My Bristol favourites: Phil Hammond

Phil Hammond is an NHS doctor, writer, comic and broadcaster. He moved to Bristol in 1987 to do his first house job, met fellow junior doctor Tony Gardner and formed the comedy double act Struck Off and Die. Phil presents the Saturday Surgery on BBC Radio Bristol between 9am and midday. Next Saturday he will be broadcasting live from the Slapstick Festival, which takes place from January 20 to 25.

Here are Phil’s top-five Bristol favourites:

The performance spaces

“Bristol has some great performance spaces and I’ve been lucky to perform at the Old Vic, the Tobacco Factory, St George’s, the Colston Hall, the Redgrave Theatre, the QEH Theatre and the Watershed. I first went to the Colston Hall in 1977 to see an American punk band called The Tubes, and loved it. I performed there last year in a comedy fundraiser for the Slapstick Festival, which brightens up the end of every January. If you haven’t seen classic silent films with a live orchestra and a howling audience, you must.”

The journey into work

“My NHS job is at the Mineral Hospital in Bath – a lovely old building with a Roman mosaic in the basement – but I come into Bristol every Saturday morning from the Chew Valley to do my radio show. I love coming over Dundry Hill and getting a wonderful view of the city, and an equally wonderful view of Somerset as I return. My journey takes me past Ashton Gate, the Create Centre, the wonderful Avon Gorge and Clifton Suspension Bridge, and the multicoloured happy houses on the harbour. I then cut up to Clifton from Hotwells and when I get to Whiteladies Road I stop at Brew (above) for their amazing coffee and food (croissant cake is my fave).”

147 Cheltenham Road

“There’s a lot of extraordinary street art all over Bristol, but my favourite adorns the block of flats opposite Fred Baker Cycles. I lived in the top floor flat when I was a junior doctor, and it was our campaign headquarters when Tony Gardner and I formed the Struck Off and Die Junior Doctors Alliance (SODJDA), and stood against the then Health Secretary William Waldegrave in the 1992 election. The walls were great then, like our mood when we were trounced, but they’re now covered in the most vibrant graffiti. I smile every time I see it.”

Frenchay Hospital

“I’d be sad to walk the deserted corridors of Frenchay Hospital today, if indeed they haven’t been demolished for housing. But I’ll always be fond of the Nissen huts, the wonderful staff and the culture of kindness that got me through my first house job. I met my comedy partner Dr Tony Gardner there. The hospital was so spread out he used to skateboard down the corridors. We did our first show together – the Wibbly Wobbly Spanky Botty Show – in the social club. It was a great place to work, a centre of excellence for all sorts of treatments and it even had a swimming pool!”

Nipper

“Bristol has lots of musical icons but the highest is Nipper, the HMV dog who sits patiently high up on the wall of an office building on the corner of Park Row and Woodland Road. He doesn’t move, bark or yowl much these days, being carved in stone. Nipper was born in Bristol in 1884, and was so named for a tendency to nip visitors. He rose to fame when his owner’s brother, Francis Barraud, painted him listening to the family phonograph. The painting was sold to the Gramophone Company for £100, and the image registered as the HMV trademark in 1900. But I prefer Nipper outdoors, free and on his majestic perch.”

All photos (except Brew) by Darren Shepherd