I read the Letters of John Keats when I was writing my novel Mr Hammond and the Poetic Apprentice.

When John Keats trained as an apothecary, medicines were made from plants, heavy metals or other natural products,

Many reviews of my novel mention how readers were fascinated by the descriptions of medicine 200 years ago.

Has my historical protagonist seen an elephant?

(Content warning human dissection) In my first week as a nineteen-year-old medical student, I had to dissect a body. I'd never even been to a funeral.

I never had any illusions that I wanted to be a surgeon. Blood, gore and heroics didn’t appeal to me, but medical students are required to study surgery as well as medicine.

One day at the end of a busy GP surgery, I logged on to the North Middlesex Hospital website

In the early 19th century many boys left school at 14 or earlier to start apprenticeships and Keats was no different

No one is certain where John Keats was born but it was probably in the Moorgate area of London

I’ve only ever ridden a donkey at the beach as a child

When I trained as a doctor there was a definite hierarchy in the profession.