.

1

Autobiography of Fleming Carswell:

Completed, Revised 12.07.14

On 28th September 1937 my mother, Lottie Carswell, marched the mile to a first floor

flat in Dunoon’s West Bay, where she was due to have delivered me two weeks

before. The walk seemed to have induced the labour, which progressed steadily so I

was delivered just before eight am under a midwife’s care. An unruptured amniotic

sack preceded my head termed “born in a cowl” which according to my mother

signified a subsequent successful life full of good luck. The youngest of the three

children in the family had arrived without great fanfare; four years after my sister;

eight years after my first-born brother. We were happily resident in Dunoon where

my paternal grandfather and grandmother were still resident. At their fiftieth wedding

anniversary when I was seven I met, largely for the first time, about ten of my local

aunts, uncles and cousins. They were a motley collection of different but talkative

people virtually all were of working class background like my grandparents. My father

had been a Coxwain for a (Whiskey) millionaire’s 48ft boat (Dodo IV) for 16 years

and worked at labouring or long-line fishing over the winters when he was not paid:

my mother was a full-time housewife. I understand he allowed credit for fish to those

out of work. I enjoyed working for my dad for two summers. He had a dry sharp

sense of humour even for his own mistakes.

My development was average in that intelligent but poor family. My christening took

place in St John’s Protestant church, Dunoon at approximately three months of age.

I know it happened then because I have seen my name on the baptismal roll. My

.

2

mother told me that I screamed on being brought into the church, louder when water

was applied in baptism and continued until I was taken out and home – named as

Fleming Carswell (the IV as the first person I know of with that name was my

paternal great-grandfather, a coalminer in Motherwell. (I was actually named after

my paternal uncle.) This Scottish tradition of naming children after relatives seems

to be dying out. I tried to document my Mclean ancesters who originated in Tiree

but was amused when the earliest male I could find who worked a croft in Tiree for

15 years from a cottage known locally as the house of the man from Jura. He was

actually born and baptised in Tiree.

My first real memory was in Glasgow where my mother’s brother and sister shared a

one bedroom flat in Possilpark that my MacLean grandparents had previously

occupied. My mother came from Glasgow. We had three other maternal sibling

families in Glasgow so we visited quite frequently especially at Christmas or New

Year- the latter being the key festival in Scotland at that time. The visit I remember

was in August 1939. I woke up in the box bed in the kitchen, feeling toxic and

unwell. I was diagnosed as having Scarlet fever and an ambulance called. It was

uncomfortable being lifted onto the stretcher from the bed, carried down the

tenement stairs with every stop and turn producing pain which I had not experienced

before. Similarly, every bounce of the ambulance that carried me to Knightswood

Fever Hospital was painful. I was kept in there for 6 weeks with both my eardrums

ruptured and discharging pus; this was the pre-antibiotic era. Only a few memories

of my inpatient time remain. In one I was standing up in the cot (presumably with

‘bed rest’ prescribed) watching through the glass ward wall the activities of nurses/

.

3

orderlies busy with linen and food they were taking away. When spotted standing I

was gestured and shouted at to lie down in mock rage by the smiling and laughing

people. I also have a delicious memory of a large plate of mashed potatoes,

covered with steaming mince being carried towards me in my cot.

Apparently a young girl was nursed in the same room and I ‘celebrated’ my second

birthday there though I have no recollection of either.

The Second World War had started when I was in hospital but had little effect on me

personally. When I returned to Dunoon I caught up on via the news on the radio and

films at the local cinema. On one night during the war in 1943, a German bomber

flew near Dunoon producing lots of noise, flashing lights, travelling cars/lorries but no

apparent damage caused. For us it was a social event as my Aunt Jenny and cousin

Ronnie who lived nearby came over to join us in our home (Jane Villa) for chat, tea,

snacks and gossip about the plane – which eventually crashed in the Clyde basin.

Infant school was an easy two years for me and I remember it clearly, then into

Primary1. At four years old I walked by myself to Jane Villa from my infant class in

Dunoon Grammar School (DGS).

At the junction of John and Argyle Streets a large open mixed fruit barrow was

parked; oranges, apples and pears were displayed for sale. The pears looked best

so I carefully walked round, checked I was unobserved and stole a large brown one.

.

4

It was delicious: however although unrepentant, I decided I would be wise not to do it

again as I anticipated trouble if I was caught.

For me, the primary classes at DGS were more important. After my first day when I

walked home, no one was in the house. So I sat on the step, took out my first

allocated book and read it there. To my disappointment, I finished it in minutes.

A joke passed around in infant school. ‘A teacher was concerned that a child was

wetting the classroom floor. She announced to save embarrassment to the child that

she wished the culprit to write their name on the back of the blackboard when she

switched off the lights. The lights were switched off, followed by much rustling and

scuffling. When lights were switched on, there was a puddle on the floor. On the

back of the blackboard someone had written “The piddler strikes again.”

Premises at DGS were inadequate so my class with 64 pupils and one teacher was

set up in a separate old church hall in Alfred Street, Dunoon. The major excitement

there was that the boys from the Catholic school higher up Alfred Street frequently

came down into our play area and fought with us. We didn’t know why and I suspect

they didn’t either. ‘It’s just what boys do!’ was the nearest to an explanation I ever

got. Perhaps the real reason was the endemic mutual distrust at that time of

Catholics and Prodies (Protestants) in Scotland. The other excitement was just

before we went on our summer holidays before moving on into ‘Primary 2’. Our

teacher announced they were awarding a prize to the best performing student or

‘Dux’. To my complete surprise she named me as Dux and told me as a reward I

.

5

could go home early: no prize ever appeared. Outside in the cloakroom as I was

packing my things a little 6 year old who I recognised as the only girl attending ballet

lessons, came out and spoke to me. “I love you she said” which produced no verbal

response from me. Neither of us knew what should happen next so I just walked

home early.

The rest of primary school passed relatively quietly for me. I got into fights for no

memorable reason. I remember one boy who wanted to fight me because I had

damned up rainwater, which I released and soaked his feet. I said sorry but that was

not accepted so I was told to meet him in the bike shed at the interval. I foolishly

turned up so he attacked me but I refused to join in and he ended up thumping me a

few times then gave up. For no particular reason a bigger boy decided he wanted to

fight me so I turned up and fought him for 10 or so minutes till an adult came along

and separated us. The cheering and encouraging crowd dispersed with a draw

agreed and mutual minor damage achieved. The same boy approached me the next

day, saying he was happy to go on with it. I said I didn’t see a point in it which he

accepted. No further full fights but I remember hitting a classmate who tried to push

past at the cloakroom. Then he called me ‘a big bully’; he was the smallest boy in

our year and I was the second smallest. I remember our class giant (6’2’’) similarly

pushing me so I attacked all out and knocked him off balance but he stretched out

his long arm and held me off, more or less affably. I suppose he was trying to

encourage me by saying ‘you will do well with the women, they love a tryer’

Not a successful fighting career-my biggest success was stopping.

.

6

Romance played a very minor part for me at school. It was understood that each

boy should have a girlfriend so I tried to comply. My first choice turned out to be

walking out with a school pal so I stopped that. My second choice seemed to have

chosen me so I took her along to two scout annual dances. Scouting was good fun

and I enjoyed the three summer camps I went to in Isla, Aberdeen and London.

Football was much more serious and more fun. I was picked for my school

intermediate team but missed my chance at the senior team as the captain said I

was booked into the geography class trip to a coal mine.

I enjoyed being down the shore ‘helping’ my father’s boat-hiring business, exploring

the shore, rowing and coarse fishing: I even made a little money selling my plaice

and flounders caught on my flounder line to the West Bay Hotels. My dad taught me

how to make the line and advocated setting it baited in shallow sea water in a zig-

zag pattern over and above where the sandy bottom dropped deeper before the full

tide started to ebb, then hauling it in 3 hours after the ebb started. He told me the

flat fish migrated in with the tide to feed.

There was entertainment in ‘PE’ (physical education) before Christmas when we

were taught country dancing in amalgamated boys and girls classes. I was twice

volunteered into plays for the annual school concert but much preferred the debates

and haranguing for the school mock election – coinciding with the 1951 general

election. Two friends and I decided to join the Dunoon branch of the Labour Party:

these two were adopted as prospective parliamentary candidates at university: one

.

7

was subsequently elected national leader of the Party but sadly died early before he

could win power from the Tories. Another enjoyed recreation at school was golf,

which I played frequently till I went up to Glasgow University to study Medicine.

Some of my schoolteachers regularly turned up in the evening for golf but as I

suspected they might question my evening ‘studies’ I kept clear of them.

For my senior school years the ’Scottish Higher ‘exams dominated the curriculum as

we were warned that the results determined what employment we could eventually

obtain. Most of us took six subjects; this is arguably better than the English A levels

with usually three, as it is a wider background and postpones too early

specialisation. As with the A levels the principal teacher’s pre-exam estimate of

your ability influences your eventual mark and acceptability for individual courses. I

decided there was no cause for worry so football, golf, politics, reading and running

retained my major interest. When my father’s lifelong partner, his younger brother

my namesake Fleming Carswell, developed a septic right hand , I deputized for him

and went out as crew to haul the long line from over 40 fathoms at 6am in February

where they had set it. The catch was fascinating despite the snow showers –

approximately eighteen fish from the

.

8

over 400 baited hooks. Dad banged 2 dogfish on the side of the launch and they

dived free. A conger eel about 7ft in length unhinged its jaws and left a 3lb cod

(unmarked) for us to sell when we landed. If we landed a conger eel, dad stood on

.

9

its back which he broke then threw back in the water, I presume to reduce its

predation on the edible others.

I was not sure if I wanted to go to University as I enjoyed Dunoon so much.

In my final (sixth) year I had decided on Medicine – as my early enjoyed hospital

contacts and the probability that the generality of my abilities would ensure a wide

range of detailed choices. My interview for Medicine was adequately dealt with by “It

seems the only job with a real purpose” and my arm in a sling with an undiagnosed

fractured collarbone (from the loss of my pillow fight championship at the Youth

Panel Games) provided a more interesting subject for the interviewing panel.

So I set off to Glasgow University in October 1955. I only realised when I moved

into digs in Glasgow, the importance of my family and friends in Dunoon as the first 3

months were quite lonely. I struck up acquaintances with my two male bench

neighbours – as well as with an attractive girl in my ‘alphabetic’ vicinity as our

workplaces was unimaginatively allocated by our surnames. My first landlady was

the widowed mother-in-law of a Dunoon shore contact who gently tried to get me to

study in my bedroom but I missed the conviviality of home with the radio playing and

refused : so after a term she gave up being a landlady as I presume she found me

too intr. I found new digs through the university system. This was better with 4

other students-all only staying for weekdays- so back to Dunoon at weekends. Then

I stayed in a variety of different Lodgings until I moved into a student ‘Hall of

Residence’ (MacBrayne Hall) which had a preponderance of highlanders -

‘Teuchters’ in the Gallic.

.

10

I had done well in my first professional exams with 2 Distinctions and 2 certificates of

merit so I was pleased to accept the offer of an intercalated BSc course, which cost

another year of study, making 7 years before full initial medical qualification . Of the

DGS students who went onto university only 6 out of 16 usually achieved a degree .

I was anxious to do so but an interim insurance was attractive. No career guidance

was provided from DGS or later in the course. My parents were always warmly

supportive but I was the first in my immediate family to go to university or any form of

full-time higher education so I realized I had to work it out for myself which was a

pleasure but a significant disadvantage. My mother was always and regularly

supportive of my studies ‘ study hard so you will get on’.

Cliques were obvious in my classes. The two major fee-paying private schools for

boys were Hutchison’s and Glasgow Academy so they often hung together and wore

their school ties sometimes into their 60s; only 10% of my year were girls with a

significant number from Notre Dame, a Catholic private school. The differences in

social/cultural backgrounds were obvious to me and probably to my fellow students.

DGS had just started to introduce a school uniform (dark blue blazer) but I had worn

a green blazer (sales bargain) for 2 years so I was already conscious of uniform

effects. Accordingly, I acquired and wore a Glasgow University blazer, which had

significant negative attributes for some male Dunoon acquaintances, but most of my

different girlfriends seemed to like it. My socio-cultural naivety gradually faded in

Glasgow’s onslaught but in retrospect amused me. For instance when I first arrived

at Glasgow Men’s Union I got off the tram and waited for the next one to take up the

.

11

hill. Eventually I noticed there were no tramlines going there so I walked up to the

University.

Holiday jobs were a financial necessity and gave me a better insight into other

workers’ lives. The first was as a butcher’s boy, a holiday replacement for 2 weeks

– where I learned how to make link sausages and ‘potted hoach’ (boiled meat

scraps, which jelled on cooling and were sold in small pots) as a delicate supplement

for otherwise meat-low diets. I still quite like it. It is the only job in which I was

supplied with a special labelled ‘butcher’s boy’ bike with a heavy fixed basket over

the front wheel for home deliveries. Next summer my Dad got me a job as a boat

hirer’s assistant with a neighbouring boat-hirer where I rapidly took over the day-to-

day running of the business. I’m sure my boss’s takings increased with my work ,

which lasted 9am -10pm 7 days a week in good weather; we made about £40 on

good days and I was paid £5-6 a week. My dad never complained about his

reduction in income caused by my enthusiastic work for a rival firm. Working the

shore was fun with lots of people contact and exchange. Amongst the work

guidelines were ‘do not wear a coat unless the rain is heavy and persistent’, ‘when

you are pushing a drunk man out in a rowing boat make sure you give it a good

shove’.

My Dad

In rain he stands beside his boats; no coat, white-topped coxswain’s hat on head,boot tops rolled below knee.

When asked to forecastto the bored tourists,

.

12

not too keen on the rainwhich has fallen relentlesslythrough the Glasgow Fair,he examines the sky thoughtfully,then says “It looks as if it’ll improve.”They don’t look convinced- nor should they be.I’ve never heard that boat hirer,my father, predict anything elseto possible clients or anyonewho foolishly asks himabout the weather. He never says‘ it will get worse.’

Mind you he taught me;‘If you can see Ailsa Craig fromDunoon or distant summits clearlythat implies, it will rain soon.’

His good trick works.You should have hope till you are dead –“It looks as if it’ll improve.”

Other jobs included working for the Forestry Commission and the Post Office. My

motivation for both was poor. In the Forestry I was changed from bracken cutting as

the senior Forester decided too many small trees were being cut down by me in my

efforts to keep up with the seasoned workers in the gang, so I was transferred to

being a ploughman’s boy walking ahead of the tractor to warn of difficulties ahead.

Thoroughly enjoyed this but occasionally I forgot to warn the ploughman of deep

ditches and unseated him. One aspect of the job was I had to lay out paths and

boundaries in the virgin scrub in the hills above Dunoon. Again I was taken to task

by the head Forester using a very forestry phrase ‘Do they not teach you in

University that a yard downhill is longer than a yard uphill.’

.

13

I enjoyed working in the Dunoon Post Office but accidentally provoked a minor crisis

by taking the Christmas mail box key with me when I was sent to deliver a telegram

upcountry, the mailbox briefly overflowed. Delivering the Christmas mail had

hazards too. Not all the houses had visible names or numbers and many were

holiday homes. The locals had some difficulty if their Christmas mail was

accidentally delivered to a holiday home. Despite these minor problems, I was

regularly re-employed by both firms

Second year Medicine and the start of my combined (BSc MB ChB) course produced

its own problems with one hundred and sixty science books recommended to read in

addition to the standard medical texts. This issue was solved in the usual ways –

careful attentive listening to the medical lectures and books briefly glanced at. There

were two sets of exams and my record was over twenty science and medical exams

in a week. It hardly gave me time to keep up my socialising and cross-country

running. I bumped into the ‘Hares and Hounds’ secretary at a students Union

dance when I had a gorgeous blonde partner in my arms - I had excused myself

from running that day because of ‘exams’. The partial commitment was noted so I

never made the first team. The double Biochemistry exam looked a problem

especially when I noticed that all the science students after 30 minutes had set up

different apparatus and my burette set up for the titration leaked. Accordingly, I

tasted the food we were to analyse, worked out the anticipated reactions and

finished inside the time. A colleague on the combined course was not pleased when

my mark was 78% and his conscientiously carried out result was 48%. His

comment was “The injustice of it was almost perfect”. However the balance was

.

14

generally maintained as when my alphabetic (B) predecessor in the honours exam

told me that he had used my departmental talk on the Pacinian Corpuscle (a

specialized sensory nerve ending whose covering could modify, like the keys on a

clarinet, the impulses sent to the brain) to chat up the examiner, just as I rose to be

examined. Not a good start to the exam interview worsened by my reading out loud

the text marks on the examiners desk. The examiner ceremonially placed a blank

sheet on the marks. I enjoyed most of the Honours Physiology year but in a rather

undisciplined way as I got distracted into subjects not likely to come up. My interest

in physiology continued throughout my subsequent career. I persuaded the

Physiology staff to let me give them short essays throughout the honours year as

there were no lectures and few tutorials. A distinguished scientist when I asked him

how he would like the essay presented said ‘It’s not important ‘ if you have no white

paper brown will do’. My experimental thesis supervisor reported to a colleague

‘Carswell and I have good time making jokes at each other in the lab’. I generally

liked working with the scientists as I had enjoyed in my school years but did not find

anyone I would choose as a role model. I wanted to savour and enjoy my studies

and work for myself.

After the successful conclusion of my BSc and graduation my thoughts turned to

making some cash to compensate for the costs of the additional science work. So in

my fifth year I tutored schoolboys, medics who had failed the second professional

exams and would be thrown out if they failed the resits, demonstrated to students in

the practical physiology laboratories and joined the University Air Squadron. The

last was quite profitable as we were paid for turning up at Scone Aerodrome for

.

15

training but only in a third of winter weekends was the weather suitable for flying so I

could catch up on my medical studies. Unfortunately my wet shoes, drying on the

radiator ended up with a flap of the heat-severed sole, which proved to be

dangerous. On a routine progress test with the Commanding Officer as my

passenger I was put through my paces. All went well until we got to aerobatics,

which I had performed, routinely in my solo flights. For the spins I climbed the

Chipmunk to 9000 ft and correctly entered the manoeuvre. After three complete

spins I attempted the corrective manoeuvre which involved centring the rudder foot

pedals and putting the nose down. Unfortunately the flap in my shoe jammed the

rudder pedal so I did eight spins before I managed to release my foot and use the

rudder pedal to correct the spin. The regulations specified the maximum spin

tolerance was six spins for the Chipmunk. My height had fallen to 3,000 ft – the

lowest permitted recovery height so clearly I was in difficulties when I safely landed

the plane. My usual flying instructor volunteered to vouch for my competence and

usual safety which was likely to permit me to keep flying which I would have enjoyed.

However I really needed more time to concentrate on medicine so I volunteered to

resign my cadet pilot status and left the Air Squadron after 42 hours flying including

14 solo hours. No regrets as I had enjoyed my time and I had no other flying

ambitions. Now in retirement I anticipate taking up gliding.

Just qualified but short of hands on experience, I decided that I would benefit from

more junior experience so I took 4 house officer jobs three of them deliberately in

professorial firms. As a consequence I was first on call for two years then sat the

higher medical qualification. This helped me too as It taught me to be firm with my

.

16

diagnostic opinions so that when I was examined by the Queen’s Physician in my big

clinical case I persuaded him to listen to the heart as my (wrong) diagnosis

contradicted his registrar’s summary. I passed to become an MRCP (Member of

the Royal College of Physicians of London) in the shortest possible time - 3 years: so

I was ready to climb the hierarchy to a Consultant Paediatrician. Paediatrics was a

clear early choice as it always seemed to me that this was the likeliest role for

effective medicine. I had much appreciated my undergraduate time in it plus I have

always enjoyed working with children. Individual firms, hospitals and regions all

have different socio –cultural identities so I was keen to sample and choose my

favourite, Bristol Children’s Hospital was high on my list. I was pleased to be

appointed a Paediatric Consultant there after a series of junior Scottish jobs.

I was surprised at the proportion of God-like physicians I encountered in England –

apparently more than in Scotland but I relished the greater clinical freedom of action

of individual English consultants in their own firms. I had not appreciated that there

was a consultant paediatric gastro-enterologist (my specialisation on appointment)

so over the next few years I changed and adopted respiratory paediatrics as my

special interest, driven in part by my realization that there was a real need, especially

in Cystic Fibrosis management. Other paediatricians in the UK also recognised that

need so we worked in concert and were delighted that over the next twenty years

individual patients survival rose from an average of seven years to somewhere over

thirty. The emotional load for the families with that disease is high particularly as

they quickly learn that a gene inherited from each parent is responsible. The load on

physicians Is also high as the eventual management is heavy but it is worthwhile for

.

17

the additional duration of enjoyable life the children have. I published the next poem

in the Lancet (2005) that illustrates the positive attitudes many children had to their

life-shortening disease:

A Salute to Dying Children

Children should be our inheritors:so adults view their early death as tragicbut dying may expose hidden depthsincluding love and concern for others.

A patient,* with little hope of a transplant, knowing his older brother died in the same situation of the same disease, still successfully started a business. Another, warned against nursing children still opted for that and died early, graciously and rightly proud near death

of the nursing qualification she achieved.

Adults may have difficulty with their decisions but refusing treatment for ‘trivial’ reasons

or the advanced gifting of coveted toysindicates personal and proper control.

People may see their physical discomfortbut they often seem unencumbered by the adult dread of perpetual non-existence.As death approaches, most children face it frontally.

Apt deaths in comfort and happy trust occurespecially at home in the bosom of family.One, thus secured, died when brushing her hairsome hours after playing scrabble with her boyfriend.

We are privileged to relate to themas they teach us how to live death.Despite anguish at children dying, celebrate and salute their lives.

.

18

This *patient was particularly rewarding as I found the registrar on call who had

admitted him the night before had started him on terminal rather than therapeutic

care. I reversed that and seventeen months later he elbowed me in the ribs when I

went to the circus with my family. He was well and enjoying himself although he died

suddenly at home a few months later. The children, especially in the wards, were

often fun. There was a big demand for my paper aeroplanes which glided well but

increased the ward clutter so I cut my production rate. On one occasion I remember

encouraging the walking wounded to dance in the ward and we eventually had a four

winged fan of them dancing round the centre of the ward: the nicely tolerant ward

sister commented as we stopped ‘ I’m not sure who enjoyed that more- you or the

children’. I met my future wife when we were both registrars in Glasgow Queen

Mothers hospital: she was an anaesthetist, I was a neonatal paediatrician.

I made an early impression with my joke as I opened the outside door of the hospital

for her and asked – ‘Have you parked your broomstick?’ She was elegantly dressed

in black waterproof with a pixie hat both dripping with rain. I am grateful for the

assiduous care and love she lavished on our three children while I was often too

busy with my work to do much with them myself. I became more economical with

my work/family balance later. My eldest son enjoyed me teaching him how to play

squash – once a favourite sport of mine and the other two asked for and I think

enjoyed similar coaching.

After my first eleven years in my Bristol post with the realization that I was unlikely to

get an alternative post I decided to focus more on how the Bristol University and the

.

19

local Health service functioned. The University had a considerable bureaucratic

hierarchy which was often entered by election but I correctly assumed that my

modest reputation across the faculties for straight talking as a POWAR (Place of

Work Accredited Representative of the British Medical Association) would help, as it

did, so I was appointed to the Medical Curriculum Committee, the Senate, the

Teaching Committee, the Progress Committee, the Disciplinary Committee, the

Library, the Finance, the Promotions and the Medical Admission Committees. Some

had interesting deviations from their overt remits. Thus because two professors ‘had

to go’ to the USA , the 76 hours I spent on the Disciplinary Committee reviewing

students unruly protests at a Professor of Modern History’s fascist attitudes was

overruled after their lawyer appealed to the House of Lords on the grounds that

changing the membership of the Disciplinary Committee while in session

contravened Natural Justice: so all penalties were cancelled. It was amusing that

the rest of that committee wanted particularly to punish a drama student who had a

great presence and delivery though there was no evidence that he had been a

ringleader or organiser in the minor scuffle. Eventually all graduated.

I tried to abolish the late fines for staff keeping books longer but the head librarian

appeared at the next meeting and claimed that even Readers (like myself) had to

contribute to the £50,000 raised by these fines and spent on new books. The

committee agreed with him so my university salary continued to be docked.

My mother had always strongly encouraged my studies both in DGS and at

University though she had no practical knowledge of university and the same was

true of the rest of my immediate family . However the frequently voiced support of

.

20

my relatives in my studies helped me decide positively what to do. I had worked

hard for over 5 years for Professor James Hutchison, Regius Paediatric Professor in

Glasgow and accordingly anticipated routinely using him as one of my referees. In

an appointment committee where I was not appointed, one of the committee took me

aside and strongly advised me not to use him again. He had never given me the

courtesy of showing me my reference. My own practice if I could not recommend a

candidate has been to show the candidate what I would write in such a situation and

he could select another referee. I had always disliked Professor Hutchison but

thought I had been polite and careful enough not to let it show.

My mother died in 1998 aged 95 in a retirement home in Thurso where her daughter

also lived. Carol had very carefully researched this home so she could and did

reassure Jack in New Zealand and I in Bristol that the facilities and care were

excellent.

At the end of my research career in the University of Bristol I had won and spent

somewhat over £1,000,000 on ethically approved research. The money was

principally provided by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council(UK) - for

my initial research fellowship for 2 years in the Physiology department, Leeds

University, the British Council - for Research Fellows appointed by them and their

University departments in Argentina, Netherlands, Costa Rica, Brazil and Greece

(privately funded). All achieved internationally published papers and higher

degrees.

.

21

Eventually The Wellcome Trust invited me submit an application for funding of my

own Research Group. I immediately set to work on this in a cold February night in

1991 but was disturbed by a loud noise in the kitchen. The noise came from my cat

pulling down a large bag of cat food to the floor. He (Percy) had cut his way into the

bag and spread the pellets over the floor. So I started scooping them up back into

the bag repeatedly bending and straightening up in the process. Unfortunately I was

only scantily clad in the cold kitchen so blood pooled in my legs and I felt faint. I

decided not to fall on the stainless steel sink and could not fall backwards because of

an obstructing table. Eventually I fell to the floor in a faint. When I had somewhat

recovered I crawled to a sitting room and stretched out flat on a sofa. My wife woke

up, disturbed by the noise, found me on the sofa about 10 minutes later by which

time I was aware of a neurological defect. After 30 minutes I had diagnosed this as

a major cerebellar lesion produced by my blood pooling in the periphery and

consequent inadequate blood circulation to the brain. Next morning in the Neurology

unit in Frenchay hospital, the consultant radiologist demonstrated to me the

infarction (damage) of the right cerebellum which was found to be permanent a few

months later. Fortunately, I found that particularly exercising my right side

compensated for its infarction-induced weakness and my intellectual abilities

apparently returned over the next six months but I did not produce a successful grant

application despite repeated attempts. It looked like permanent retirement from

grant-funded research which I had greatly enjoyed.

.

22

A crisis had developed in the Cardiology Department at the Children’s Hospital. The

consultant cardiac anaesthetist had analysed the mortality of small babies requiring

early cardiac surgery and compared this with the equivalent figures in the other

major UK cardiac centres. Bristol’s mortality rates were apparently higher. The two

Bristol Cardiac surgeons disputed his figures and his analysis. It took seven years

and the intervention of multiple different UK governing bodies before these cardiac

operations were suspended at Bristol Children’s Hospital. The UK Government set

up an Inquiry (the Kennedy Inquiry) to ensure that none of the Bristol practises that

might have contributed to the excess of Bristol deaths were operative elsewhere: no

punitive actions were taken in Bristol.

Another problem had developed in the University which had developed a deficit of

twelve million pounds. It was decided that a cut in the number of staff employed was

required. Insufficient staff were willing to take voluntary early retirement so a policy

of compulsory early retirement was introduced with an apparent bias towards retiring

the more senior (and more expensive) staff. Unfortunately I found myself forcibly

retired from my chosen career, despite my successes. I had enjoyed my clinical

medicine, teaching and research for forty years, including twenty eight as a

Consultant Paediatrician in Bristol Children’s Hospital. Forcibly retired at the age of

sixty two, I looked for further work in which my experience could be valuable.

I was pleased as a substitute to turn to charity work A friend appointed me as a

Director of Emmaus Glasgow and I was subsequently elected as a Director of the

national governing body, Emmaus UK. Emmaus is an international charity striving

.

23

to improve the lives of unemployed workers and/or the homeless. I enjoyed both of

these roles and achieved some minor successes in them. I chose to undertake

Open University courses which reinforced my longstanding interest in literature and

especially poetry: I was awarded a Diploma in English Literature. Subsequently I

published over sixty poems but never achieved the international recognition

equivalent to that for my medico-scientific research. Spells as a voluntary reading

assistant in two Bristol primary schools passed successfully and enjoyably. I am

pleased to recently have been accepted as a school governor in another Bristol

primary school. These modest actions are logical extensions of my lifelong belief in

the importance of childhood and the early education of children. My own three

children are graduates in independent professional practice in England.

My daughter, Ruth has been enormously supportive in encouraging this production,

helping with my poor laptop skills and English – my grateful thanks!

So on I go !

I hope and intend to reactivate my researches and know that the Wellcome Trust is

reasonably sympathetic. I am comfortably settled again in Bristol, enjoying my freq

uent contacts with my children and two grandchildren.