Ian Handford: Accomplished doctor had way with words

Francis Brett-Young was born in Halesowen, Worcestershire, on June 29, 1884, the son of  Dr T. Brett-Young. His mother died when Francis was just 14 and so never saw him get a higher education at Epsom College Surrey before later being awarded a medical degree by the University of Birmingham. 

In 1907, Francis returned to Brixham to become a medical practitioner at Dr Quick's surgery, Cleveland House in New Road. Later, he wrote to his fiancée Jessie, "Brixham is lovely beyond words. No big hotel, no pier, no pierrots, or theatre. Just a small, beautiful harbour with 250 trawlers with brown sails. It’s warm enough for hedges of fuschias, magnolias, palms, and peaches.”

His text gave a real clue to his amazing wordsmith skills, which he developed when wanting to be a poet or writer, not a doctor. 

Francis was an accomplished musician and gave concerts in Brixham, often being accompanied by Jessie Hankinson, a singer from London.

She had made her mark when appearing at the Henry Wood Orchestra in the Capital before moving to Brixham, and within a year of meeting Francis, they were married—love at first sight.

Francis, as the musician and writer, could also compose, and he set many of Robert Bridges' poems to music, which his wife sang later. 

As a general practitioner, he was a serious writer from as early as 1910, though his growing practice made the writing somewhat intermittent. It became clear he needed to employ a partner, and so did, and now he and Jessie moved out of Cleveland House so that the partner was the senior doctor in charge at New Road. Years after his death, the Frances Brett Society (founded in his memory) unveiled a commemorative Blue Plaque at New Road, which is still visible today alongside the Catholic Church in New Road. 

Francis now moved to his second home—Old Garden House on Berry Head Road—where, again long after his death, the Frances Brett Society erected a second commemorative Blue Plaque for him on the house wall hidden by electronic gates. It was not found for 20 years when, with my wife on behalf of the society, we finally discovered the Blue Plaque.

Prior to the First World War, Francis had volunteered to work as a ship surgeon on a vessel going to and from Japan before finally returning to Brixham to help his partner in what was now a highly successful medical practice.

Then in 1914, he slipped on ice in Brixham and badly fractured an ankle. Unable to respond to his formal "call-up papers" for many months and literally marooned at the "Old Garden House," he concentrated on his second passion of writing and, in time, produced a book he had actually been toying with for years, which was titled “The Iron Age.”

With the book published, he was sufficiently recovered to be formally conscripted and so opted to sail with troops leaving for East Africa to join the Royal Army Medical Corps and stayed with them until the end of the war in 1918. 

Meanwhile in Brixham, Jessica had also joined the military and was working in a Plymouth hospital at Devonport.

Throughout the war, the couple had corresponded regularly, with Jessie always keeping her husband up-to-date on the antics of their Siamese cats and garden, etc. Yet having returned as Major Young, Jessica now came home every weekend. 

Unfortunately, her husband had been diagnosed with malaria and had been invalidated out of the medical corps and, in time, became quite disabled. Working at his practice was now impossible, and his salvation became writing profusely. 

Both adored travel and visited the Lake District and even moved to Frances’s birthplace in the Midlands. They journeyed on to Italy to finally settle on the Island of Capri, which will be continued in Part 2 of my story next week.