Bulldog tenacity

doi:doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.2008.312

British Dental Journal 204, 422 (2008)
Published online: 26 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.2008.312

Bulldog tenacity

P. Miller¹

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Sir, letters from Sir Winston Churchill to his dentist Sir Wilfred Fish went on sale at Bonhams on 18 March 2008 (see page 425). With one letter Sir Winston enclosed a set of dentures with the request to 'tighten them up a little for me'.

I am privileged to know that Sir Winston favoured gold partial dentures. This nugget of information came from a lady domiciliary patient I treated many years ago. She was in constant personal communication with him because of the sensitive nature of her war time work, a claim substantiated by the neat piles of letters from him still on her table 30 years after the end of the war. Even in the rigours of battle he found time to advise her to insist on gold dentures from her dentist. CDS funding did not stretch to following his advice and chrome-cobalt replacements sufficed.

Perhaps Sir Wilfred had copy working models for such an illustrious patient, and was able to restore the clasps and thus maintain the appearance of bulldog tenacity without Sir Winston leaving his war desk.