Elspeth Wharton-Grey who was a great friend and colleague to all those toiling in the professorthrupiece.com A Doctor Writes department has died aged 77. A vital cog in a well-oiled machine, she kept the wheels of the columns turning for over 20 years, deploying skills acquired during a lifetime of graphological research. [Can a column turn? Check this before publishing. [Ed]]
Our Obituarist Ambu Lance-Chayser writes:
Elspeth Wharton-Grey - Wharty to her few close friends - was born in Piddletrenthiode to resolutely middle class parents. Her childhood was one of protective privilege during which - despite her gender - she was encouraged to do more or less anything she wanted. Discovering a stash of letters in her father's sock draw whilst her parents were away at a tennis tournament, she quickly developed an interest in handwriting and petty blackmail, honing her skills at both - largely at her parents' expense. Perhaps as a result of the insights she gained into middle class marriage and its associated ups and downs, Wharty never married but enjoyed several liaisons with well-placed Dorset offficials and administrators few of whom looked wholly relaxed in her company.
As a girl she attended Miss Pointsetter's Academy [Dewlish] and later the University of Afpuddle where she took a first class degree in Literary Forensics. After a stint at RADA [where she learned to act as a spy] she joined DCHQ, initially as a transliterater and later as a code-breaker, acquiring a reputation for persistence, accuracy and unflappability together with a number skills which would later render her both ideal and irreplaceable as a doctor's receptionist and secretary. She was often called in to give expert testimony in complex legal cases involving the death of patients from causes as varied as "misread prescription", "quantitative pharmaceutical errors" and "ambiguous dosages".
In 2002 she met and "became involved with" gentleman's outfitter Bertie Notso-Pointy, a distant relative of Celia Notso-Pointy the life partner of Audrey Badminton-Court. Following a pre-arranged meeting with the latter in Alton St Pancras's Pink Geranium Tearooms where, it is rumoured, she was about to "spill the beans"*, she was introduced to the then Editor of professorthrupiece.com who offered her a job with the fledgling worldwide interweb information super-highway proto-digi portal which, after a moment's hesitation she accepted.
* As anyone who has partaken of the all day breakfast at the Pink Geranium Tearooms will attest, the plates are decidedly small and only the most skilled cutleryist is likley to avoid accident. Appeals to serve baked beans in a small ramekin have thus far fallen on deaf ears.
Thereafter, a lifetime's experience in making sense of the scripts of several leading medical practitioners proved the perfect preparation for rendering contributions to A Doctor Writes into readable English. Miss Wharton-Grey served this purpose with distinction for more than 20 years.
Sub Editor Hugo First and Sub-Sub Editor Iylgo Sekond recall Miss Wharton-Grey with the greatest affection having been saved from embarrassment on numerous occasions by her ability to spot textual errors before they appeared online. "I remember when we nearly let the phrase "inner sanctum" appear instead of "inner rectum" in an article on sex toys gone wrong. Always ready with the "mot juste" Ms Wharton-Grey was quick to quip that whilst there was always room for experimentation, there wasn't room enough for a room! How we laughed."
She and her no nonsence approach to office affairs will be sorely missed in the run up to Christmas. Elspeth Wharton-Grey is survived by a schnauzer, two parakeets and a rug which once belonged to Angela Rippon.
Elspeth Wharton-Grey, Cryptographer and Graphologist [born Piddletrenthide, 10 June 1948, died Great Heaving, December 2025]
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