Poem - Festschrift Gordon Stewart

 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