Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi

When you answer a call from your teenage daughter, you really don’t want to hear a man’s voice (from the big medical tent at the Notting Hill Carnival) on the other end saying, ‘Oh hello, this is the medic, I’ve got your daughter’s phone …’

‘?!’

‘Don’t worry, she’s all right.’

Dehydrated, stressed, fainted (and not even from booze, either). But ‘all right’. And brilliantly looked after by the NHS ambulance crew that got her to A&E – and had already thoroughly checked her over – by the time we, and our shredded nerves, arrived.

Babies and bunions. Strokes and heart surgery. The NHS is always there. Not always on time. Not always perfect. Not always as loved and appreciated as it should be. But constant.

Indeed, it is such a perennial part of our lives that I think lots of us don’t realise (or have forgotten) that there was a time when it did not exist, and that there are places in the world where universal healthcare, available to all and not defined by the capacity to pay, is just a dream.

Like most people, my interactions with the NHS have been many and (thankfully) generally low-key. I was born in Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow (quite possibly while actor Richard Wilson was serving as a research assistant in the laboratory there). I had the usual childhood tonsils operation (there was a fad for it in the 1960s) and, while at art school, rock and roll gave me a tragi-comic visit to casualty one Christmas Eve after a gig with my band in Paisley. Sweat and the Atomic Gel holding up my exuberant quiff combined and by the end of the gig I had to be guided into a taxi destined for A&E and a soothing eye bath accompanied by some hair product ‘advice’.

After he had the obligatory west of Scotland 1980s heart bypass, my dad was ‘all wires and tubes’ in intensive care, but gave us an encouraging thumbs up. He compared the operation to having been ‘hit by a bus’. This didn’t put off another freshly carved up and heavily tattooed patient (tattoos were not fashionable in those days) from stomping around shouting, ‘I want out of this ****ing place!’ A Glasgow hard man looking for trouble, he was put in his place by an old-school Glaswegian sister who told him to turn it down and stop disturbing the other patients.

In the 1990s, I was playing an eighteenth-century fop in a BBC costume drama (rouge, lipstick, a beauty spot and powdered bouffant) and one scene called for me to be confronted – and punched – by the squire. The stunt punch went well in rehearsals and on the other actor’s shots, but when the camera reversed onto me, ‘action’ is the last word I remember before I woke up on the floor with everyone mysteriously looking at me. When I put my hand to my temple it was wet. My fingers were covered in blood.

I saw my co-star, the squire, sitting ashen-faced. Is it OK to say that the squire was played by Brian Blessed? And, also, have you seen the size of his fists? They look like Christmas hams. We had mistimed our movements and Brian, to his eternal regret, had knocked me out.

And then there were two ambulance men. One of them said with grim urgency, ‘Get his wig off!’ As his partner reached for my powdered locks, I squeaked out the words, ‘It’s my own hair!’ (I have a lot of hair.)

Ambulance, casualty and nine stitches right along my eyebrow later (‘opened up like a boxer’s’), and still fully made up and wearing a gold jacket, jabot, laced shirt, breeches, white tights and ornate buckled shoes, I was told I was being kept in for observation due to a head injury.

And much as I love the BBC, no one showed up at the hospital except for the slight and nervous figure of my dresser. Could they have the very expensive costume back? ‘Luckily’ it hadn’t been stained with blood, and the costume department wanted to make sure it was kept safe. He had a poly bag which contained my own trousers and shirt. But no shoes.

So, in a full ward, surrounded by the worse for wear and the unlucky, I spent the night in a hospital gown, fully made up and powered like Quentin Crisp on a bad day. The doctor, of course, was completely unfazed. He’d seen a lot worse.

My family were (and are) much prouder of our NHS connections than anyone having a foothold in show business. My cousin Senga became a doctor, which in itself was a big enough deal. But then she married Harry Burns, who not only became chief medical officer for Scotland, but a sir into the bargain – making Senga Lady Senga. And, of course, she was the resident go-to person for countless Capaldi relatives with any medical query. If Senga said it, it was gospel.

Being Doctor Who was one thing, but being a real doctor – that was on a whole other plane. Though when my mother was spending her last days in hospital in Glasgow, she loved to report that they called her ‘Doctor Who’s Mammy’. As my sister and I sat with our ailing mother on New Year’s Eve, it was strangely comforting to hear the nurses behind the screens celebrating with Chinese takeaway, accompanied by the distant sound of revellers on the high street. The nurses’ care and compassion as we were losing our mum, and the tact of the doctor, are hard to overpraise.

I was grateful, and I am grateful, to know that my family has been, and will be, cared for throughout our lives by probably the greatest idea that anyone has ever had: the NHS. Thank you.

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