The last bite

We are not amused

It could so easily have been a set up for an April Fool – but it was not. Copies of the 'Royal' radiographs which were due to be auctioned early last month had been emailed through to the BDA Museum by a press agency for an 'opinion' about the state of King George VI's teeth.

The bitewings, supposedly of the monarch recently portrayed in the Oscar winning film The King's Speech, had apparently been discovered amongst the possessions of a deceased former dental nurse by a man who had bought her house; she having kept them presumably for their uniqueness. Making all the right noises about 'allegedly' and 'confidentiality of patient records' (none of which were incorporated) I also put in a sideways oral health message about the link between smoking and perio disease (the King was a heavy smoker).

Pressure from 'the Palace' caused the withdrawal of the items from sale and there the matter might rest if it were not for the fact, which did not see light of day, that the journalists wanted to know if the bitewings revealed why the King had a speech impediment!