Now I'm the one treating patients who used to hand me 50ps as a baby, running the practice they built.
It started in 1984, in our house. My mum and dad built the original surgery from scratch — not in a rented unit, but inside our own home. The study became the surgery, the living room the waiting room, the kitchen doubled as the lab and the tea station. Mum was receptionist, hygienist, and accountant. Dad was the dentist and everything else. And I was the baby in the waiting room, in a high chair, taking 50ps from patients like a miniature receptionist with charm.
Growing Up in a Dental Clinic
After eighteen months the surgery moved next door into the old doctor's surgery, and we got the house back. Weekends and holidays after that weren't for lie-ins — my brother and I were painting surgery walls, tiling floors, digging up concrete, and once carrying a dental chair up a flight of stairs and round two tight corners. Never again.
I didn't want to be a dentist as a kid. I wanted to chase lava around the world as a volcanologist.
The Long Way Round
When university forms arrived, dentistry was suddenly back on the list. I tested it the only way I could — nursing alongside my dad through the summer holidays, which he cleverly used to throw me straight into blood, vomit, and hard work in the hope it would put me off. It backfired. I loved it.
I didn't get into dental school the first time — I missed the final page of my A-Level Biology paper, twenty marks gone. So I did a degree in Physiology first, then got in. No regrets — eight years at university, hockey, lifelong friends, and a year in maxillofacial surgery that taught me more than I expected about how dentistry fits into the bigger picture of health and trauma. It also confirmed I really did like teeth, and that I didn't want to be stitching people back together at 3am for a living.
Full Circle
I did my foundation year in 2011 with my dad, because I could ask him anything without feeling stupid. In 2013 I came back for good. By 2018 my parents had fully retired — my dad went from a three-day week to a one-day week to finished for good. Everyone shed a tear or two. He's busier now than when he was working, somehow.
Now I'm the one treating patients who used to hand me 50ps as a baby, running the practice they built — and getting the occasional babysitting flashback from Andrea and Helen, who looked after my brother and me when we were small. I still remind them of it, even now.
What's Changed, and What Hasn't
Dentistry's moved on — digital scanners, microscopes, 3D imaging, and yes, a LEGO figure called Captain Apex who occasionally makes an appearance on the practice's Instagram. But some things haven't changed. We still treat patients like family. We still believe trust matters more than trophies. We still value listening more than talking.
If You're New Here
Come and see it for yourself. Or if you're not ready yet, that's fine too — the door's open whenever you are.