A pioneering dentist
Sandy Grant | Wednesday February 15, 2017 17:11
As was to be expected, both dentists were overwhelmed but Barry still found time to do a quick survey of the dental needs and problems of children in and around Gaborone. I remember, as clear as if it was yesterday, his report to a Conference in 1971 about his findings. Slowly and with great deliberation, he said that what he had found was a great many children with periodontal disease or tooth decay. Why, he rhetorically asked? Because of sugar! That was 46 years ago so it is not very difficult to imagine how much worse the situation must be today. Yet this is a problem which is never brought to the fore and rarely if ever mentioned. Perhaps Loughner’s small survey of primary schools was the first and last to be undertaken? But as another element of heritage I need to skip to the Gaborone Club which, only reluctantly, had opened its doors to those of all skin colour. I had been told before he arrived that Barry sported a ponytail which, it was wondered, might prove of concern to a very conservative Gaborone. Having met him off his plane, and got him settled down, I was then at a loss to know what to do next.
Perhaps foolishly, I took him to the Gaborone Club which I visited about once every four years. The reaction there was immediate. The Police Inspector behind the bar – I omit his name in case his widow is still in town – ex Jerusalem, ex Cyprus, ex Malaya, ex Kenya, places which had not always shown the British at their best, reluctantly gave Barry his soft drink and myself a beer.
After that, nothing would stop him as he ranted on and on about Barry who he described as a f..ing this and a f..ing that. Barry merely smiled, enjoyed his soft drink and allowed this awful man to continue with his tirade.
After we left the Club, I gathered from him that he was both a black belt judo and specifically a children’s dentist. A lovely, gentle man who, I later learnt died in the US from an infection caught from a patient. It was his extraordinary patience which had saved that horrible, arsehole of a cop from being picked up and thrown across his own bar. But whilst this might have been what an evil minded cop might do, had he the skills, that was not what would even have entered the mind of someone who cared for children and their health.
From so long ago, I salute Dr Barry Loughner, a pioneer here who brought with him standards and values which made more possible a clean break from some of the awfulness of the past.