“Betjeman’s” salute to the Oxford Medicolegal Society

by

James Drife

 10^th  annual diner,

Magdalen College, 11^th July 2008

1.         Dear OMLS!   Dear OMLS!

Please forgive this familiar form of address:

Should I show more respect, more awe and more piety

When I speak to the Medicolegal Society?

2.         These days there’s a fashion for using initials:

They’re neither too intimate nor too official,

Just right for an ode from a poet like me

To the OMLS from yours truly, JB.

3.         On this fine summer’s evening in balmy July –

Not a breath of a breeze, not a cloud in sky –

On a leisurely Friday there’s pleasure in dawdlin’

As we stroll down the High to our dinner in Magdalen,

4.         Which is how it’s pronounced, as everyone knows,

Apart from the tourists and people like those.

As they frown at their maps we say: “What could be plainer?

It’s Magdalen Bridge, not the Pont Magdalena.”

5.         Magdalen College this year, we’re reliably told,

Is exactly five hundred and fifty years old,

They’ve had parties to honour its lengthy chronology

And a Waynflete Symposium on molecular biology,

6.         Which wasn’t invented, I’m happy to say,

In the twenties, in my undergraduate day.

Biology then was something sublime:

Basic urges disguised by metre and rhyme.

7.         Poets in Magdalen were comfy and cosy:

There was me, and before me, both Oscar and Bosie,

And after us, famous political folk –

William Hague (not a poet but good with a joke).

8.         Though all of those fellows were clever and fun

They don’t have their own statue in NW1, 

Preserved on a platform in St Pancras Station –

That treasure that JB has saved for the nation.

9.         As the Eurostar stops near the old booking hall,

There am I, in my mac, almost seven feet tall,

Looking up at the arches and not at the ground,

Ignoring the foreigners gathered around.

10.       I’m so pleased that I flexed conservational muscles,

Transforming the train trip from London to Brussels:

At this end of the line there’s that statue of me;

At the other, there’s only the mannequin pis.

11.       So I’m glad that I’m there – I couldn’t be gladder:

An Englishman in full control of his bladder.

Sending a message to all, loud and clear:

“Trains for the continent leaving from here.”

12.       Where was I?    I got a bit carried away …

I’m sure there was something I wanted to say:

Yes, OMLS! may I welcome you here

As you dine in your tenth anniversary year.

13.       Founding OMLS was a jolly good job

By solicitor Helen and barrister Rob

Supported by Honorary President John:

Like William of Waynflete their names will live on.

14.       The Society’s heard many a learned address

At the home of its host, University Press.

You’ve had fully ten years of enlightened debate:

You’ll catch Magdalen up in year 2548.

15.       O doctors and lawyers!   O doctors and lawyers!

I can see that your union is fruitful and joyous:

Professionals linked in a firm symbiosis

To combat maltreatment and misdiagnosis.

16 .      The judges are wise and the doctors are grand,

Writing reports with their sensitive hands;

Barristers blessed with brains and with beauty,

Suavely dissecting those breaches of duty;

17.       Solicitors skilled in the wording to frame

A totally watertight statement of claim:

They, should you need one, know just where to find

A medical expert who won’t change his mind.

18.       Yes, doctors and lawyers, you’re clearly the best:

Whatever the challenge you’re never distressed

By the locum’s mistakes in the dead of the night,

By the surgeon who can’t tell his left from his right,

19.       By swabs that were left in the strangest of places,

By Botox disasters with lopsided faces,

Injections resulting in permanent pain

Or by CTG traces (again and again).

20.       But in spite of these traumas you’re able to smile –

Although I suppose, only once in a while –

But what better place, as my ode nears its end,

Than here in the College, surrounded by friends?

21.       As the evening closes, as evenings must,

We’ll retire to our beds and the sleep of the just;

And when I drift off, I hope I shall dream

Of the ladies of Darby’s equestrian team,

22.       Taking part in the dressage with infinite grace

As I watch from the stand with a smile on my face.

And with that wistful image, dear OMLS.

JB takes his leave, so goodnight and God bless.

James Drife (with apologies to JB).