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Title: HIGHLAND DOCTOR

Reference number: 0033

Date: 1943

Director: d. Kay Mander

Sponsor: MOI for the Dept. of Health for Scotland

Production company: Paul Rotha Productions

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 21 mins

Description: A dramatised account of the Highlands and Islands Medical Service. How medical facilities improved after the 1912 Dewar Committee. In particular, how the 'air ambulance' increased health care in the Western Isles.

Filmed on the islands of Lewis, Harris and North Uist, and at Ullapool, Inverness, Dingwall. With the exception of the specialist, all the players are amateurs. Kay Mander takes a cameo role as the bicycling district nurse. The scene where the doctor signals by flag for a ferry across to an island is the boat link to Berneray. Kay Mander being interviewed by Archive Curator in 2000 recalls that Alex Mackenzie's character of the doctor was modelled on the local GP Dr A J MacLeod who lost an eye playing shinty as a student with John Grierson.

Paper archives, including an interview with Kay Mander, are held at the National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive.

Credits: ph. Teddy Catford
ph. ass. Francis Gysin
m. Ian Whyte
cond. Muir Mathieson
sc. Roger McDougall
[local GP played by Alex Mackenzie]

Shotlist: Credits (.31) shot of the steamer "Lochnevis" at the pier in wartime colours. Dr. Wright arrives at the Hebridean home of Dr. McWilliam [the bank at Lochmaddy] to answer his call for aid in a difficult case. After examining the patient, they decide that it is a case for the hospital and the air ambulance is called from Glasgow to the island to transfer the patient to hospital. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive, the two doctors discuss the history of the Medical Service in the islands and there then follows a re-enactment of the 1912 Dewar Committee action in investigating the need for medical facilities in the Highlands and Islands region. The improvement of the service over the years is then discussed (21.15)