I’m not quite sure when it happened, but getting an appointment at the doctor’s has suddenly become something requiring military operation-style planning.

When I was a child I’m sure it wasn’t like this. I vaguely remember just turning up with my mum and sitting on wooden benches in a cramped waiting room that was almost foggy with germs and bacteria from the sniffling people hunched up alongside you. The only entertainment was wondering what plagues they were suffering from and leafing through a ten-year-old copy of People’s Friend.

You would eventually be propelled into the doctor’s surgery where he would, invariably, be having a fag at the same time as he was decoding his own handwriting to see what might be wrong with you. There would be a bottle of milky medicine at the end of it and wrapped up in a blanket watching Magpie.

This week we had call to try to fix up an appointment with a non-smoking doctor in a more modern sort of surgery, with flashing messages telling you how long it was since your appointment should have taken place and posters informing you how many people missed their appointments and caused all kinds of anguish the previous month.

The appointment was for one of the children, and we wanted to get to the surgery as early as possible so we could get him into school without missing too much. And therein lies the modern-day mission of trying to get an appointment.

The surgery opens at 8am. If you ring at 7.59am you get a recorded message informing you that the surgery opens at 8am. If you ring at 8am you get an engaged tone that lasts for ten minutes. Then you get through and find out all the appointments have gone. And that’s that.

So I have developed a two-gun trick. With my mobile in one hand and the landline in the other I begin dialling the surgery in a lightning-quick, ambidextrous fashion, at a couple of minutes to eight. I get the answerphone, of course, but this is just a warm-up. With my thumbs I kill the connections and immediately hit redial, hitting a rhythm so as I get the message on one phone, I’m starting to connect on the other.

This week must have been a record. Engaged tone on both phones as the clock struck eight and then after about 90 seconds I managed to connect with the reception, telephonically elbowing out of the way all those other sick people.

It was Mrs B who took the ailing child up to the surgery. I’d have liked to have gone myself, to see how many people missed appointments last month and see if they still have the People’s Friend.