A FORMER vet from Romsey has put his experiences at work into a book.
John Sampson, who established Mainstone Veterinary Clinic in Romsey in 1973, has become a translator living in France, and also an author.
His first book The Naked Vet: Confessions from General Practice is a candid and hard-hitting account of the ups and downs of a vet's work.
He said: "It has nothing to do with being unclothed (forbid the thought) but more a 'nakedly honest' picture of what lies behind the scenes in a typical vet's clinic."
John started the practice using the premises of the closed 'Horse and Jockey' public house on the far western edge of town just before the right turning up the hill towards Salisbury.
At the beginning it was a completely mixed practice, dealing with horses and farm animals as well as some companion animals, but the latter grew so fast that when he sold the practice it was 100 per cent small animals.
He then did locum work during student vacations around the UK and in the French Caribbean and a lot of the anecdotes in the book come from those days.
There is a chapter simply entitled 'Romsey' where he not only tells stories and remembers characters from those times, but also an overview of the town and its history.
He recounts that on a recent brief return to Romsey he was delighted at how the town has grown and yet still retains its lovely old-fashioned charm.
Walking around, he was crossing the Hundred on Broadwater Road during the evening rush hour, when, passing between stationary cars, someone opened his car window and shouted "You used to be my vet if I'm not much mistaken!".
Any eyesores from his time seem to have been removed, he writes, and the new-builds are spot on so a big-up to the planners and no doubt public opinion.
On leaving, he studied French and Spanish at Southampton University, followed by four years of research in Linguistics until 1998 and it was there that he met his French wife Anne.
They now have two daughters, Emma (19) in her second year of medicine in Rouen and Manon (16) soon to take her Baccalaureat and hoping to study law in Le Havre.
The paperback and eBook are available on Amazon.
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