From the great Liverpool music hall comedian Billy Bennett:

Father said: "When my hand gets better, will I be able to play the piano?" The doctor said: "Certainly you will." Father said: "Well you're a wonderful doctor - I could never play before."

Into the same ward they brought a Scotchman who was suffering with the gathering of the clans. The doctor painted his back with whisky and he broke his neck trying to lick it off.

In the bed opposite to my father was a commercial traveller brought in from one of the hotels, stabbed in the eye with a hat pin. I thought it was through an accident, but it wasn't. It was through a keyhole.

On the day of my visit the doctor was very very busy on a big case. There were only two bottles left.

And standing on the doorstep was a fellow with a white smock. It looked to me like a student going in for a doctor. It wasn't - it was a patient going out for a drink.

Father was very ill indeed. He could keep nothing on his stomach. He tried one of their pills, but it rolled off during the night.

A funny thing, the doctor turned out to be my wife's cousin twice removed - once for debt and once by a sanitary inspector - and he's told my wife so much about hygiene and the impurities in water that before she'll allow a drop of drinking water in our house to be touched, first of all it's drawn through a hygienic filter, it's chlorinated, boiled, she allows it to cool, then we throw it away and drink Guinness.