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Many GPs have interests outside medicine. Emma Baines meets a GP who has enjoyed a life of song
Retired Cumbria GP John Brice has been singing on a regular basis since he was five years old. 'My father was a singer,' he explains, 'and so I sang in the church choir when I was still very small.'
He sang in choral societies at school and university. Then, for a few years, he sang with the London Symphony Orchestra chorus. 'That was amazing,' he recalls. 'We sang with all the world's best known conductors, including Leonard Bernstein and Andre Previn.'
When he moved to Nottingham as a medical student, Dr Brice started taking part in operas. He performed in Britten's Turn of the Screw and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas among others. Since then he has sung with a number of local amateur operatic societies.
After moving to Ulverston in the Lake District, he helped set up a local opera group called 'Encore'. As he explains: 'It is a long way from here to anywhere with any form of opera society and quite a few of us decided we would...