1 - Town Quay

Emma: Where are we now, Anne? 

Anne: We are near the Camba at Town Quay, where the ferry that brought Conan Doyle from Plymouth into Portsmouth. 

Emma: Okay, so... 

Anne: See the slipway? 

Emma: I can, yeah. So, this is... so it's quite a built-up area now. And what's that great, big building we're looking at, that glass and chrome building? 

Phil: That's Ben Ainslie’s racing... 

Emma: Right 

Phil: ... from where he bid for America... to win the Americas Cup. So it's very high tech, very opposite to what we're talking about now. 

Emma: Yes, so it's made... so it feels like it's been plonked in the water and built in the water.  

Anne: It's built over what were fish warehouses. They had used to have great big tanks with the fish and fishermen came up here at this quay, I'm talking here the ‘70s, and I don't know how long afterwards, but for quite a few years... And if you wanted to get fish, you went into the warehouse to get them. And I used to get them for the passenger ships that sailed from the passenger quay, because I worked for a ferry company.  

Emma: Oh, I see. 

Anne: And so that's how I used to come down to this area. 

Emma: So he'd have got off here... 

Phil: Yes. 

Emma: ...and I suppose the first thing he’d have... 

Anne: ... walked up the High Street. 

Emma: He’d have walked up the High Street – which way? This way? 

Anne: That way, because there's water there.  

Emma: Yep, yeah. 

Anne: So are we going to go this way round? But we’ll go down to round to the corner, because he would have gone to see... because he'd come in the entrance, I think he would have gone back to see where the Still and  West Pub is. Men like pubs, don't they, even doctors. 

Phil: There were a lot of pubs in this area... [Fades out]

V/O Doyle: When I arrived at Portsmouth I went into lodgings for a week. On the very first night, with that curious faculty for running into dramatic situations which has always been with me, I became involved in a street fight with a rough who was beating (or rather kicking a woman). It was a strange start, and after I began my practice one of the first people to whom I opened my door was this very rascal. I don't suppose he recognized me, but I could have sworn to him. I emerged from the fray without much damage and was very glad to escape some serious scandal. It was the second time that I had got knocked about in defence of beauty in distress. 

[ACD: Memories and Adventures, P40-41]. 

Phil: So, yes, so the man that he stopped beating up a woman became his patient. 

Emma: Yes. And lucky for him, the man didn't recognize him.  

Phil: Yes, I think that's a good thing. 

Emma: Yes, and I think that fight... he ended up backing out of the fight because the ruffian accidently hit a sailor, and the sailor pitched in and he took his leave... [Laughter. Fade out].