dentists

I have just had two teeth out at the dentist- God how I loathe going to the dentist - which I suppose to be fair is probably why I have just said goodbye to two teeth - a little more regular attendance and a lot more 'flossing' would have made yesterdays operation unnecessary.  Still no point in crying over...etc. In any event the whole think was comparatively painless - the pain being virtually all in the anticipation and none in the actual operation - but then - as far as dentists go - I belong to a generation which (a) eat far too much sugar - all those puddings and cakes which mothers used to make  - not to mention delicious tinned peach segments in syrup and (b) remember visits to dentists which where anything but painless.   Not that they were anything like my father's account in a letter to his mother of having  teeth pulled  out on the Western Front in 1917:

" I rode over last Wednesday ,tied up my horse and went expecting to find gas. Instead I sat down and a burly Australian injected into my gums which hurt a lot, before it even had time to freeze he seized the tooth with his nippers and got it out in a bout six heaves, by the end of which I was halfway under the chair, it hurt like blazes until it came out and then, except for being sore,  not at all & I untied my horse and rode home.  Today a different fellow at the same place removed the others but did it in only two pulls, hurt very little except when it unfrooze, however it cost me nothing, Harris would probably have charged me 5 Guineas. "