The comment I’ve heard more than any other since Dr Dan’s Casebook was published goes as follows: ‘I want Trevor Buxton as my GP’.  To which I can only reply, ‘get behind me and form an orderly line.’

In my long life I have known doctors of every stripe. Brusque, impatient, hurried, dotty. The GP who oversaw the home births of three of my children had a touch of the Trevor B’s about him. Deceptively bumbling and disheveled, but quietly on the ball. In Ireland, some years ago, we had a doctor who made up, in buckets of unhurried kindness, for the black hole of his filing system.

And the star of them all was the GP of my childhood years, a hearty, no-nonsense spinster who spared herself nothing in the care of her patients. When I was four I spent Christmas Day in bed, recovering from pneumonia, and Dr Brittan called in on her way to church, to see how I was doing. Imagine.

Against all odds, there are still a few Trevor Buxtons around, and we must treasure them. As for Dr Dan, I’m in charge so I can say with confidence that he’ll be following in his mentor’s footsteps.

And yes, I know none of you likes Chloe, but lookee here, you can’t just populate a novel with nice characters. There’s no pearl without a bit of grit in the oyster shell. As Confucius didn’t say.