In walked Mary Poppins for real. It happened when as a senior medical student I studied in England for three months(part of my five month long Honeymoon). I was studying with Mister Felix Eastcott (in England surgeons are called Mister {not Mr.} instead of Doctor, this comes from their original charter from the King of England when they were Barber-Surgeons to distinguish them from medical doctors). Mister Eastcott was the vascular surgeon to the Royal family and had his offices on Upper Harley Street, London. His office backed up onto the grounds of Buckingham Palace and was once the homes for the Stable staff. He was the first person to do a Carotid endarterectomy (one of the most common operations I do) in 1953. He wrote and published the first Textbook of Vascular Surgery. I worked with him at Saint Mary's Hospital Paddington, the same hospital that Flemming discovered Penicillin in 1928 and the ECK machine was invented. They had two noble prize winning work done there the discovery of penicillin and antibodies. Many of the Royal family gave birth there, including Princess Margarette while I was there (but unfortunately I never saw her or any of the royals).
I was in a preceptor relationship with Mister Eastcott which meant I followed him and assisted on all his cases, went to his private office hours ( a very interesting story later from that), went to his public clinic and first assisted him at the private Hospitals he went to ( a very interesting story will come from that). When we were at one of these private hospitals he would occasionally take me to his club with him. It was on one of these occasions that Julie Andrews walked in and made a beeline for Mister Eastcott. He jumped up and hugged and kissed her, introduced her to me and talked for a few minutes. I was young and star struck and just sat with my jaw hanging open. She was so nice.
