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put fingers to lips. Ssssssh! Ooooooaa! So I looked contrite, handed the films over and tiptoed away like Margot Fonteyn.
    Halfway down the ramp I saw a group of doctors approaching-an Honorary Medical Officer and his
    court of underlings. You don’t spend a day working in any hospital without becoming aware that the H.M.O. is God, but God at Royal Queens is a much superior God to God at Ryde Hospital. Here, they wear navy pinstriped or grey flannel suits, Old School ties, Frenchcuffed shirts with discreet but solid gold links, brown suede or black kid thin-soled shoes.
    This specimen wore grey flannel and brown suede shoes. With him were two registrars (long white coats), his senior and junior residents (white suits and white shoes), and six medical students (short white coats) with stethoscopes ostentatiously displayed and nail-bitten hands full of slide cases or test tube racks. Yes, a very senior version of God, to have so many dancing attendance on him. That was what caught my attention. Doing routine chests doesn’t bring one into contact with God, senior or junior, so I was curious. He was talking with great animation to one registrar, fine head thrown back, and I think I had to slow down and shut my mouth, which does have a tendency to catch flies these days. Oh, what a lovely man! Very tall, a good pair of shoulders, a flat tummy. A lot of dark red hair with a kink in it and two snowwhite wings, very slightly freckled skin, chiselled features-yes, he was a lovely man. They were talking about osteomalacia, so I catalogued him as an orthopod. Then as I slid by themthey did rather take up all the ramp-I found myself being searchingly regarded by a pair of greenish eyes. Phew! My chest caved in for the second time in a week,
    though this wasn’t a surge of love like Flo’s. This was a sort of breathless attraction. My knees sagged.
    At lunch I quizzed Pappy about him, armed with my theory that he was an orthopod.
    “Duncan Forsythe,” she said without hesitation. “He’s the senior Honorary Medical Officer on Orthopaedics. Why do you ask?”
    “He gave me an old-fashioned look,” I said.
    Pappy stared. “Did he? That’s odd coming from him, he’s not one of the Queens Lotharios. He’s very much married and known as the nicest H.M.O. in the whole place-a thorough gentleman, never chucks instruments at Sister Theatre or tells filthy jokes or picks on his junior resident, no matter how hamfisted or tactless.”
    I dropped the subject, though I’m sure I didn’t imagine it. He hadn’t stripped the clothes off me with his eyes or anything silly like that, but the look he gave me was definitely man-woman. And as far as I’m concerned, he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever seen. The senior H.M.O.! Young for that post, he couldn’t be more than forty.
    Tonight’s wish: That I see more of Mr. Duncan Forsythe.

Saturday
January 16th, 1960
    Well, I did it at the dinner table tonight, with David present. Steak-and-chips is everybody’s favourite meal,
    though it’s hard on Mum, who has to keep frying T-bones in a huge pan and keep an eye on the deep fryer at the same time. Gavin and Peter get through three each, and even David eats two. The pudding was Spotted Dick and custard, very popular, so the whole table was in a contented mood when Mum and Granny put the teapot down. Time for me to strike.
    “Guess what?” I asked.
    No one bothered to answer.
    “I’ve rented a flat at Kings Cross and I’m moving out.”
    No one answered that either, but all the sounds stopped. The tinkling of spoons in cups, Granny’s slurps, Dad’s cigarette cough. Then Dad pulled out his packet of Ardaths, offered it to Gavin and Peter, then lit all three of their smokes o f f the same match-oooooo-aa, that was trouble!
    “Kings Cross,” said Dad finally, staring at me very steely. “My girl, you’re a fool. At least I hope you’re a fool. Only fools, Bohemians and tarts live at Kings Cross.”
    “I am not a fool,