Reinventing the Good and Simple Life
Dr Vernon Coleman
These are wicked, frightening times. Every day brings new horrors, new fears, new dangers, new oppressions and new manufactured miseries.
In order to cope with all the garbage with which they are showering us, I some time ago invented an entire village full of cheery characters who dealt with life’s relatively vicissitudes with grace, quiet determination and good humour.
The village, close to the North Devon coast, is miles away from traffic lights, supermarkets, speed cameras and other exigencies of the 20th century.
There is a pub (the Duck and Puddle) run by Frank and Gilly; an odd job man, Thumper Robinson, a village shop, run by Peter Marshall who bans tourists if he doesn’t like them and who famously introduced the buy three get two slogan to get visitors into his shop. There’s an antique dealer called Patchy Fogg who is occasionally a bit of a rogue. Most importantly, the inhabitants of this village (called Bilbury) understand the meaning of words such as dignity, loyalty and respect.
Oh, and there is the local doctor – the author of these books. He’s a GP who practices single handedly and he’s on call for 24 hours a day – dealing with a huge variety of medical problems. In the first book he is hired as an assistant to an older GP who teaches him the ropes.
I’ve been writing this books for 33 years and there are now 16 books in the series. The first book came out in 1993. By allowing me to escape into another world they’ve helped me fend off the world’s horrors. Antoinette and I now regard ourselves as residents of the village and we consider the inhabitants our very good friends.
The first book in the series is called `Bilbury Chronicles’ and the series is called `The Young Country Doctor’.
To find out more about the first book please CLICK HERE The recommended dosage is to start at book 1, read through to book 16 and then start again at book 1.
Warning: the books are escapist and addictive.
Copyright Vernon Coleman July 2025
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