VIDEO: GP's life reads just like a book

So, having retired three years ago, there was only thing to do – write a book about it all.

But rather than pen a straight autobiography, Dr Cooke has put together a collection of anecdotes that he says acts as a historical document of the Black Country, chronicling the area and its people.

Up until his retirement in 2012, he was one of the longest serving doctors in the Black Country.

However describing his debut book, entitled What The - Reflections of a Black Country, as his story could be stretching the truth a little.

With several previous medical publications, this is his first for a non-medical audience.

And it portrays the tragedy, comedy and drama that a typical GP comes across every working day from the moment the first patient walks through the door.

From discovering a man who had been stabbed in the chest and collapsed on his living room fire, to his various encounters with badly-behaved children, Dr Cooke's book is not a run-of-the-mill memoir.

Dubbing himself a 'funny doctor', Dr Cooke doesn't choose to wallow in sadness for too long and a funny tale is always just around the corner.

He explained: "In those days, when you were a trainee, you went where you were told but I wanted to come back to the Black Country.

"Because of this rather unusual job I had, I had lots of unusual experiences and because of who I am as a person I would try and connect with my patients by telling them funny stories.

"Several years ago a hard of hearing patient told me I should write these down so he could understand them properly, so I did.

"I spent the last five years writing down all of my recollections from memory, from growing up in the grey Black Country after the Second World War, throughout my career in medicine.

"I did this without telling anyone, not even my wife and I am extremely proud of the result."

While the tales contained within the book are examples of the down to earth stories of real people, it isn't always light reading and Dr Cooke himself has said it is 'not for children'.

The book contains stories of incidents and escapades, including births, suicides, and sadly deaths, even murder.

There are some revelations never previously disclosed, such as the controversial incorrect diagnoses of cot deaths.

Some of the stories are emotion stirring tales of people at the lowest point in their lives in dire need of help.

Dr Cooke, now aged 72, said: "There is a lot of humour in this book but it is also incredibly sad. When you become a GP, you spend life's crises with people.

"One night when I was working on call, I had to go out to a home at 3am where a man with lung cancer had burst a blood vessel and was coughing up blood. I knew it was serious and I had to get there quick.

"His son, who was only 23 years old, had locked himself in the bathroom with his father while he was coughing up all of this blood and slowly dying, to protect his mother from having to see it.

"The father died and when I left the house his son actually apologised to me for making me come out.

"He wasn't crying when he was mopping his dads blood up, but he still apologised.

"I still get emotional to this day when I think of that night.

"Me and that lad still share a bond to this day, that is how you grow as a doctor. You have to make sure that your emotions don't get the better of you and always maintain your professionalism."

Dr Cooke's career in medicine has helped him get to know every inch of the Black Country and its people, through good times and bad.

His book makes reference to a number of local landmarks and events including the closure of the Bilston Steel Works in 1979. It was an end of era and it shut despite a long fight to save it - but Dr Cooke said he wasn't sad to see if go.

He said that for a long time he was 'losing one patient a year' as a result of them working at the steelworks.

He was so concerned about the difficult working conditions that he asked Lord Bilston, the former Wolverhampton South East MP Dennis Turner, who he met as a child and became good friends with, to take him for a tour of the site.

He said: "I know a lot of people were upset when the steel works closed and they still are to this day, but I was delighted to see them go.

"Lord Bilston was a great friend of mine and I didn't mind telling him that the closure was a good thing for me as a doctor.

Experiences

"I was losing one patient a year for the first ten years of being a doctor to the steelworks because of the conditions people were working in."

A Black Country man born and bred, Dr Cooke was educated at Dudley Grammar School before studying at The Medical School in Leeds and the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

However, his formative experiences in the Black Country stayed with him and his love for the area brought him back home, where he would work for 46 years at Parkfields Medical Centre in Wolverhampton and Summerhill Surgery in Kingswinford, unusually working both as a GP Principal and a hospital specialist.

He said: "My father and my grandfather both worked as coalminers and told me I would never follow them, that I was going to become a doctor. I wanted to become a pop star in those days but the medical profession was indeed my calling."

The book is available to buy on Kindle and paperback from Amazon.