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Vernon Coleman (born 18 May 1946) is a former general practitioner, and the author of over 100 books in 25 languages, including non-fiction works about human health, politics, cricket, and animal issues, and a range of novels. His books have appeared on several bestseller lists, including the Sunday Times. Life Without Tranquillisers reached the Top Ten of the Sunday Times in March 1985. His book Bodypower reached several bestseller lists in the UK.

One of his novels, Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War, has been turned into a movie with the same name.

Coleman is a militant vegetarian and antivivisectionist.

Coleman complains that his campaigning has made him many enemies and he has been regularly attacked by large corporations and their spokesmen. According to his website (www.vernoncoleman.com) the book which inspired both complaints (‘Food for Thought’) listed 26 scientific papers proving that meat causes cancer. When the meat industry complained about an article based on the book, and an advertisement for it, both the Press Complaints Commission and the advertising watchdog refused to look at the scientific papers but upheld the complaints.

According to The Independent: "Vernon Coleman is many things and he has written books about most of them." "He's frank, fearless and prolific. He's outrageous, outspoken and iconoclastic. A Vernon Coleman book will change your life...and may even save your life."

In 1983 Coleman prepared the text for a series of home doctor programmes for computers.

Coleman was a CSV volunteer in Liverpool in 1964 and 1965. In "How to stop your doctor killing you" (1996) he argued that it is the breakdown of the immune system which contributes to the development of cancer. In 1981 he resigned from the NHS after refusing to put diagnoses on sick notes.

In 2003 Coleman resigned from The People newspaper after the editor refused to print a column criticising the Iraq War.

Early life

Coleman was born in 1946, the son of an electrical engineer. He grew up an only child, in Walsall, West Midlands, England, where he attended Queen Mary's Grammar School.

As a child he was unsure what he wanted to do, but then, according to The Independent in 2008, he "met a friend of the family when I was about 12 who said, if you're a lawyer you spend your life making people unhappy, and if you're a doctor you spend your life trying to make people happy."

Before going to medical school, Coleman worked for a year as a volunteer in Kirkby, Liverpool, getting children to paint old people's houses and doing their shopping. According to Coleman, "The unions threatened to strike, as they were taking away work, but...work that they weren't doing anyway..."

Career

Coleman qualified as a doctor in 1970 and worked both in hospitals and as a GP. He is no longer registered and licensed to practise as a GP principal having relinquished registration. He has founded and organised many campaigns concerning iatrogenesis, drug addictions and the abuse of animals and has given evidence to committees at the House of Commons and the House of Lords on vivisection.

For example, after a 15-year campaign (which started in 1973), he eventually persuaded the British government to introduce stricter controls governing the prescribing of benzodiazepine tranquillisers. 'Dr Vernon Coleman's articles, to which I refer with approval, raised concern about these important matters,' said Edwina Currie, Parliamentary Secretary for health in the House of Commons in 1988.

Coleman has been a strong critic of the European Union as well as former Prime Minister Theresa May, and applauds the British withdrawal. He is also a supporter of English nationalism. Coleman calls for the European Union to be destroyed, claiming that the Union was founded and is controlled by Nazi-sympathisers and that "we need to defeat the Germans for a third time." Coleman sees all voters who want the UK to be a part of the European Union as neo-Nazis. He also criticised voters in northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and Scotland: "I suspect there would also be considerable support for the suggestion that Britain hand Northern Ireland over to Ireland and donate Gibraltar to the Spanish. Neither Northern Ireland nor Gibraltar proved loyal to Britain. Indeed, both have proved themselves to be distinctly disloyal."

Writing and media appearances

His first books included The Medicine Men (1975), and Paper Doctors (1976). Bodypower came in 1983, and has been reprinted a number of times. Alice's Diary (1989) and Alice's Adventures (1992) concern Alice (1983–1992) and her half sister Thomasina (1983–2000), real cats who shared their lives with Vernon Coleman.

In 1992 Coleman released the first book, Bilbury Chronicles, in The Young Country Doctor series. A further fourteen books in the series have been released and serialised in British magazines and newspapers.

How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You came out in 1996, and then again in 2003. Coleman's UK paperback publishers include Pan, Penguin, Corgi and Arrow. Hardback books have been published by Macmillan, Century, Sidgwick and Jackson and Thames and Hudson.

After publishers refused to publish Alice's Diary and certain other of his books, he decided to begin self-publishing.

He has also written under the pen name Edward Vernon. In the late 70s, he wrote 3 novels about life as a GP: Practice makes Perfect, Practise What you Preach and Getting into Practice. Coleman (who uses a number of other pen names) says that the books are novels and not autobiographical and that the pen name was used on the advice of his literary agent for purely practical reasons.

He has worked as a columnist for numerous national newspapers including The Sun, The Daily Star, The Sunday Express and The Sunday People and has written columns for over 50 regional newspapers. His columns and articles have appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world. He has contributed articles to hundreds of other publications including The Sunday Times, Observer, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror, Punch, Woman, Woman's Own, The Lady, The Spectator and the British Medical Journal. He was the founding editor of the British Clinical Journal.

He has presented numerous programmes on television and radio and was the original breakfast television doctor. He was television's first agony uncle (on The Afternoon Show). He has presented three TV series based on his best-selling book Bodypower.

Though controversial Coleman has received several media plaudits.

The British Medical Journal explained "His advice to sufferers is optimistic and enthuiastic".

Writing in Punch, Peter Tinniswood explained, "I would much rather spend an evening in his company than be trapped for five minutes in a radio commentary box with Mr Geoffrey Boycott."

The Observer claimed, "Dr Coleman is one of our most enlightened, trenchant and sensible dispensers of medical advice," whilst the Guardian said, "His trademark is that he doesn't mince his words. Far funnier than the usual tone of soupy piety you get from his colleagues."

The Ecologist issue of November 1998 proclaimed, "No thinking person can ignore him. This is why he has been for over 20 years one of the world's leading advocates on human and animal rights in relation to health. Long may it continue."

He has also been described as "a very funny writer",, "gentle, kind and caring" and "King of the media docs".

Personal life

Vernon Coleman is married to Donna Antoinette Coleman (born 1972). She is co-author with him of How To Conquer Health Problems Between Ages 50 and 120 (2003), and Health Secrets Doctors Share With Their Families (2005).

Major publications

• The Medicine Men (1975)
• Paper Doctors (1976)
• Stress Control (1978)
• Tunnel (1980)
• The Good Medicine Guide (1982)
• Bodypower (1983)
• Thomas Winsden's Cricketing Almanac (1983)
• Bodysense (1984)
• Life Without Tranquillisers (1985)
• Mindpower (1986)
• Know Yourself (1988)
• Alice's Diary (1989)
• Village Cricket Tour (1990)
• Eat Green Lose Weight (1990)
• Why Animal Experiments Must Stop (1991)
• Alice's Adventures(1992)
• Bilbury Chronicles (1992)
• Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War (1993)
• Betrayal of Trust (1994)
• Food for Thought (1994, 2000)
• The Man Who Inherited a Golf Course (1995)
• How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You (1996, new edn 2003)
• Paris in My Springtime (2002)

• How To Conquer Health Problems Between Ages 50 and 120 (2003, with Donna Antoinette Coleman)
• Rogue Nation (2003)
• Confronting The Global Bully (2004)
• Health Secrets Doctors Share With Their Families (2005, with Donna Antoinette Coleman)
• Too Many Clubs and Not Enough Balls (2005)
• Animal Experiments Simple Truths (2006)
• How to Protect and Preserve Your Freedom, Identity and Privacy (2006)
• Gordon is a Moron: the Definitive and Objective Analysis of Gordon Brown's Decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer (2007)
• Coleman's Laws (2007)
• Oil Apocalypse (2007)
• Mr Henry Mulligan (2007)
• The OFPIS File (2008)
• Cat Tales (2008)
• What Happens Next? (2009)
• Moneypower (2009)
• Bloodless Revolution (2009)
• 101 Things I Have Learned (2010)
• 100 Greatest Englishmen and Englishwomen (#2010)
• 2020 (2010)
• Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe And Effective Is Lying. Here's The Proof. (2011)
• Diary of a Disgruntled Man (2011)
• Do Doctors And Nurses Kill More People Than Cancer? (2011)
• Stuffed (2012)
• The Truth Kills (2014)
• Is this what really happened (2014)
• Just another bloody year (2014)
• Bugger off and leave me alone (2015)
• Doctor in Paris (2015)
• Balancing the Books (2015)
• Stories with a Twist (2015)
• One thing after Another (2015)
• Psychiatry (2015)
• Are You Living with a Psychopath?: The 39 simple ways you can diagnose a psychopath (2015)
• Cheese rolling (2015)
• Bilbury Tonic (2016)
• Return of the Disgruntled man (2016)
• Millions of Alzheimer Patients (2016)
• Bilbury Relish (2016)
• Life on the Edge (2017)
• Bilbury Mixture (2017)
• Bilbury Delights (2017)
• Bilbury Joys (2017)
• Climbing Trees at 112 (2017)
• Is Your Health Written in the Stars? (2017)
• Kick-Ass A-Z for Over 60s (2017)
• The Game's Afoot (2018)
• Mrs Caldicot's Oyster Parade (2018)
• Briefs Encounter (2018)
• Bilbury Tales (2018)
• Bilbury Days (2018)
• Mrs Caldicot's Turkish Delight (2018)
• Bilbury Memories (2018)
• Tickety Tonk (2019)
• The Benzos Story (2019)
• The Shocking History of the EU (2019)
• Dementia Myth (2019)
• Dr Bullock's Annals (2020)

Notes

1. "Vernon Coleman - Biography". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
2. "Vernon Coleman". Tower Hill Stables. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
3. 'Conscientious Objectors', "Financial Times" 8 August 2003
4. Sunday Times 24 March 1985
5. Top Ten Sunday Times, 3 April 1983
6. Top Ten Daily Mail 18 March 1983
7. Top Ten Bookseller 16 April 1983
8. "Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War". IMDB. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
9. Vernon Coleman: Twenty One Reasons For Being A Vegetarian., www.vernoncoleman.com, 2007.
10. Vernon Coleman: Why Animal Experiments Must Stop., Vemon Coleman, Devon,1991, www.animalliberationfront.com.
11. Vemon Coleman: Animals., www.vernoncoleman.com, Retrieved 4 July 2016.
12. `Volunteer for Kirkby', The Guardian, 14 May 1965
13. Ross, Deborah (12 July 1999). "What seems to be the problem Doctor Coleman?". The Independent. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
14. The Times newspaper, 29 March 1983
15. The BMJ (British Medical Journal) 8 September 1984, and 27 October 1984)
16. `Volunteer for Kirkby', The Guardian, 14 May 1965
17. 'Bumbledom forced me to leave the NHS', "Pulse" 28 November 1981
18. The Morning Show with Patrick Timpone, 31 January 2017
19. 'Conscientious Objectors', "Financial Times" 8 August 2003
20. ^ "The doctor will see you now: Who does Vernon Coleman think he is?". Archived from the original on 15 May 2008. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
21. "The medical register". GMC List of registered medical practitioners. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
22. "Supplementary memorandum by Professor Vernon Coleman". www.parliament.uk. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
23. http://www.penroseinquiry.org.uk/finalreport/text/354876_chapter_9.html
24. Vernon Coleman (2016). "Politics". vernoncoleman.com.
25. "All Remainers are Neo-Nazis". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
26. "Message to Germany". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
27. "Together We Can Destroy the EU". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
28. "Neo-Nazis are Everywhere!". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
29. "Will Germany and the EU Cause World War III?". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
30. "Germany Rules In the New EU". www.vernoncoleman.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
31. `You have been warned, Mr Blair.' Spectator, 6 March 2004 and 20 March 2004
32. Tickety Tonk (Vernon Coleman's Diaries), Blue Books, 2019
33. British Medical Journal 2 March 1985
34. Punch 12th October, 1990
35. The Observer 24 July 1994
36. Guardian 14 August 1994
37. The Ecologist, November 1998
38. This England Winter 1990
39. Western Daily Press 5 September 2006
40. The Independent 16 March 1999
41. Mrs Caldicot's Knickerbocker Glory, 2014, page 1

External links

• Official website
• A Gender Variance Who's Who

• English writers
• 20th-century English medical doctors
• People from Walsall
• Critics of the European Union
• Living people
• 1946 births
• People educated at Queen Mary's Grammar School
• Animal rights activists
• Anti-vivisectionists
• Vegetarianism activists
• English nationalists