I had the follow-up appointment for my health assessment on Wednesday. First the nurse took my vital statistics: blood pressure, weight, eyesight, etc. She asked me what day it was and the date. It was Marilyn’s birthday so I knew the answer but the information was on the screen of the nurse’s computer if I needed another clue. Finally, she asked me to write a sentence on a piece of paper. All being well, I went off to see the doctor.
His name is Flanagan and he’s a nice, affable old gentleman on the verge of retirement. In the process of checking me out, he scrabbled among the paperwork to find the sentence I had written and said, “I always like to look at these and I’m going to put the best of them in my next book.”
Next book?
Flanagan? I couldn’t wait to get
home and check the internet. It turns
out he is a rather famous Tasmanian author who has made his name writing books,
for young readers and on medical matters. His name is Tim, but his
more famous brother is Richard, also an author, who recently won the Man Booker
Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
There are, in fact three brothers who are authors; the third, Martin is
a journalist who writes mostly about sport.
All three brothers were born in Longford and Richard is regarded as the best Australian writer of his generation.
For the record, my sentence was ‘Why did I ever agree to this test?’ which I hope is interesting enough to be selected for the book.
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