Retirement

Today I retire after 30 years in rural general practice. Quite some day! I have a lot of memories and the great majority positive and rewarding. I have had a great career in the small Welsh rural community of Montgomery on the English border.

The landscape remains beautiful and enchanting but the medicine has changed and it’s becoming harder to balance the humanities with the science. What we do now is process driven and mechanistic. Its a laborious process of measuring and recording. I worry who will look after those in despair and anguish in the future and will this be left to alternative practitioners and those with little or no training.

John Berger in his iconic book on rural general practice, "A Fortunate Man" emphasises the importance of the bond between the physician, the individual and the community. He states:
“Landscapes can be deceptive. Sometimes a landscape seems to be less a setting for the life of its inhabitants than a curtain behind which their struggles, achievements and accidents take place. For those who, with the inhabitants, are behind the curtain, landmarks are no longer only geographic but also biographical and personal.”

Blues and American Roots Music is about those struggles, the despair and the passion that inhabits the lives of the poor, the dispossessed and those without any other voice to express their trials and tribulations. Our journey is about that landscape and the curtain that turned the anguish of poverty into an art form that dominated the 20th Century and popular culture around the world.

Today I heard from a great friend and mentor. His name is Professor Roger Rosenblatt. Roger is one of the heroes of Rural Health in the USA. He started as a remote practitioner in Washington State in the sixties and went on to establish the Rural Health Research Centre at the University of Washington in Seattle. Coincidentally Roger and his wife Fernne are also on a road trip across the USA and I hope that we can meet up. Check out the blog "The Loneliness of the long-distance road tripper" http://rosenblattroadtripusa.blogspot.com/

Roger and Fernne Rosenblatt (The Road Trippers)

Special thanks to another great rural GP from Galicia in Spain, Jose Lopez-Abuin who has been a constant friend and colleague over the last few years. Thanks for your support!

Dr Jose Lopez-Abuin (Galician Rocker)

We leave for the US on Sunday.

Journey's Start

The Chef: Hugh Jones

Me: another doctor!

The Doctor: Tim Thornton

Two doctors and a chef decided to go on a pilgrimage. This is not your medieval hardship but a 21^st century motorised helter skelter along Highway 61. We will follow our dreams and aspirations with the promise of spiritual revitalisation at the end. Bob Dylan’s great album, once described by Phill Ochs as the greatest bit of plastic ever pressed will resonate in our ears.

We are all children of the sixties, brought up during the Great British Blues Revival. It was this British Blues movement that helped rescue bluesmen from the obscurity that they had fallen into, in their own country.

A little older, wiser and with our wive’s permission we decided to travel to birthplace of the blues and follow that great slow old river which helped the music and its musicians migrate first to Memphis and on to Chicago.

On the way we hope to pay our respects to Elvis and visit the homes of Sun and Stax Records. We are avid blues and roots fans who want to explore the cradle of modern contemporary American music. We grew up with Elvis, Cliff, The Beatles and the Stones. Where did they get their inspiration? What is it about the great old lazy Mississippi that set the 50s alive and continues to do so.

My name is John Wynn-Jones and I am undertaking this journey to mark my retirement after 30 years in rural general practice. I am not a musician but a music buff.

My colleagues are Tim Thornton (retired GP and musician) and Hugh Jones (Chef and musician).

We fly from Heathrow to New Orleans on April 4^th

Whatever the outcome, we anticipate a great adventure, a lot of good music and a fair amount of beer. Join us by following our journey. Tell us where we should be going and what we should be doing. Become a virtual pilgrim by engaging with this blog.

This is the tale of 3 travellers, 2 guitars, a lot of music and many miles!

Will we find answers and will we be inspired? Follow us!

Robert Johnson: Crossroad