THERE are people who think that we Beggarsdale folk, tucked away in the folds of our whaleback fells, surrounded only be sheep and ramblers, are pretty much immune from the pressures of the outside world.

We would like to think so too. But in fact we would all be wrong.

Isolated as we may be geographically, the outside world impacts on our lives with every growing speed. And this is now facing us with a crisis of earthquake proportions...

The Doc, you see, is thinking of retiring. He's coming up to 60 and although he is as fit as the proverbial fiddle, he's had enough.

Enough of the National Health Service, enough of the General Medical Council, and enough of some of the newer arrivals in the Dale who call him out when they've a touch of indigestion from eating too many whole grain veggie-burgers swilled down with organic chardonnay.

This has the makings of a disaster registering eight on the Richter scale (that, kiddywinks, is the force of a major earthquake). The Doc still lives amongst us and even runs a few sheep on his smallholding on the top of Windmill Hill.

He has been with us since he left medical college, his kids went to the local school before it was closed, and he has been known to sample a half of Ram's Blood in the Beggars' Arm - but only that because he's on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except when he gets a locum in for his annual fortnight's holiday.

We locals only call him out when a mother's waters break or when someone

has lopped off a toe with a scythe. The old folk never even have to call: the Doc drops whenever he is passing just in case something might be wrong.

He is, in short, a paragon of local service. Or was, until the politicos started using the NHS as a football and, worst still, when city-based hospital consultants can earn up to £400,000 a year by ignoring their NHS patients to concentrate on lucrative private surgery.

Now the Press has had a field day in recent months exposing the shortcomings of the medical profession. It does not help when a GP is suspected of killing scores of old ladies and a consultant maims dozens of patients over a decade or more without being shopped.

Our Doc is an honourable and sensitive man, a gentleman both professionally and personally. He has been deeply hurt by all the opprobrium heaped upon his once proud profession. And when he announced he might be retiring soon during one of his rare visits to the Beggars', even the rooks in the beeches by the Big House fell silent.

"Time for a younger fella," he said sadly. "There's so much red-tape these days that they would probably be better off replacing me with a computer."

Then he left, waving an apologetic goodbye at the deep gloom that had descended over what, minutes before, had been a somewhat lively session.

"What will we do without him?" asked Cousin Kate plaintively. The Innkeeper shook his head and his lady wife ran into the kitchen as though on the verge of tears.

It was several minutes before Owd Tom spoke: "We'll not do w'out 'im. Tha's gorra be summat we can do t' make'im stay." I feel another plot a'hatching here.

l The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.