Nonie and I returned to Port Elizabeth and stayed at the Grand Hotel. I was now accredited by the South African Medical Council as a consultant physician, but still had no practice. I was able to rent a consulting room and shared a waiting room at Elizabeth House and a secretary with Dr Gace. In South Africa, every consultant physician had an electrocardiograph, and most patients, at least those over fifty, were expected to have an electrocardiogram (ECG) with their consultation. Heart attack rates among the white and Indian South Africans were the highest in the world, although the rates have fallen since the 1940s and 1950s because of changes in lifestyle.

I approached my friendly bank manager and, with a further loan of £200, bought a Sanborn electrocardiograph. At this time the electrocardiogram was recorded on photographic paper and I was able to arrange with the radiologist, Duxie Osler, that I could develop my cardiograph film in his darkroom. If I required an X-ray examination for any of my patients, I would take them downstairs to Duxie. The fee for the electrocardiogram was two guineas, which brought the consultation and ECG fee to five guineas.

One of the first doctors to ask me to see a patient was Robert Grieve, a good general practitioner with a big practice. He knew I was looking for somewhere to live and one day he phoned me to say that one of his patients, George Letherby, who lived in a house next door but one to my consulting rooms, had just lost the tenant in the semi-detached house next to his. Dr Grieve suggested that I should go and see Mr Letherby quickly and that he might let me rent the empty four-bedroomed house.