Strictly Oxford 2013 now over and widely regarded as huge success.  We raised more than £35,000 for Vale House and I am enourmously grateful to everyone who supported my efforts and those of the other dancers.  Strictly was an amazing experience well out of my usual comfort zone, and I was very surprised to be placed second.  This was down to the efforts of Jane Holmes who taught me the steps and managed to exert an element of control over my extrovert side on the night!  Once again many thanks to all of you for supporting this very worthwhile cause. 

 

 

 

 

 

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I came home late smelling of exotic perfume with my shirt drenched in perspiration and covered in body paint.  I had spent the warm summer evening with Olga, a statuesque and stunning east European dancer who made me feel my age.  Sarah was discrete as always - "How did the operation go?".  "Fine", I said "nobody died".

First lines from a Graham Greene novel?  No, it had been the publicity launch for Oxford's Strictly Come Dancing.  Next was the first practice session with the equally exotic and rapidly gyrating Andzrej together with lovely professional dancers.  Pleased to be considered an Oxford Celebrity (F List!) for the first half I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  By the second half I wished I could die - completely exhausted and useless - clearly the "John Seargent" of the group.  In my job I thought I was well co-ordinated - now I know it is only from the waist up - or perhaps a little lower.  Rugby is the nearest I came to dancing and it shows.  Battered and bruised partners!

Most people know that I'm the Oxford heart surgeon who did the BBC's, "Your life in their hands".  I'm privileged to have done 11,000 heart operations on babies, children and adults, many more than most surgeons in the world.  Some know that I pioneered the development of miniaturised artificial hearts which are now an alternative to transplants.  I still have the worlds longest survivor with any type of artificial heart and have developed a British pump which will eventually be the best.  Very few know that at the end of the working day I drive to my elderly parents home to cook and feed my mother with dementia.  Whilst trying to stay independent they also need carers three times each day. 

As well as the 3 hour Saturday lesson at the Step by Step Dance School, I need remedial extra tuition on a college squash court with my teacher, sweet and very patient Jane.  (She's a great dancer who won last year and treats me like one of her kids!)  Why am I doing all this?  Because the remarkable Bill Heine (also a bit strange with a shark in his roof) felt that I could raise a few quid for Vale House.  Raising money for dementia is not as glamorous or well organised as for cancer or heart disease but these patients need help and protection all day every day.  Frankly I'm finding dancing very hard.  Anyone who ventures out for a fun evening at the New Theatre (Sunday 21st July) will see that.  My ineptitude suggests I might be heading for Vale House myself - as any of us might.  But as Winston Churchill said when bombs fell on London, "Never, never, never give up".  He's buried in my village and I often sit and talk to him.

Times are tight but please think about giving a small donation.  Along with heart failure dementia is the 21st century epidemic.