Having fooled us for 25 years, David Shenton the cartoonist now tells us, as he hangs the closed sign on his Windows, that he is not an optometrist. Just as well that he has taken retirement and torn up his fraudulent licence to practise before the GOC had chance to unplug his autorefractor.
For a quarter of a century, he has amused and amazed the readers of Optician with his jolly and jaundiced look at the profession (for multiples, read business), as he puts it ‘from both sides of the reception desk’. Though this one time ‘optometrist’ did not know the difference between an ophthalmoscope and a torch, he certainly had the vision and imagination to focus on the everyday goings-on in a practice (shop). His was a detailed reflection of the dramas helping the public to see clearly as well as to look clever with fashion frames.
What was remarkable about Shenton’s make-believe life of an optometrist and his practice, that he never saw a patient from the ethnic minority. No one wearing a turban, a sari, a kimono, a hijab, a nikab, an African or a West Indian crossed his threshold to be checked with his cross-cylinder.
However, for his well-kept secret and tight lips of Kate Charlesworth, Philip Mullins, Alison Ewbank, Rory, Sara, Kay, Matthew, Chris Bennett and ‘all nice people’ at the journal, Shenton did uplift the spirits of the readers of the journal every Friday. For that he deserves our congratulations and gratitude. He will be missed.
But for every door that shuts there is always another that opens. Let there be a warm welcome for Barnaby, the new occupant of the bottom of page 6. He or she may not possess the eye catching qualities of page 3 but will we ever know their true occupation apart from being experts at pulling wool over our eyes?
Dr Kusoom Vadgama London NW11