THE " SPECIMEN DAY " OF A DOCTOR'S WIFE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—The "Specimen Days" make interesting reading. After each one I have thought " no harder than mine !" especially as the writers spend more hours in the open air every week than I do. May I add a country doctor's wife's day to the list ? I should like my husband to have sent his instead, but he is too modest to publish his—sometimes a twenty-hour day.
We have a twelve-roomed house with fairly large garden, seven miles from any town. The value of the work my husband does is about £800 a year, but he is very glad if he actually receives £700. The working expenses, drugs, wages for the man, running and repair of car, &c., varies between £200 and 1300 a year. We have a chauffeur-gardener and a general servant. The maid keeps the house clean whilst I do all the cooking and odd jobs.
We have four children all in the teens, the two girls at boarding school and the boys bicycle to school eight miles away. As they must be at school by 8.45 every morning we have breakfast at seven, which means rising at six to prepare it and get the midday meal ready for them. After the boys have left I wash up the breakfast things, tidy the bedrooms, make the beds, dust the consulting room and dispensary and then spend the rest of the morning cooking, baking, preserv- ing, &c., and set and dish-up lunch at one o'clock. We dine in the evening so that the boys have a good hot meal when they return. The midday meal is much interrupted by patients arriving—in the country a doctor cannot keep to rigid consulting hours as he can in a town.
We do all the washing at home, so one afternoon a week I iron clothes, the next help the maid clean silver and brasses, the next—my only period in the open air for any length of time—we go into the town for the week's supplies. The other afternoons I spend cutting out and making clothing for the family—all clothes with the exception of overcoats and suits are made at home. We also upholster our own furniture, repair broken springs and so forth. Tea is at 4.30 and after that I prepare the dinner for 7.30 and about 8.30 I can sit down and knit socks, stockings, and jumpers whilst my husband, if he is in, reads aloud until bed time—and for an hour or so in bed as well, since he must read and that is our only recreation. Holidays—with locum's fees and expenses at least £10 per week—are so rare that most years we don't think of them at all, because there is nothing left to spend on one. In summer we go for picnics and work in the garden, so we live very happily, looking forward to the time when the finest four young people in the world will be self-supporting and we can retire to a two-roomed cottage on the old age pension. At least we shall have earned it.
I do not give a list of our expenses, since it is obvious that when £300 goes in education, £260 or more on practice ex- penses and £50 in rates and rent there is not much left for food, clothes, light, fuel, insurance, &c., as well as the constant drain upon the purse for charities.—I am, Sir, etc.,
A Doc-roles WIFE.
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