’d soon be
...more
