| Description | Interview with Dr Daniel Gordon recorded on 21 May 1986 by Elizabeth Olson
continuation of MS 3620/1/44/1
Transcript of Interview :
DG …He said when he left Birmingham, the small arms of Birmingham, the BSA he called it. Small arms embraceth, small arms of Birmingham, I've travelled over the plains of England and through the hills and valleys, 'til I came and stood here and before the Gordons College, where General Gordon's statue stands and he says, "There before the guns of Old Sebastopol I lifted my heart to my alma mater" Isn't that nice?
I Yes, very nice.
DG Oh yes, Lockhart was good. Then in Physiology we had possibly one of the most brilliant scholars in Medicine, except Sir Ashley Mackintosh, and McWilliam was Physiology and he had the FRS at that time and I think he was one of the few that had the FRS and this Downie twin, Alan Downie, that I told you about. Norman Logie the surgeon said that he'd looked up the records and at that time, that's about ten years ago, he was the only living graduate of Aberdeen University with an FRS.
I Really?
DG An English FRS. So we'd him, and he gave us Biochemistry as well.
I Was it taught as a practical subject or were, demonstrations, or were you doing it?
DG Yes, a lot of practical, yes we'd lectures and a lot of practical stuff and physiology. Yes it was quite an interesting physiology, I like it very much.
I You liked that?
DG Then when we got through our second professional, we had Bobby Reid for oral anatomy and there was one of the best men in our years who later got first class honours in our year, Alan Duthie. He'd been very nervous and when he shaved himself he'd cut himself and he got a terrible oral from Bobby going in about quarter to twelve and we were the 'G's and we went in after Gonn and Gillan, oh a whole lot of Gs, there was five of us I think and we were taken after lunch and Bobby, he'd had a grand lunch, they'd had a very fine lunch in the Co. and were in great good humour and I got a very simple oral and I had a star in my second professional. Now I wasn't a star man at all and a few of the others. It was just poor Duthie...
I Gone in before lunch.
DG Who'd gone in before lunch, it was the only one that he didn't get a star in. He just rubbed poor Bobby up the wrong way or something and that's the kind of thing that could happen.
I Did you have spotters, did you have, for your oral?
DG Oh spotters, it was spotters that you had, you see. Oh my oral was very simple: "Tell me, Mr Gordon, what is this?'" And I said, "A bone, sir". "Guess what bone it is", and I says, "a bone of the wrist, sir". "Well, can you be more specific?" And I had guessed the right one.
I Oh well, that was
DG Very little else, very little else.
I And then did you do your second professional in March?
DG Yes, March, second professional, that was after two years and two terms at the 'varsity, and then we went across to the hospitals.
I Which were all down in Aberdeen proper at that time?
DG They were down in the Old Infirmary.
I At Woolmanhill?
DG At Woolmanhill, and there was only three surgical teams and three medical teams. That was three wards, one ward, three wards of each and we had the professor of Medicine with a ward and the professor of Surgery with a ward at Woolmanhill. Woolmanhill's still used for somethings to this day.
I Yes indeed.
DG The bit, not where the casualty used to be, but the bit across the road with the quadrangle and this was where we started Medicine and I remember the first clinic I fainted. I was left lying on back and Sir John Marnoch, he was Sir John then, he says, "Oh just let him lie, see if his collar's loose" and then I just came round again. But I don't know if I should tell you about that just now or whether I should maybe speak about the subjects that are not clinical you see that we got that year?
I Yes please.
DG We got Pathology, and what they called, what do they call it now, Therapeutics...?
I Materia Medica and Practical Pharmacy in those days.
DG It was Materia Medica at that time, yes, Materia Medica, and we had those two subjects, Pathology and Materia Medica and Surgery...
I Ah yes, you started with Surgery before Medicine, yes.
DG It was the third year, you see, Surgery, and Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence were left to the fourth year.
I Where did you do Pathology?
DG We did Pathology in Marischal College.
I Oh yes, with Professor Shennon was it?
DG With Professor Shennon, he was a very stern kind of chap, Professor Shennon, and he blushed very easily, very easily indeed if anything irritated him and he was the man who got the Wednesday, I think he was largely the man who got the Wednesday half day started.
I Why?
DG He was very keen on this Wednesday half day which was a godsend. It just started at our time you see, but just started, it wasn't there in first year that we were there, but it was the second year before this, about 1920, it would have been or thereabouts.
I And would it have been because he was keen on sports or for the health of the students or what?
DG I think he was keen on sports and well, Pathology, was the subject that I didn't like. I didn't like it at all and I only got 51 percent in my class exams and I passed with no bother at all whereas my other pal, Bob Thomson, was late for his orals and he stayed at the top out at Kittybrewster and he couldn't get a tram down and he ran all the way down George Street with his laces not tied and got into Pathology and got a terrible telling-off from Shennon and was ploughed.
I Was that, where was the Pathology lecture room?
DG Well, I'll tell you where the Pathology lecture room was, it was the same as Chemistry. As you go into Marischal College, there's offices round the corner and then along a bit you got into the door where Pathology was, and Chemistry.
I And did you do, did you watch postmortems and things from galleries up above or was that not how it was done?
DG No, postmortems were not in Pathology they were up at the Infirmary.
I Well, at Woolmanhill?
DG At Woolmanhill yes, oh yes, the Pathology was, these postmortems that you speak here were what one would call not particularly nice, I never liked them.
I No, I'm sure.
DG We didn't like them very much but ...
I No, I just wondered how they presented them?
DG No there's one of the points that you haven't asked me about yet. Will we bring this in just now or would I finish out about the rest of the things?
I Yes.
DG But it's a thing that has been coming up in my mind a few times. It was this question of that he asks about what was the medical curriculum like, was it good enough? Maybe that"s what we'd leave til another night is it?
I Well, is it apt to put it in here or do you finish … You're on now.
DG We had too big a year.
I Had you, you said there were vast numbers of students?
DG And I would say that was a disadvantage for our teaching. Our clinics were too big, there was too many of us around each body in the Anatomy Department and so on and I think that was, the year was too big and when it came to the clinical subjects that we were up to after the Materia Medica and the Pathology, we were getting out Surgery clinics that year you see. They were too big, that's what we felt.
I Yes, there wouldn't have been all that many patients would there?
DG That's what we felt.
I How many would there be in a ward?
DG Oh there would have been about twenty in a male one, and twenty in a female. In Professor Marnoch's surgical ward, there was a six-bedded bit annexe in his ward which had the prostate cases. Down below the six beds were given to, one of them to eyes, one of them had ear, nose and throat, that was all the beds that these chaps got. And so this one, we were put an for dressing in this anatomy one first and it smelt to high heaven, oh terrible, terrible smell it had. And they were, they were dying usually these awful prostate cases.
I Quite a hard entry into the medical profession far you really?
DG Oh, it was a very hard entry far us yes and, the tubes were stuck in, great big tubes the size of your finger and supra-pubic tubes and it was just oozing pus...
I Poor chaps, yes.
DG It was the days before you had real surgery.
I Yes, you must have seen a tremendous difference in, at least a tremendous change in what was prescribed from the time you were a student throughout your medical career. Could you tell us something about what sort of things you prepared when you were in pharmacy?
DG Oh yes, yes. I started to do practical at Materia Medica. Now we'd to make pills and we'd to make mixtures and so on and the time when we used to make mixtures we had all the stomach mixtures, cough mixtures and so on. Now we'd twenty men who had been pharmacists who had been sergeants in the RAMC who got the army grants to go into Medicine. And they wanted to go into Medicine for if there was another war they didn't want to be sergeants, they wanted to be officers like the doctors you see. So twenty of them in our year, oh, steady men, never ploughed in their exams, work, hard-working men and they got twelve ounce bottles and they got a hold trajicanth and some of these other things and they made anzora hair cream and went away home with this twelve-ounce bottle, which would last them six months, to put an their hair you see. Whereas we had the stomach mixtures, and after we'd shown them to the thing were just poured down the sink. These bays managed to …
I They didn't use the students' preparations in the dispensary?
DG Which...?
I The things you made in the practical class mere thrown out were they?
DG Well, yes, as far as I knew. They might have been but I cannot tell you, I'm not sure on that point. At any rate my uncle was a doctor at Skene, Dr Skinner, and I used to go out to him on a Saturday, fairly often as I got on in Medicine, and he would get me to help to make the pills you see. He made the pills, these basic great long things, made about a dozen pills at a time, squeezed the stuff, made up the paste and squeezed the stuff, then you made the cough mixtures, you always put a little chlorodine into it, it had a very nice taste, chlorodine, tinc. morphate chlorof. and you made cough mixtures and made powders. Powders was the big thing. My uncle was a tremendous lad with powders, he liked to carry a good few powders about with him which were made with aspirin phenacetin and that kind of thing and I must have made, oh, acres of powders . And that was practical work far me, learning Medicine, and then in my last year if there was a call came in and we'd been out that way already, he would send me out an the motor bike and he would tell me what would be wrong with the kid, that was supposed to have pain in its tummy, "Well", he says, "take a good look down its throat and make sure it hasna tonsilitis, that's very likely what it is". And practically invariably it was tonsillitis, complaining more about the pain in the tummy. So that was a very pleasant time of my life, going out there and a good lunch my aunt would give me...
I Yes, set you up for the week.
DG She would make lovely soup and she'd put these croutons into it and she had a spirit kettle for the coffee at the end of the thing and she lit it and we got boiling water and percolate it. That was very nice. She knitted a fairisle scarf for me which unfortunately later in life I lost. I was very disappointed about it, I must have left it somewhere.
I Tell me about Professor Marnoch?
DG Professor Marnoch, now. Professor Marnoch, had the finest surgical hands, finest hands a surgeon could have. They were long fingers. He was a postman's son and had found it very hard to get through Medicine.
I Financially?
DG Yes, financially, and he worked very hard, as I had to work. And as a surgeon, he was very good mechanically but he was not the best brain. About 1911 when the professor of surgery left, there was two surgeons, Scott Riddell and Henry Gray, later, who became Sir Henry Gray and was knighted far his great work in the army. They applied for the chair and in the Senatus there was two factions, two factions, Gray and Scott Riddell. And Marnoch slipped in between them. He slipped in between them and he was elected away quite nicely but quite proficiently, but he was not a brain like Sir Henry Gray would have been but he got on for the chair, and of course the Balmoral connection allowed him to be surgical adviser to the Queen ...
I Just because he happened to be in the right place?
DG And the same thing to Sir Ashley Mackintosh, he got knighted for his physician, but of course Sir Ashley Mackintosh was a very much more clever man. Sir John, they were both about the scene year in Arts, Sir John. There was a famous Arts year went through in 1885, they went up in 1884, there was Dr Bedie of Fraserburgh, there was the, Jamieson, the medical officer of health for Britain at that time, he was in it, and a very famous year, they called them the famous "achtey-acht, a' achtey-acht" that's what they were called, and they were from that time, and they'd both taken their MA before and Sir Ashley Mackintosh took his MA in three subjects, honours in three subjects.
I That's unusual.
DG He was a very brilliant man, possibly the most brilliant scholar that ever went through Aberdeen University and he was a very fine lecturer, a very fine gentleman, he naturally was. He was a son of the manse of Deskford up in Morayshire, his father was the minister there and a tremendous nice man.
I Do you remember any of his stories?
DG He hadn't so many stories, he hadn't so many stories. He was meticulous. I can't remember if he'd any, I can't remember him telling many stories...
I Or stories about him?
DG I'm just trying to think about Sir Ashley. Sir Ashley was a gentleman and absolute gentleman.
I Kind to his patients?
DG Everybody liked him, that's what they did. Then we had, in Midwifery, we had Professor McKerran, who was son of the manse of Clatt, he was son of the manse too. His father was McKerran and he was in the same class as my father at Clatt school, McKerran, his father liked a good drink and at his graduation, coming home from his graduation, his father got drowned in the Cowie burn and McKerran was a great enthusiast for the rugger team and in the sixties he would race up and down the touchline as hard as you could to cheer on Aberdeen University and he had, oh there was sayings about him. He wasn't like the man Stevenson who was the professor before him and the students would tell about him they just took notes from him, from a man from the year before, and they'd pay for that you know, and the students who'd maybe had them before had "a joke here", so when Professor Stevenson had done a bit of the lecture and he wasn't telling the story, they'd say "joke here Hardy, joke here". And he had to tell the story you see, it was like Arthur Thompson with the sheep going along its way rejoicing, that kind of thing. I can't remember very many stories that Ashley told but this was McKerrran, he was a great lad, he said, "leave it to nature", that was his first, always the subject, 'leave it to nature".
I I believe he wasn't a surgeon, he was a ....?
DG Very poor surgeon, oh, he didn't do any caesarean sections or that.
I It was too early for that I suppose?
DG Well, Semple was beginning to do them Semple was a GP who was assistant to the professor.
I And was it successful?
DG Oh, well, some of them were, some of them were.
I I believe that the maternity hospital was a pretty grim place?
DG Oh, grim place. There was, the maternity digs were in King Street, up a stair. Those who could afford it went to Dublin. Dublin was a common place far them to go to take their maternity.
I Away from Aberdeen?
DG Yes, they got a wee holiday and got away far a fortnight, but we had a fortnight in the Howdie digs and we'd always to pay far the sofa. The ones that left had the sofa to pay for, it was always broken you see so it must have very simple to mend, because you paid for it and then they'd to pay for it the next fortnight, and the midwives very very good. There was two very good midwives there who taught us.
I And was it from there that you'd go out an the district and deliver babies as well?
DG Yes, we go out an the district, yes, go out an the district, but that wasn't the assistant midwives, that was the midwives themselves that went out on the district...
I Ah yes, and you just went and tagged on?
DG And of course you had to hang on to them, you learned everything from them. No, there wasn't enough midwifery training and as I say clinics were too big and classes were too big. There wasn't enough material, there wasn't enough, in a year or two time, the years got quite small and I would have said they would have got a better training in things.
I And the patients would have been less tired because by the time three hundred of you had gone round them it must have been...?
DG Oh, I know, the patients must have had a dreadful time sometimes, must have had a dreadful time.
I What were the strengths of the medical curriculum in your time?
DG The strength of the medical curriculum was in the tremendous enthusiasm, the tremendous amount of work that all our professors and lecturers put into it. There wasn't a weak one amongst them, same of them were better lecturers than others. Professor McWilliam and Professor Sir Ashley Mackintosh were first-rate lecturers but that was the strength, that, the dedication that they gave was very high. I've told you about what I thought was the weakness that there was far too many numbers.
I You did things like Forensic Medicine and Public Health and Psychiatry as well, did you?
DG Yes, all these were done. Forensic medicine was a one-term subject, it was a very, very interesting subject.
I At eight o'clock in the morning?
DG And that was another one about Public Health. It was Forensic Medicine. Wait til I remember if it was at eight in the morning, I'm just not fully sure. Botany was eight o'clock in the morning, I remember that, and the Forensic Medicine and Public Health were two subjects which, along with Materia Medica, and Pathology you took in the third professionals. It was the third professional and the fourth and final professional was just the three big subjects, Medicine, Surgery and Midwifery. Public Health was a very clever man in charge of Public Health, he was called Kinloch, Parlane Kinloch, not much of a lecturer but had brilliant ideas and he wanted to start a national medicine scheme before the first war. He went down for Medical Officer of Health in Edinburgh, Principal Medical Officer for Scotland, but he died and he would have, if he'd got his Public Health, his scheme through it would have made it a Scottish one, it would have been very good, because at that time, just before the war, there was a maternity scheme put through which was a tremendous help far maternity cases. A tremendous help, that would haute been a good thing but Parlane Kinloch, was not a particularly good lecturer. Now the lecturer in Forensic Medicine was Professor Matthew Hay. Fascinating subject it was and he was the man who was the great builder of hospitals. There was the Sick Children's Hospital was put up on the brae there at Foresterhill and he got the great scheme about bringing the Maternity Hospital and the Infirmary and the University up there to Foresterhill
I Yes, on the joint site.
DG Matthew Hay was the leader, but Sir Ashley Mackintosh and his other ones supported him very much.
I Yes, very far-sighted.
DG He spoke, he spoke very well, Professor Matthew Hay, he was a good, but he was getting a very old man by that time. But when, it must have been about the last of us, lecturing I should think. Yes, now that's the strength. You want to know you said about the effects of the Great War upon the University?
I Yes. You spoke a bittie about that.
DG Well, the effect as far as we were concerned was that the first year or two had enormous numbers of ex-servicemen. We'd the same thing to a rather less degree after the second world war, but certainly the first world war there was all these men coming back. Same of them had been lieutenant-colonels, majors, captains, captains in the RAFC, good places in the navy, not so much in the navy as officers of the navy, but as surgeons, what did they call them, probat ....?
I Surgeon-probationers, oh yes.
DG Surgeon probationers, and that was what they came back.
I Yes, with a lot of experience, of course?
DG Andrew Fowler, later on a surgeon in Aberdeen was a surgeon-probationer, in the middle of his Medicine.
I So was Lockhart in fact.
DG Yes, they went away and did that and so the effect was, as I told you before, that our year was huge and it became, it was the biggest year that ever went through University. A hundred and sixty of us qualified and that was an enormous number and there was no jobs for you in Aberdeen...
I When you got through?
DG Got through, there was only about sixteen or eighteen house jobs, there was six at the Infirmary, three at the Sick Children's Hospital, two at the Maternity Hospital and, what else was there, there was the City Hospital and the-Mental Hospital at Cornhill. And you got into the Cornhill one if you played the cricket team.
I Really?
DG Yes, it was a, they ran a cricket team up there and that was the way to get into it.
I Would you have liked to work at Cornhill in those days?
DG Oh no, no,...
I Was it interesting?
DG No, no, I was very lucky after. I went to Insch for a bit and...
I As an assistant?
DG Yes, assistant, and Dr Mitchell did a lot of surgery and that was very pleasant and it was a very pleasant thing going about the country on a motor bike. It was a country that I got to know very well, and it wasn't far from my home you see and the, then, I went to hospital in London where my mother's cousin, Dr Nicoll, was senior physician and another cousin of my mothers was an ex-physician, Dr. ?Tough. Nicoll was more of sort of county GP down in, the east side of London, down Stratford where Essex begins. He went out with his brougham and his two horses and he had, there was consulting rooms in Harley Street, and he, he was able to get me a job down there.
I And how did the London hospital compare with Aberdeen?
DG Oh, well, it was a tremendous busy place. The casualty was huge and a enormous number-of the casualties of the east end of London would, there was a London hospital you see nearer the centre of London but Queen Mary's was a tremendous casualty place. Two bobbies in with each case, the ones they called 'dead and alive' and they were the ones that were dead and there was two bobbies and you would have to wait for a while with them, so you would have a dozen bobbies in the casualty. And I had a very fine six months casualty officer where I learned a lot and where I got a lot of F,B and I from the Stratford loco works. We'd have in about ten F,B and I
I What's that?
DG And some of them we'd send up to... .... Foreign Body in Eye, F,B and I. And then, you'd send them up there to Moorfields if you couldn't do anything with them. And they'd no things for pulling out things, they'd no magnets there at that time. So, and then another thing was teeth, down there we got quite a lot of teeth coming in. Jobs, the dentist's arm got tired and he'd maybe ten or twenty cases and he got very tired and time about, he like to give them gas, so I gave the gas and got an awful lot of teeth pulling down there which helped me afterwards. Well now the other thing I think you'd like about, is recollection of the members of the staff but I think I've told you all that in the academic …
I You've spoken about that. Did you remember Adam Smith, the Principal, did you ever come across him?
DG Oh, very well. Adam Smith was a tremendous Principal at that time. He had been minister of the Free Kirk of Queens Cross and at that time, that was away back about the 1890s I think, and he had such a crowd of students went on a Sunday night that the whole of the steps and everything were crowded with students at that time, and when he became Principal, he had done a lot of work in Palestine and he'd written books about Palestine and Allenby used some of his textbooks on Palestine in the war there. And he lost two sons, two of his most brilliant sons were killed in the First War and I don't think he ever recovered from that. But he used to take the service in King's Chapel along with the four Divinity professors.
I Ah yes, there wouldn't have been a chaplain then/
DG There was no chaplain, there was just the four Divinity professors and one of them was Greek and there was Cowan and Fulton and, what was the Greek man's name. Oh the Greek man was Professor Harrower, of course, he wasn't a Divinity professor but he was, he taught Divinity students you see. He taught them Greek and there was a Hebrew man. Can't remember him, but the Principal, we always liked him preaching, he was a very good preacher, and he always gave you the same hymn, 'Now Israel may say, and that had not the' … something, something, you know the one. We'd always it and he had a, we all in the chapel in those days, they didn't go in their gowns, it was afterwards that they went, right long afterwards that the gowns got revived again. The gown was not revived when I was there. I thought it should. Oh there was some of them had it on. Some of them wore the gown, but just some of the girls. At King's but it wasn't a thing that you saw amongst the men at all, the gown. Now the relation between Town and Gown. The provost at that time in the town was Sir James Taggart, who incidentally, was born in this house.
I Really?
DG He was born here. He was born at Coldwells. He was a granite merchant in Aberdeen and a great lad. He'd done a lot of work in the war, he was a wartime provost and he was still provost for a whiley after the war and he raised a battery, not infantry, a battery of guns, of artillery which was called Taggart's Own and he got a LLD. from the University, which was Town and Gown doing well, he got his knighthood at the same time and he was one of the men, he did a lot for Aberdeen and he had what they called story-telling competitions with Lord Aberdeen. It was the Lord Aberdeen that they called 'We Twa' cause it was him and his wife that were 'We Twa' and they had story-telling competitions all aver the place, for charity, you see. Like the tramp that came to ask for some, some money. He said he'd seen better days and Sir James retorted 'Oh I know there's been bad lately'. That kind of story you see. This kind of thing. Oh well that was the Town and Gown, there was a very fine relationship between, between at that time. And I remember when Sir Douglas Aiken got his LLD. after the war, I'd a hold of one hind leg and he'd somebody at the other hind leg and they were pushing him up from the front we were carrying him shoulder high from the University. We seemed to get into these kind of things, thrown out of the Chemistry class. Carrying Sir Douglas down you see, carrying him down to get his big lunch, reception from...
I From the univ, from the town, oh yes.
DG They were giving him the reception, you see, and the, there are more stories about that though. The last story was about Sir Thomas Mitchell in the second war, wasn't it? I'm trying to remember if the story was about about Sir James Taggart. It was Sir James Taggart, yes. We were giving Douglas Haig the Freedom of Aberdeen and Beattie was there, Admiral Beattie, and Admiral Beattie was coming up to sign the book too you see, thinking he was getting the... but Sir James says, "No, no", he says, "we maun draw the line somewhere". That was Admiral Beattie. Well, I've given you most that is down here.
I Can I ask you How you came to be G.P. in Ellon? Did you go from the London hospital up to there?
DG No .... the London hospital was a delight, that was a delight. I had a housemanship for six months, and casualty officer which included a house surgeon to a chap called Alban Hunters, and he wanted me to stay. He says, "You stay here and I'll get you an for a houseman" He was a great surgeon but I could no more have afforded to stay there a year or two in London, for all we would get, about fifty quid a year.
I A year, yes it was very little wasn't it?
DG So I got locums up in the North here. I did a fortnight in Aberlour and then I did six weeks up in Dufftown and, great time, the doctor was away in Canada and his wife taught me to play bridge and she also taught me how to dress a crab. And so that was two things that I learned there. And then I got a job down in Nottingham, in beside Nottingham where Nottingham University is. There was a doctor that was wanting, he was a doctor and did his own dispensing and he was apposition to a partnership of three and he was a independent type of chap and he had a practice, the best practice because he could say anything to them you see. He was the best doctor, he was Aberdeenshire, but I was going to get into a partnership there and, in Nottingham, but I didna care for it after a bit and Dr Skinner says, "There's a practice in Peterhead and there's a practice in Ellon, where they wanted partners. Would you came up?" So I bought a car for £18.7s.6d. at a roup and came up to Ellon with it and had a clothie to put on to the carburettor when I tried to start it and I needed more oil than petrol coming up. A terrible car and when I got to Ellon we decided that I was coming into the practice so I sold the car to Neil Ross at Ellon And he gave me £25 for it.
I That was a bargain.
DG It was the only time that I've ever got the better of Neil Ross. It was, that was why I came to Ellon There was an x-ray for sale, an x-ray thing costing £300 in the Peterhead practice otherwise I might have been in Peterhead.
I You'd have had to buy that, would you?
DG Yes, I would have had to buy it. My uncle Dr Skinner came across to Ellon. Old Dr Sinclair was getting pretty tired by that time and I got into, that was why I got into the Ellon practice.
I As a partner, or as an assistant?
DG As a partner.
I Did you have to buy your way in?
DG I got a half share, oh, I had to buy my way in. You'd to buy your way in. The practice was supposed to, it was £1100 the year before but he says, It's worth more than that, he thought it was worth an annual value of £1200. So the first year I'd £1800 to pay for it, a year and a half's purchase, and after, I wasn't there a year when it went well up above £1200 because I was the young doctor. And that was how I got on and Dr Sinclair stayed four years and then I got the practice myself. That was how I came to be in Ellon.
I And you must have liked it because you stayed.
DG Well, I stayed on there and in 1939 I was called up to the army and went away then.
I Were you away for all the war years?
DG Yes, except for three months when Dr Martin my partner had an abscess. I had to get out and I missed going across for D Day with that. I lost that bit. I was across in Dunkirk for the start. And we were sent into Dunkirk and told to stay there 'til the troops were all out. And we had a pretty hectic time in Dunkirk for a week and we got a hell of a bombing on the way in, it was a dreadful bombing we got. Three chaps and an RAC was convoy and they were too close together you see, we were told to keep a hundred yards apart but the Stuka came on over, it was just coming right along the line of the of the thing and it it there. The lorry in front of us and our ambulance was missed, we fortunately managed to jump into a canal at the side as it came down, and we had three chaps dead on this lorry and we tried to get them out of the way because there was a living one down below and he'd a most awful haemorrhage here and I tried to put on a tourniquet and where that hurt him, it had gone right down the bone. I says to myself, I'd done tourniquet putting on so often in my life in first aid classes and here was the real thing. Oh yes, we had a time. Oh, but I've told you a good lot, dear.
I One more thing. You were a GP at the time that the National Health Service came in?
DG Yes.
I Did you welcome that?
DG Well, I'll tell you how it was. I neither welcomed it or didn't welcome it because it was just come in. I was secretary at that time of the local medical committee and had an awful lot to do with it. Dr Webster of Fraserburgh would have been the chairman, you see, and he was an older man, much older about fifteen years older than me, and he was terribly fed up of the whole thing and some of the doctors went and signed up without ever telling the others they were going to sign. They broke ranks and tried to get better terms and we never got good enough terms then and I would say the time that your father was working in the service and for maybe fifteen years of it, before it was 60, I would say it was '65, before the GPs got a fair crack at the whip,
I Really.
DG That's what I would say.
I I know my father welcomed the National Health Service because it took away the burden of trying to charge money from people that couldn't afford to pay.
DG Now that's a ...
I He actually found that a very hard ...
DG You've just put the words into my mouth. It was a great godsend not to have bills. It was a great godsend because away back in the '30s when things were very bad, half of the cottars were unable to pay anything and the other half, if you put out a bill for more than thirty shillings or two pounds they couldn't pay it. They were only getting fifty pounds a week for money.
I A year?
DG A pound a week, fifty pounds a year for money. Did I say fifty pounds a week? Well I made a mistake there, fifty pounds a year and they got their meal and their milk and their..
I Tatties…?
DG Potatoes and their coal, and their housie. But of course the housie was just a But an' ben.
I It was very poor wasn't it?
DG With a toilet built over it all...
I An earth closet, yes
DG An earth closet at the foot of the garden, Oh, a dreadful life they had.
I Yes indeed.
DG Dreadful life. Oh I wrote an article in thing about that as well. About the conditions in 1931, which some people were kind enough to say they appreciated.
I Tell me, did you, when you look at the three year vocationally trained doctors coming out now, you know, after the general practitioner training, what do you think of them compared to you when you set off?
DG Twice as well trained, ten times as good drugs...
Gap in recording
I What do you think is the biggest change you've seen in your lifetime as a general practitioner? Medical change?
DG I should say in the twenties I used to say there was very little that we had except mercury and opium, and castor oil. Now they have all the amazing, the amazing drugs that have been made far them by teams, great teams of men working in laboratories which wasn't happening in our days. There was none of these great laboratories going on. There was Banting and Best getting their instruments, and there was the chaps managing to start with the feeding anaemic, pernicious anaemia, with raw liner until they refined it over twenty until it came to be a little capsule, a wee tiny capsule of vitamin R12. Oh yes, that is the thing.
I By telephone the next day Dr Gordon asked me to add his comments on the changing role of the doctors wife in his time in practice. At the beginning of his time and indeed up til the mid-60s, doctors' wives provided a telephone answering, message taking service which practically confined them, or their substitute, to the house twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Nowadays, doctors wives expect to have their own houses separately from the practice and such messages would be taken by same secretary or other professional paid staff.
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