6th December 2020

 73 years ago today, when I was born, it was dark. My father was still away in the army so my mother had to bang on the wall to alert our neighbour for help. No NHS then.  But today is darker. Growing up, I had the Salk polio treatment on a sugar lump, but I wasn’t the first to take it so long term effects were well known. On Wednesday I’ll be near the top of the queue to be a guinea pig for the new Corona vaccine, where bat poison will be injected into my arm. Unlike the Salk treatment, no-one yet knows the long-term effects. Some say it might affect our individual DNA! I look outside. A dark hooded shape sidles past our window, face muffled, eyes downcast. I almost expect to see Boris at the end of our road, tolling a bell as he calls out ‘Bring out your dead’.  I shake my head and think of medical students. The first thing that’s drummed into them is ‘Do no harm’.  They, like me, will have to take everything on trust. Today is supposed to be a happy day but....