| Administrative History | William Watt was born in 1924 in Keith, where his father was a GP and a graduate of Aberdeen University. William Watt also went to Aberdeen, graduating M.B., Ch.B. in 1946. He worked for a short time in Woodend Hospital, Aberdeen, before completing his National Service as Surgeon Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He worked at Beckenham Hospital, Kent, and at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, then moved to take up a place in general practice in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in 1951. He was still there in the 1980s.
Watt's father was often asked by his patients the cost of sending a child to University and when William went to Aberdeen University, his father made a deal with him: he could have a bank account and a cheque book if he kept, and supplied to his father for information, a detailed account of his expenditure. In the volume, PM stands for 'pocket money', and 'postage on wash' is explained by the fact that he sent his dirty laundry home once a fortnight. |