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I
entered St Thoma's Hospital as a medical student at the age of 18 and spent
five years there. I was an unsatisfactory student, for my heart, as you might
have guessed, was not in it. I wanted, I had always wanted to be a writer, and
in the evening, after my high tea, I wrote and read. Before long, I wrote a
novel, called "Liza of Lambeth", which I sent to a publisher and was
accepted. It appeared during my last year at the hospital and had something of
a success. It was of course an accident, but naturally I did not know that. I
felt I could afford to give up medicine and make writing my profession; so,
three days after I graduated from the school of medicine, I set out for Spain
to write another book. Looking back now and knowing as I do the terrible
difficulties of making a living by writing, I realize I was taking a fearful
risk. It never even occurred to me.
The
next ten years were very hard, and I earned an average of £100 a year. Then I
had a bit of luck. The manager of the Court Theatre put on a play that failed;
the next play he arranged to put on was not ready, and he was at his wits' end.
He read a play of mine and, though he did not much like it, he thought it might
just run for the six weeks till the play he had in mind to follow it with could
be produced. It ran for fifteen months. Within a short while I had four plays
running in London at the same time. Nothing of the kind had ever happened
before. I was the talk of the town. One of the students at St Thomas's Hospital
asked the famous surgeon with whom I had worked whether he remembered me.
"Yes, I remember him quite well," he said. "One of our failures,
I'm afraid."
