All in the mind for GP author

The tales in Andrew Dicker’s book, The Seduction of Celia, touch on subjects including drug addiction, mental health, prostitution, managing relationships and motherhood, focusing on the emotional psychology of the characters.

Andrew, aged 63, began writing after retiring from his career in general practice, where he worked in Hong Kong, then at a surgery in Tring, Pitstone and Edlesborough, before becoming senior partner in Westminster.

Andrew said: “During my professional life, I wrote a number of articles for journals and was asked to contribute chapters to books on medical ethics, postgraduate education and mental illness.

“Knowing that I had always found the process of writing absorbing and fulfilling, I embarked on a writing project in 2013, after I retired from the NHS, to learn how to write fiction, and then do it.

“Many of the sources of the material in the stories are drawn from experience.”

In his writing, he examines the layers of society and the things that make us who we are.

What hope is there for Billy when his mother is a drug addict? Is Mabel really mad or just old? Will Vicky, a recent mother of twins, regain her figure and will she really try prostitution as a career, or is that just desperation?

And Celia is alluring, intelligent and successful, but why is a relationship so hard to achieve?

The Seduction of Celia: A Collection of Short Stories is published by Austin Macauley, on February 29.