Poem - Festschrift Gordon Stewart
31 March 2015
by Professor John Martin
Gordon was a well-loved doc
He sashayed round the ward
Then Gordie said, well that is that
And he left for the land of the Bard
There he drank much whiskey strong
And played with his wife and dog
He even let his hair grow long
But when sober he knew he missed blood
He thought of the Shetland Islands
He imagined sheep with red cells like plates
He thought of introducing sickle cell disease
To the Outer Hebrides
But always his thoughts came back to us
To his desk with piles of junk
To the glories of the AMU
And the horrors of the Medical School
To the warm embrace of the clinical race
And the Clin Pharm boozing club
So two years hence
He took off his kilt
And left the wife and the dog
And returned to his council home in the South
And applied for his original job
There are strange things done in UCL
Mostly by the Senior Management Team
But the strangest thing that ever was seen
Was the return of Gordie to haem
But things had changed in UCL
Boris Johnson was now the Provost
Social Services ran the Medical School
And diagnosis was not so common
Teaching had been leased
To J.P. Morgan
Who has subcontracted exams
Clinical finals were held by Waitrose
With checkouts in the Strand
So Noble Gordie left again
And took the train to Scotland
Musing on the Glory Days
When diagnosis reigned supreme
And off to the Outer Hebrides
To fulfil a haematological dream