Mr Ogilvie

I am horribly, irrationally and embarrassingly terrified of dentists. I don’t know why, as I have only once been hurt by a dentist (he was the one I bit, and we were never friends afterwards – but this happened long after the story I am about to tell). My first dentist, the one from my childhood, was a tall man, rather handsome in a Dr. Kildare sort of a way, and the father of two sisters who went to the same school that I did. His surgery was in a terribly smart, white modern house, all angles and big windows and shiny Sixties style (not surprisingly, as it was the Sixties), and there was an overwhelming impression of brightness and gleaming hygiene and efficiency. I can’t remember why I stopped going to him, whether I disliked the connection through his daughters or whether I just threw a teenage strop. Maybe I had heard the tales of Mr. Ogilvie and wanted to see if they were true.

The town was divided on the subject of Mr. Ogilvie. Most people thought he was mad, and possibly dangerous and, having visited him once, never returned for their next appointment. A few, like me, thought he was the best dentist they had ever had and were loyal through thick and thin. He was different in every way from my first dentist.  Instead of a smart modern house, he operated out of an old-fashioned terrace, and for all I know he lived on the premises. Certainly the place had an air of domesticity, well-worn and not too tidy. It was dark and welcoming. The same went for his equipment which had seen better days, and many of them.  The chair was battered and comfortable. But it wasn’t the slightly tatty surroundings that put people off, it was his chairside manner.

Most dentists, like hairdressers, stick to the same, familiar and predictable conversations – where their patients went, or are going, on their holidays, what the weather was or is doing. Dull, dull, dull – and unchallenging. Mr. Ogilvie eschewed such niceties. He talked about whatever interested him, whatever was in his mind at the time. And as he was a widely-read and intelligent man, he followed trains of thought that were entirely unpredictable. I remember him telling me on one occasion about the rate of decomposition of bodies in the ground, for example, and on another occasion, the varying capacity of the human bladder. I think this is what used to terrify his patients. Perhaps they found the subjects distasteful, as they lay stretched out in the chair. I think they thought he was mad. I, on the other hand, got interested and engaged, which of course took my mind off the dentistry that was going on at the same time.  Even if the subjects didn’t appeal, their sheer inappropriateness amused me. And, as Mr. Ogilvie told me once, it is impossible to be scared when you’re laughing. And that made me think that Mr. Ogilvie wasn’t mad at all, just very good at making a nervous patient relax.