Thirty years ago, when general practice surgeries were attached to doctors’ houses, there was generally someone around to help in emergencies, even at awkward times.

One Saturday morning, when I was working alone, a boy aged about 7 was brought in to the surgery by his mother. He needed a penicillin injection, and when I asked his mother if she could hold him, she said “The last time he had a needle it took three people to hold him, so I’ll wait outside”.

I went upstairs to the house and enlisted the help of my veterinarian son, who was home for the weekend.

“I’ll show you how to hold him”, I said. “We learnt how to hold all animals,” he replied. So I left him to it.

In keeping with the fashion favoured by vets at the time, my son had long ginger brown hair, a beard and a bushy moustache. He pinned the child to the examination couch with two ginger-haired hands and grinned at him through his beard. Hypnotised by this spectacle, the boy didn’t move, breathe or make a sound.

When it was all over, I took him back out to his mother, who had not seen my son enter the consulting room from upstairs. The boy said to her “Was that a bear?”. I didn’t disillusion them.

Doubtless, they still tell the story about the odd assistants employed by the funny woman doctor in Brisbane.