| Administrative History | Alexander Logie Stalker (1920-87), Regius Professor of Pathology, 1972-1982
Alexander (Sandie) Logie Stalker was born in Aberdeen in 1920 and entered the University of Aberdeen as first bursar in 1937. He graduated MB, CH B with first class honours in 1942, and following house officer training in Aberdeen, served with the RAMC in North Africa, Italy and France. From 1947 until his retirement in 1982, he was a member of the University of Aberdeen's Department of Pathology, entering as lecturer, promoted to a personal chair in 1969 and becoming Regius Wilson Professor in 1972. From 1979 - 1982, he was also Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and after retiring maintained his link with the University as External Assessor on the Court. His main research interest was in micro-circulation; as a lecturer he was held in high regard for his careful preparation and lucid presentation. Stalker entered the University’s Pathology Department as a lecturer in 1947, where he quickly earned a reputation as a skilful teacher and an active member of the research community. His main research interest was in microcirculation and he served terms as President of the British Microcirculation Society, 1968-73 and of the European Society for Microcirculation, 1970-71. He died on 22 Jul 1987.
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| Description | Interview with Professor Alexander Logie Stalker recorded on 1 October 1986 by Mrs Elizabeth Olson.
Transcript of Interview :
O Professor Stalker where were you born?
S In Aberdeen, Carden Place to be accurate.
O Where were you educated?
S Secondary education was in Perthshire. I went to my father, he was a schoolmaster in Portlethen and then he moved down to Perthshire - Braco and I was at primary school there, and then I went to Morrisons in Crieff.
O What made you decide to study medicine?
S I haven't the slightest idea. From about the age of seven or eight there was nothing else but Medicine appealing to me.
O Was it a family pursuit?
S No, as far as I know none in the family. I should have been a divine if I'd stuck by the family. Divine or teaching.
O Why did you choose to come to Aberdeen University?
S My father, grandfather were both graduates.
O Did they tell you anything about their time at Aberdeen University?
S Yes, lots.
O Your father graduated in 1912 I think?
S That's right.
O He would have done an Arts degree did he?
S He did an ordinary Arts degree and then went in through the Training Centre in Aberdeen and then teaching.
O So he would have done a mixed Arts degree with Humanities?
S An ordinary Scots MA.
O Did he have any favourite stories that you remember?
S Not really that I remember.
O Had he enjoyed his time as a student?
S Very much.
O Had he taken part in things like sport at that time?
S Yes. He played for the university football team.
O Do you know where the playing fields would have been then?
S No I haven't the slightest idea. One thing I do remember him telling me, and also my grandfather telling me, that the graduations in their time were very much more hilarious than they are today.
O In what way?
S It was simply of course one graduation ceremony for the whole university and everyone was known and comments ribald or otherwise were shouted out about each one. It was very much more a lively thing rather like described by that chap in his Life in a Northern University, it was like that although that was speaking of the beginning of last century.
O I suppose with everything being smaller it would have had a completely different atmosphere?
S Yes, I think everybody knew everybody else and there would have been much less in my father and grandfather's time, much less split between faculties. The Medicals knew the Arts and Science and so on.
O Would your father have stayed at home as a student?
S He stayed at home at Blairgarth near Kemnay and travelled in daily on the train. Three miles to walk from Blairgarth to Kemnay station and then got off at Kittybrewster and walked down the hill.
O Would your father have had a bursary do you know?
S I've no idea.
O No, it was the bursary competition was the big thing in those days.
S It was a big thing even when I went up.
O Did you have a bursary, did it interest you?
S Yes, I'm ashamed to say I was first bursar. But it meant much more even in my time than it does nowadays.
O Would your father have been considered to be well off as a teacher in those days or was a teacher poor as we think we are nowadays?
S Difficult question. I don't think they regarded themselves as particularly well off.
O Was it financially hard to send their son through medical school?
S They must have sacrificed. I had as all students had in my time, Scottish students had the Carnegie Grant and that plus a fairly substantial bursary as first bursar, that I think covered most of the fees. They still had to keep me of course but then with lodgings at one pound five shillings a week inclusive of all meals.
O All meals and heating and everything?
S Everything, one pound five.
O And your washing?
S No, I used to send that home.
O Where did you live as a student?
S I lived in Victoria Street and then in Waverley Place just round the corner.
O Was it a landlady who had lots of students?
S A landlady of the old fashioned type.
O In what way?
S They looked after their students and were interested in them. There were just two of us. I was in with a chap in my year, George Sinclair whose sister is Lady Noble, and Fraser Noble the former Principal and Barbara used to be round in our digs quite frequently.
O Did you share a room with your friend?
S We shared a room and we had a bedroom with two beds, that and a sitting room.
O And a coal fire I suppose?
S A coal fire all through the war, yes.
O That would have been difficult for your landlady because coal was in fairly short supply?
S It was in short supply and I think she sacrificed too. That's what the old type of landlady was like.
O What subjects did you take in first year?
S Chemistry, Physics, Botany, Zoology and then on to Anatomy in the second term.
O In the second term of your first year?
S Yes.
O Who taught you? Do you remember anyone in particular?
S I remember them vividly. The first meeting of the class in the Chemistry Department was taken by Roy Strathdee. Harry Griffiths taught us Medical Physics.
O They must both have been very young men at that time?
S Reasonably young I suppose. Botany was Dr Dorothy Downie who was in the Botany Department for many years. Zoology can never be forgotten, that was Lancelot Hogben.
O Was he a memorable lecturer?
S Yes, by far and away the worst I have ever heard, totally incomprehensible. There is a very rude story about him which I think we'd better not put on. I hope this isn't slander but he appeared on a drunk driving charge down in England some years after he had left Aberdeen and when he appeared in the box he only spoke for about two minutes and the judge evidently said "Is your client always like this Mr so and so?" "Yes" "oh well case dismissed". He was totally incomprehensible. I think he was so brilliant he had about six or seven steps ahead and flight of ideas wasn't in it. A memorable lecturer from that point of view but we got nothing from him. Fortunately the other lecturers who were taking most of the course were reasonably good. Hogben was a total disaster. At that time he was the only fellow of the Royal Society that the university had.
O So the brains were there although the presentation wasn't.
S They were doubtless there but the ability to communicate wasn't.
O Did he have an honours school of students who studied under him?
S I believe so. He might have been alright with a smaller group and that type of teaching.
O Were your students kind to him or did he get a rough reception?
S I think we showed our boredom. We did try to take in what he was saying but after about the second or third lecture we just gave this up and then dwindling attendances was the next stage.
O And no horseplay?
S No, we reserved horseplay for a few others.
O But not in the first year perhaps?
S Yes in the first year.
O What brought the worst out in you?
S I think pompousness was the thing. We used to have the trick of beginning to whistle to some of the North East tunes like the Barnyards of Delgaty and whistling and stamping of feet. The whistling in perfectly good tune on McGinty's Meal and Ale or something of that sort and this would just drown out the lecturer.
O How very disconcerting?
S Yes, but I think most of them knew why it was being done and I think they tried to pull their socks up a bit. I think by and large it was corrective. Indeed I wish there were a bit more of it sometimes.
O What did you think of your first year at university, was it a heavy year for you?
S Not really. Physics, chemistry one knew already. Botany and zoology were new to me but they were singularly meaningless, not well taught as I have been saying, but not even relevant to the needs of medical students. Of course in these days they really didn't know the chemical basis of biology, the biochemical side of things. It wasn't really a subject in that time. Nowadays from experience as a Dean since I think the type of zoology, the type of botany that could be taught is so much more meaningful. The first year was useful when we came to anatomy and physiology.
O And that started in your second term?
S Yes. Then we had the absurdity in the morning of going down to the drain and dissecting the human body and in the afternoon going up to zoology and dissecting the cockroach. This rather got us down a bit.
O Who was teaching you anatomy? Was it Professor Low or had he retired by then?
S Professor Low in my first year and Professor Lockhart in my second.
O Was there a marked difference in style between the two men?
S Yes. 'Daddy' Low was of course pretty old by that time and he was really rather doddery. I always remember he started one term, I think the summer term, he was going to deal with the organs of special sense, namely the eye and the ear particularly and we started on the eye with a very good lecture, morning one. Morning two, we got the same lecture and this went on for quite a few weeks, he had forgotten that he had given it. But he was such a nice old man.
O Yes, everybody says 'Daddy' Low with affectionate tones.
S Nobody pointed it out and then I think the attendant who looked after the lantern slides and so on, I think he had told him. It was awkward, it was sad. He was of course someone who would never have read anything.
O Do you remember his measurements? Low's measurements of practically everything.
S Yes, I remember being measured. I think he had the measurements of all the students for I don't know how long.
O I think Professor Clegg continued that, it went on right through till that time so there must be quite a body of measurements there. Were there any advantages in having a comparatively light first year, perhaps socially or allowing you to settle in your new environment?
S I suppose this is so although I think most people were keen to get on with it, particularly although it was 1937 most of us could see the war coming at that stage and I think we really felt we should push on.
O Were there many girls in your class?
S Yes. I didn't actually count but somewhere about 25/30 out of a class of just under 100 which in these days was a fair proportion of girls.
O Do you suppose that was a conscious decision on Aberdeen's part?
S No, quite unconscious.
O It just depended who applied perhaps?
S They took the people who were, as far as I know, best qualified for entering, the policy that has continued. Indeed Aberdeen has always had a high proportion of girls. It think it hit 51 girls to 49 boys during my deanship.
O Do you remember when Professor Lockhart came?
S Yes, I remember that very well.
O Was there anything that marked his return?
S He was just a dynamic teacher and I think his phrases will be known over lots of generations of Aberdeen students, "steady the Buffs" and things of that sort. He used to ask questions around the class during his lecture and somebody would start and they were obviously going wrong it was always "steady the Buffs". He was a character.
O A disconcerting habit of knowing every student's name which is perhaps quite a good one?
S That is so. I only saw him disconcerted once, this was really quite an amusing episode. He could be very sarcastic and one day at about ten to ten, which was ten minutes before the end of a lecture, one of our class members came in just out of devilment and walked up to the back of the class and took his seat and Professor Lockhart stopped and said "I'm so glad to see you, there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth etc. etc., please feel free to come any time". Of course this was really asking for trouble. The next morning at five to ten the same bold boy knocks at the door and walks in and of course the class just dissolved, and Lockhart had the grace to realise he had let himself in for it and he joined in the laughter too. It was rather an amusing episode.
O Did he start the Anatomical Society and Anthropological Society straight away?
S No, that was on the go even before Professor Low's time.
O I suppose Reid in fact who was connected with the Museum must have started that. I think it's in abeyance just now as far as I can make out. I'm not sure but my sons don't speak about it and they would have known it had happened. For physiology you had Professor Cruickshank?
S Yes.
O Was he new at that time?
S I don't think so.
O Perhaps six years into the job?
S Something like that.
O Was that interesting?
S Ernest Cruickshank was not particularly interesting. Hans Kosterlitz, he was more or less relatively new to Aberdeen, he taught us considerably.
O Was he an interesting lecturer?
S He was interesting, his English was picturesque, it still is rather picturesque. The outstanding lecturer was Burns of Stonehaven. He went off to a chair in London. I think a brother or a relative of Alexander Burns the water colourist. He was quite an outstanding lecturer.
O They would have taught biochemistry incidentally would they?
S Yes. Hans Kosterlitz of course his work later became very largely biochemical. Biochemistry was not a subject in its own right then and it was obviously beginning but we missed out on all the great biochemical advances. A little bit before the DNA story.
O Did you have a lot of practical work on physiology?
S Not terribly much. Interestingly we used to do our histology there as part of that department. There is merit in that too because you look at the structure and you're considering the function. There is a lot to be said for the merging of anatomy and physiology as human biology.
O Then in second year I think you might have had Professor Campbell for Materia Medica as well?
S Yes, that began in second year. It was a very odd class. We used to have to go up to Foresterhill, that was the first year in, and it was a class in dispensing where we had roll pills and make pills and all that sort of rubbish and make up medicines and wrap them nicely in paper and put sealing wax on. It was really utter rubbish when one thinks about it now.
O But of its time perhaps?
S I suppose but it was already out of date then. There were plenty of chemists around except in remote areas and really to be judged on your skills of dispensing by whether the label was on square or whether the white paper was nicely tucked in and sealed with sealing wax was a bit much. We didn't enjoy that.
O But you wouldn't have been examined in that at that stage?
S There was an exam in it but I think it was rather a token exam.
O Would that have been in the very beginning of the Medical School at Foresterhill?
S I think that was the first year. This would have been the summer of 1939 and I think it was about then that the Medical School opened. The precise date I'm not very sure.
O Was Sir David Campbell then Dean?
S He was then Dean and continued virtually in perpetuity for quite a long time. A lot to be said for the Dean in perpetuity.
O You think so?
S A lot can be said against it too, but I think in David's case he did a very great deal of good.
O Then in third year you would have had Materia Medica, Pathology, Bacteriology, Forensic Medicine and Medicine?
S That's right.
O Professor Campbell would have continued teaching you Materia Medica?
S He continued Materia Medica, yes.
O Did it become more interesting?
S Slightly. It was really a negation of education. We weren't taught very much about the action of drugs.
O Was it known?
S It really wasn't known. Nowadays the actions are fairly well known. In these days we were given basic facts and then we had to recite more or less by rote dosages, tinctures of this or thirty to sixty minimums except for so and so.
O Do you remember it to this day?
S Yes.
O It's a pity one gets cluttered up with things like that.
S You clutter up your neurones with things that are on no value.
O Then for pathology you would have had Professor Young?
S Yes. You can hardly say the one and only, having been his 2 i/c [second in command] for so long. He was magnificent.
O You enjoyed his teaching?
S Yes.
O Did you decide you would like to be a pathologist at that stage or did that came later?
S That came later. I think I may have had the idea from John Young but it really came much later, towards the end of the war in fact. I'd been a battalion doctor from 1942 right up until the war finished and just before the end of the war I visited a hospital in Italy and I happened to know the chap who was pathologist. So I saw round the lab and said now this is the way to get back into the meaning of medicine because I had been away from medical thinking for three/four years. So I applied for training in pathology as a starter to get me into academic thoughts again. I liked it so much and of course John Young's influence began to come out again so that was it.
O You chose to spent your life in that speciality. Bacteriology was a separate subject at that time?
S Separate subject, yes taught by John Cruickshank.
O Did you enjoy that?
S Yes.
O Then you would have done forensic medicine with Dr Richards and …?
S Uncle Bob yes, my wife's uncle. Didn't enjoy the eight o'clock class.
O That was a feature for some years wasn't it?
S Yes.
O You wouldn't have done much mental health at that stage?
S Not at that stage, no. We did psychiatry later and McColman became lecturer in mental health and he really got a very rough time with students.
O Why?
S I think we were all so stupid we didn't realise the significance and importance of mental health.
O It would have been very unfashionable probably at that time even to admit that there was such a thing.
S Most unfashionable, yes. Quite wrongly, but that was the attitude at the time.
O He was interested in children wasn't he?
S Yes.
O He had a bit to do with the educational psychology scene in Aberdeen too.
S Looking back on his lectures to us they were really quite brilliant but not well received at the time.
O Then you would have been at Cornhill with Dr Wyllie?
S No, Dr George Brown and Dr Raitt, before Dr Wyllie's time. Dr Wyllie may have been there but George Brown and Raitt were the two main ones.
O They were lecturing in mental illness or something?
S They were lecturing really on the psychosis and that was slightly better received but it was pretty useless. I think the average student realised that if ever we wanted to do anything apart from the psychiatric side we'd have to start from scratch and go there. The result was nobody bothered again terribly much. The teaching at Cornhill or the Royal Mental as it was called very much was a case of demonstrations of the more outrageous manifestation of schizophrenia.
O It must have been rather depressing for a young student if nothing else?
S It was, yes. It wasn't a good class.
O Then you started medicine I gather at that stage?
S Medicine in third year and medicine and surgery alternate terms.
O Did you enjoy that?
S Yes.
O Professor Aitken was it?
S Aitken was the professor, yes. A brilliant teacher, a brilliant lecturer. A strange person, rather cold and unapproachable we thought. Once I joined the staff coming back after the war I realised that we had been seeing him in a different light seeing him as students. A forbidding manner but a brilliant teacher.
O How would the medical department have been staffed at that time? It was before the coming of the National Health Service, so there would have been a professor and …?
S A professor and probably two lecturers. One of the lecturers certainly was Eric Cruickshank, John Cruickshank's eldest son and probably another one. Then virtually all the teaching was done in the wards by the clinical staff.
O And they would have been funded by …?
S They were funded by their own private practice.
O Because it was a voluntary scheme wasn't it?
S The teaching in many ways as a result of this was quite first class because, it sounds an awful thing to say, but these physicians and surgeons were dependent on referred cases for their income in the future and they did teach their students jolly well. They set out to teach them well and of course you got then feedback in due course. When they became General Practitioners in the area they would refer to the physicians and surgeons that they thought highly of.
O Which was perhaps a good idea?
S A good idea but not enough to warrant dropping the Health Service. It was one of the little aspects of the old system that did pay dividends, the quality of the clinical teachers. When one thinks of the time that these consultants spent doing their Aberdeen Royal Infirmary or Sick Childrens duties for nothing. They were occasionally a little late because they would be at the nursing homes and operating and so on and so forth and you might have to wait around a little bit but when they came the quality of what you got was high.
O Of course everyone didn't have to do house jobs in those days did they?
S No, we didn't have to.
O And if you did you were rather badly paid, I think £50 a year?
S £50 a year and two weeks unpaid holiday. I didn't have terribly long at this because I graduated in July and started work in August and the RAMC ran rather short of doctors about this time so I was whipped away at the end of October, so I only had two or three months as a houseman.
O Then in fourth year you would have gone on to do surgery with Professor Wilson?
S Professor Wilson, yes. He in fact was away for most of the fourth year. He was employed by the army in the western desert investigating shock and Sidney Davidson acted in his place as acting professor.
O He was said to be a good teacher?
S Sidney was magnificent.
O Then you would have had public health and infectious diseases?
S Yes. Dr Rae, Dr Berry.
O Did you enjoy that?
S No, it was quite a different public health from the community medicine of today. We knew all about gully traps and drains, all this sort of stuff. Bits of it were quite interesting. We used to be taken on trips out to Invercanny to see the waterworks and Kingseat to see the sewage system and so on. It was quite interesting but hardly an inspiring subject.
O Then you would have had Professor Baird for midwifery?
S Yes. Well, what can one say. I think it's all been said already. I think almost all the class would have gone in for obstetrics at that time.
O An enthusiast?
S Yes.
O Then in fifth year did you still have formal lectures as a class?
S Very few. What did tend to happen there was we had a thing called the Dispensary. You've heard about the Dispensary?
O Was that still functioning at that time?
S It was still functioning.
O From Castle Street?
S From Cumberlands Lodging, which is now Provost Skene's House or in that area anyway. It was supposed to be fifth year but fourth year also went and that really was a first class experience.
O What did you do?
S We went down at nine o'clock in the morning and there were various calls came in, children, neighbours handed in a slip saying 'please call at so and so' or the patient came and you just prescribed for them.
O So you were being a General Practitioner in a sense?
S Yes and if you were in doubt there was one GP in town used to look in at nine thirty. If you were in doubt about the case you kept the case until he was there.
O So you must have gone quite early in the morning?
S Yes, about a quarter to nine. Then after nine thirty if you had any cases that you were worried about the GP in charge of your district would see them and then you went out and visited the sick in their homes, Castlehill Barracks.
O Must have been fairly grim at that time?
S Pretty grim places, yes, all round the dock area. But quite often that's really what began one's sense of responsibility. After that you went back to out-patients or up to the infirmary. Quite often one was worried by a case one had seen, have I missed a diphtheria or something, and you would skip your lunch and go back to the patients home. Then you could always phone the GP who was in charge of the district at his home at lunchtime and he would then come and meet you and check up that things were alright. It was the beginning of learning.
O When you graduated did you feel that you had been adequately prepared to start your medical life?
S I think all of us were conscious of the fact that we had a jolly good introduction and the scientific basis as it was known at the time, small as that may seem nowadays, we had that and we just needed experience. Then very rapidly you were whipped into the ward environment as a houseman and then within three months I found myself medical officer in charge of a battalion.
O It must have been a big step?
S It was a big step, yes.
O Do you remember where you were when war was declared?
S I was at home in Comrie in Perthshire.
O It was a family occasion rather than a university one for you?
S Yes, very much so. I was busy helping my father to arrange billeting for evacuees from Glasgow.
O So it was as imminent as that even before the actual declaration came? They were organising contingency plans?
S It had been organised for quite a little time, yes.
O Did people feel it was time they declared war?
S Yes, I think there's no doubt about that. There was a considerable difference of opinion after Munich. Most people I think were glad that Chamberlain came back with his piece of paper, peace in our time. It all turned out to be rubbish. But a substantial minority would rather have fought then. But in 1939 I think everybody said right enough's enough. Everybody got up and morale did rise very high at that point. It slumped at various bits thereafter but at that point the Nation was united.
S … the bit perhaps we were short of, I found this when I was in the army. We lacked practical skills with our hands and you found that someone who had been trained in some of the London schools were very good at procedures.
O Why was that?
S They had been doing it you see, they'd actually done things.
O Was that because they were clerks?
S They were clerks and had served time in units and they didn't have the same theoretical instruction.
O You were saying before I put the tape recorder on that you felt that you liked the theoretical aspect of your course.
S Yes, but we were light on the practical. By that I mean the clinical practical, procedures, venopunctures, dressings, plastering, passing catheters etc. The London based student was very good at that but we soon found out in about three or four months time when we acquired the know how their theory was a wee bit lacking. We began to feel somewhat superior.
O Do you feel that if you had been able to continue your pre-registration year that perhaps you wouldn't have found yourself in that situation?
S I think undoubtedly. The pre-registration year which came along later corrected this. Whether it would correct for a shortage of theory and whether that still obtains in the London schools I'm not going to pass a comment on. I think in fact it does but that's only my view.
O Did you belong to any student societies?
S A number. There were those anatomical/medical societies that one always did and then it's often been said that anyone who isn't a socialist by the time he's twenty one must be mad and anyone who's still socialist after he's thirty is even madder. So I think I was a member of the Labour Party or the Labour Society. One goes through all that. In sport my only sport was cricket which was the summer term. I played for the varsity.
O Did you run the Cricket Club or did you just play for them.
S I just played for them. I opened the batting.
O And that would have meant travelling to other universities?
S Travelling to other universities even in the early war years. This really packed up about 1941.
O Why?
S Difficulty of travel and arranging games in war time.
O Because the trains were so crowded?
S There wasn't the say desire to go away and play cricket for a day.
O Did you still play in Aberdeen on Saturdays at that time?
S Much less.
O Where did you practice?
S At King's.
O Did you have Wednesday afternoon for sport then?
S Yes.
O Was there a swimming pool at King's then?
S I don't think there was. It would have interested me because we had a swimming pool at school.
O Perhaps it was not heated during the war or something?
S Perhaps it just doesn't register in my memory.
O Did you have much to do in the Student Union?
S I personally had little or nothing to do with it.
O You wouldn't have even eaten there if you got all your meals at your digs?
S No.
O Did you go to any student societies there?
S A few odd things that one went to.
O The Union didn't make much of an impressions on you? There hadn't been one until just about the time you were there.
S One used it, it wasn't the be all and end all. I played snooker and billiards.
O Were you interested in the SRC?
S Not particularly.
O Would these bodies have been active in student life at that time?
S Yes they were, both the Union and the SRC. The student apathy was much less then than it is now. Things like rectorials for example elicited a full turn out instead of the 19% or whatever ludicrously low figure it is.
O I wonder what the changes are that have brought that about?
S That would be the subject of about five or six tapes in itself. What's wrong with student society?
O I think it's just too big.
S I'm sure it's too big, I do tend to agree. Not perhaps with the exact number but I think Lord James the Vice Chancellor of York said three thousand was the optimum size for a university. It's about right. The other thing that's a bee in my bonnet is that students of today do tend to confuse rights and privileges.
O What do you mean by that?
S They have very few rights, they are very privileged to be where they are, but they do tend to regard the privilege that they have being at university as being a right and I don't think that's entirely a good thing. No, it's not fair. The common statement that life just isn't fair and you grit your teeth and get on with it.
O Do you remember who were rectors at your time?
S Yes, vividly. I was very lucky in having most of the time, I think I just had the one rector, Evans of the Broke, ERGR Evans. Evans who went with Scott to the Antarctic.
O Did he spend much time in Aberdeen?
S He was up there at least once a term. Looking at it now I don't think he ever chaired the University Court but then the chairing of the University Court by the Rector was a bit of a nonsense. Fortunately most of them take the minutes and then hand over the chair to the Principal. So the work gets done. That isn't to say there haven't been good Rectors who can contribute quite a bit. I think the calibre of the candidates for Rector in these days was high.
O Perhaps that attracted the students' interest as well?
S Yes. They didn't invite top comedians like Jimmy Edwards and so on and so forth.
O I think he was the Rector in our day. Do you remember the rectorial elections?
S Yes.
O There had been a big turnout. The nations would have been …?
S The nations met it was a very archaic proceeding.
O A pleasant one I thought.
S A very pleasant proceeding.
O I was sorry when they abolished that.
S Yes, the possibility however did exist a minority overall vote could get a candidate in. It only needed one nation to have an overwhelming vote for a candidate and that candidate to do badly in the others and the sum total of votes could very much be for x yet he didn't carry the nations so y got it.
O Do you remember rectorial battles?
S No, they were on the go but I kept clear of them.
O Did you have anything to do with the student show?
S Not with the student show.
O Did you go to see it?
S Yes.
O Did they have student shows through the war or did that give up as well.
S That I can't remember, but certainly one saw the student shows. Dorothy Kidd and Douglas Marr the leading figures. The other thing I was interested in and had a lot to do with was the OTC which was strong in Aberdeen.
O Was it strong when you went up?
S Yes.
O Did you join at the beginning of your course or later on?
S I joined at the beginning because I had been in the OTC at school and had five years service in by the time I came up.
O So you were an enthusiast already. What did that involve, weekends?
S Not really, it simply involved drill nights for I think one night a week.
O Where did they meet?
S The Medical Unit met at Marischal and the Infantry Unit met at King's. There were two separate units. Then summer camp and there were occasional field days at the weekend.
O I don't think there's still two separate units is there?
S I should know being on the Military Education Committee but I don't.
O Did the war make any different to the OTC? Did you get any sort of ARP work to do?
S Yes, in fact joining the OTC became obligatory for medical students. That was my first lesson in the futility of conscription or national service. Because of my background in the OTC when war started I was just about to become Cadet Sergeant Major of the OTC and when we got all the medical students coming in it really made life hell because they didn't wish to be there and it became rather unpleasant. I can see now why the regular army don't wish to have national service.
O Because of the imposition of people who don't want to be there.
S My son's in the regular army and it's the last thing they want. They are highly professional, highly skilled and national service would kill that. National Service in something else, not in the services would be a good thing perhaps but of course you might have the same applying then that they didn't want to do it therefore they would be a nuisance. It's a very difficult question.
O Did you get involved with fire fighting during the bombing in Aberdeen?
S Yes. The staff used to have to do the fire watching at Foresterhill, Marischal and King's and the OTC members were their task force and I think it was a fortnightly duty rosta. I remember because I was Sergeant Major of the OTC and they were one staff light and I had to command the fire watching and fire fighting picket at Marischal once a fortnight. I always remember being terrified of that. Part of your duty was to go round Marischal College twice during the night and make your rounds, showing minimum light, and to walk through some of the anthropological museums in the virtual pitch darkness all on one's own was rather scary. Then you had to pay, you got your envelope with the money, the chaps had all had to be paid.
O They got paid?
S I forget what it was, a nominal sum for their evening meal and breakfast.
O Do you remember when Aberdeen was bombed, 1940?
S I was around at the time. I was on holiday but I was living in Aberdeen and I remember the bombing of Aberdeen. I went up to the hospital and spent a busy afternoon and evening.
O But as a medical student they left you where you were to complete your training? They didn't call you up like in Lockhart's time in the first World War he went off as a surgeon lieutenant for some time?
S No, those of us who had OTC service in I think we all went by the gentleman's agreement that we had with the War Office and volunteered but we very smartly were told you just stick at your job. So it meant that I didn't get into the army until 1942.
O By which time you had your degree and you had three months as a houseman under your belt. Then you went as you said as a battalion medical officer, was that sort of general practice duties or surgical duties?
S It was just looking after the well being of nine hundred to a thousand men. Looking after them mainly in peace time conditions and again in battle when they were getting hit.
O Then you came back to Aberdeen in 1947?
S Yes. I should have got out in 1946 but because I had been accepted for and been trained in pathology, although the university tried to get me out on an early release they didn't succeed, so I came back in 1947 and joined the department then.
O As a lecturer?
S I think I was an assistant.
O That was again in the same department, the same premises as you had left as a student?
S Yes.
O You don't know where pathology was in the Woolmanhill building do you?
S The university side of pathology was at Marischal but where the clinical pathology with the chap called Duncan was in Woolmanhill I don't know.
O Would the professor of pathology had much of a clinical responsibility when it was at Marischal.
S Yes, for post-mortem work and for biopsies and this increased in John Young's time and by the time they went up to Foresterhill the university pathology department was really doing all the histopathology for the hospital.
O What would that have left for the other lot?
S Nothing. It ceased to exist except that bit which was based at the City Hospital which looked after itself, Dr John Smith.
O Which was?
S Mainly bacteriology.
O So that bacteriology at Foresterhill wouldn't have been so much of a service department as pathology was?
S It was fairly heftily a service department too.
O But not perhaps the routine testing sort of thing?
S A lot of that was done at the City which even in these days was the fever hospital. But then bacteriology had blood transfusion to look after.
O When did that start?
S I don't know.
O Was it feasible throughout your time?
S Bacteriology looked after it right up until I left to go off to the war. I think the blood transfusion service had started by the time I came back. It was the North East of Scotland Regional Service.
O When you came back in 1947 I suppose they were talking about the introduction of the National Health Service?
S Yes. It hadn't quite happened but it was coming quite clearly.
O Was everybody looking forward to that?
S I didn't pay much attention to medical politics. I was, having seen in my home villages the straits to which people would go without, they hadn't the money to get the General Practitioner in, I welcomed it and I still think it is terrific.
O Did it make much difference to the pathology department? Did you find you had more money than you had had before?
S I don't think it made any difference. We found ourselves doing more and more hospital work and this of course has gone on and on and on ever since.
O Is that a feature of the National Health Service or just that pathology has become more useful?
S Both, until we reached the ludicrous situation that the university department of pathology now, at least when I retired and I see no reason to think its changed, is doing a vast amount for the health service. It was one of my belly aches when I was in the chair that the university wasn't being paid enough and of course there is an ongoing thing about this.
O Is there a separate department of pathology that isn't part of the university in Aberdeen, apart from the City one?
S No.
O Did you notice if the National Health Service made a difference to the staffing of the hospitals? I really mean the medical staff.
S Slowly and surely the medical staffing increased. Whether this was the complexity of the subject and the growth of the sub-specialities or it was more money becoming available or more patients having to be seen I don't know.
O There had been a growth in population as well as everything else I suppose?
S Yes, but all these things happened and quite a hierarchy developed.
O Was that good for the university teaching?
S I think the university couldn't have taught without all these NHS staff. There's no way in which the university could have covered as much as it did cover in teaching and the calibre of the NHS staff has really been exceptionally high. The two were just integral parts of an entity I think.
O The number of students hasn't grown quite so much as …?
S You must remember that from the hundred pre-war it did go down to about fifty for a spell which illustrates the futility of many predictions because they predicted the number of doctors who would be needed and then there was a shortfall.
O Whose prediction was that?
S Willock, and then we went up to a hundred and the prediction was that they were needing more and more, a hundred and thirty it now is and the idea now is that that's perhaps too many. They're not very reliable these predictions.
O My heading next is the impact of the development in medical sciences upon the structure of the curriculum after the war. When you went up to university in 1938 you embarked on a five year course for your MB,ChB and you've seen several restructurings and rearrangements since then.
S Yes. It became a six year course, then it was a six year course during the war reduced to five by inserting a term's teaching in the summer holidays. Then it became a six year course again by omitting the summer term and then it went back to a five year.
O Why didn't they keep the summer term, it sounds quite a good idea in a way? Was it too heavy for the student?
S No. I think it was largely staff, nobody got respite at all. Of course we have a five year course at the moment but the length of the terms is such that it's equivalent to a six year course.
O And the content is equivalent to a six year course too.
S I think that's so. In practice they're doing six years in five. But I think you could go on if you were to teach the full scientific basis of medicine. It's madness, you just can't do it. A ten year course wouldn't be enough and I think the philosophy behind it all is to try to produce a thinking young doctor who has enough knowledge of the basic scientific side of medicine plus a knowledge of the art of medicine to build on that whatever may happen in the future. I think five years as they are the moment, fairly full years, I think that probably is a good basis plus the pre-registration plus further training which may take another three years. I think it's all becoming more rational and sensible. It takes a long time though.
O The first year medicine which happened in the 1950s at least gave one a chance to relax into the university atmosphere and sort of grow up a bit. Do you feel that's been missed or are the students who come up now more mature or better educated at school to a higher level of competence in sciences perhaps so that they don't miss that first year?
S I think they absorb fairly well. Their level of competence is high, much higher than it was in my day.
O Twenty, thirty years ago an Arts person at school could still become a doctor. I doubt if you can do that now?
S It's not easy but this is another issue altogether. We have at the moment a very high going rate for people coming into medicine, I think they're able. Whether the people coming in are the caring people is a different story. It's very difficult to see how you could get that.
O My husband always says that anyone who could spot a doctor seven years in advance is quite clever so in a way you have to hope that they are self motivated.
S There are of course probably rather more drop-outs. There aren't many drop-outs in medicine altogether I think but there were even one or two in my time who just couldn't take it any more and something like the dispensary that we spoke about that was the thing that very largely made you or broke you.
O It's obvious that medical science knowledge has grown considerably which has given everybody much more to wrestle with both in choosing what should be included in the curriculum and in mastering it.
S All that one can hope to do is to produce someone that is basically trained and even if he hasn't been taught something is able to work it out for himself when the time comes. There will always be arguments about what is the composition of the basic training and I don't think anybody will ever agree with one another on that but the aim is there to provide a basic level of education by a thinking doctor.
O Did you find any particular difficulties in getting the sixth year cut at the university level, to cut to five?
S Not really. There was a lot of fiddly timetabling bits and persuading heads of departments that you could teach this in fewer hours. As one of the heads of departments said "I can teach my subject in one hour if you demand it but I'm not guaranteeing that what can be taught except that what will be taught in that one hour will be the very important things". Of course you extend this argument you can cut any course and if anything perhaps it's due for further reduction but you won't get heads of departments to agree which would be omitted.
O What further improvements would you like to see in the course?
S I think it's reasonably good as it is at the moment or when I left rather. I think making the young person an even more thinking doctor rather than a memoriser, any method of doing this would help. I think that is truly to realise that they've got to think things out for themselves, in other words education rather than instruction.
O And you were generally pleased with the doctors that your five year courses produced?
S I think so and the comments I've had from colleagues elsewhere are that Aberdeen has produced a consistently high standard of doctor. I just wish the UGC could be more aware of that, as they have panned us a bit for lack of research and they haven't in any way taken the quality of education into account.
O And yet they're supposed to be the university grants, they're obviously putting their emphasis on the research side.
S I think this is so wrong. Of course the research side yes it's terribly important but measure not only that measure teaching ability. Difficult to do. I think it is quite disgraceful that Aberdeen which has always placed its greatest emphasis on the imparting of knowledge and teaching of skill and care of patients and demonstrating good quality care of patients. These factors have not been taken into account in this exercise.
O Do you think that medical students have changed over the years?
S From time to time I've thought things aren't what they used to be and when I think about it they're really not all that much different.
O Would you say they come from different places nowadays? Are there more foreign students? Were there different ethnic groups?
S They came from all over in my time. They may be coming from slightly different places, Indonesia. We used to have a lot of West Indians. They haven't got so many West Indians now that they have their own university.
O Do you find that Mrs Thatcher's imposition of higher fees for overseas students made much difference?
S It made a difference to the extent that we lost our Norwegian students. That was a feature for quite some time and a very desirable feature. Then I'm biased because I'm a Norwegophile and I go there as often as I can. I don't think there is terribly much difference except as I've said before that they do tend to get their privileges and rights mixed up but youth's just like that. One thing is quite remarkable and that is the appearance of students when they come up to start work in Foresterhill.
O In what way?
S The sort of with-it appearance of dress, hairstyles and so on.
O Men and women?
S Yes, and then as soon as they go into the wards you hardly recognise then.
O The collar and tie turns out. Yes I've watched that as a parent.
S It's really quite striking. The thing that amuses me there is the girls come up with little bags and if they're in the wards in the morning they're all neat and feminine and obviously in the afternoon they change into their jeans.
O Did you feel that the Robbins expansion of the universities affected the Medical School?
S I don't think so.
O It didn't have much effect on student numbers in that Faculty did it, it was more Arts and Social Sciences?
S Medicine was set to expand anyway. The Robbins principle was something that I hold with totally.
O You like it?
S Yes. The real crunch however is when you say that university education should be available to all those who can profit from it and that reduces the number very greatly and much less than there are at the moment taking it.
O The Medical Faculty with its high entrance requirements of course avoids pitfalls in that respect too.
S But I think there is only a very small percentage of the youth of the country, or of everyone in the country, because with continuing education you will get more than youth coming to the university. A very small percentage who can really profit from a university education. This isn't to say that there aren't many who would profit from a polytechnic type of education and this of course would raise the question of whether vocational courses should really be universities and that includes medicine.
O What do you think about that?
S I believe it should, rather like the Church of Scotland having an educated ministry. I think the health service requires educated doctors.
O There isn't a lot of time for extra curricula education in the medical courses as it stands at the moment.
S Not at the moment but I would like to see more of it and I think if we instructed less and left just a little more to the student to pick and choose a few things. Why shouldn't he go on and take Latin to greater depths, why shouldn't he study Scandinavian books.
O That's what my youngest son's ambition is to do old Norse with his medical faculty.
S I can't cope with old Norse. I'm fairly fluent in Norwegian but you have to pack so much in it's a problem. I still feel we don't have to pack it in if we provide the right basics and there could still be latitude and still room for studying music, studying this that and the other thing.
O I've heard it said that the new Medical School at Foresterhill was intended to foster co-operation at all levels between various departments in the Medical Faculty. How far do you think that aim was realised?
S It was fairly well realised until the Phase I and Phase II buildings came along and then surgery and medicine moved out and of course before that the maternity and midwifery were separate and that really rather sort of took them away again and mental health was shifted down. But now with the finding that according to the UGC we've got too much space they're beginning to get it all back again. I think that may be an improvement again.
O If they'd continued building on the Foresterhill site and put a residence there at one time projected for the junior medical staff and for the medical students do you think that would have been a good thing?
S There is a residence.
O Yes, but for everybody, instead of them going to Hillhead and Dunbar and all the big residences.
S I don't think it would be. We did in the Union have contact with other Faculties when I was a student and being totally at Foresterhill I think that has, except through clubs and sporting activities, that has diminished. I think that's quite wrong. So at least if they live in halls they get to mix. I would hate to see an all medical student residence at Foresterhill of big size. The one that is there at the moment was designed originally for those students who were doing their maternity training, but that's changed.
O Now we go on to the University Court. You said that you went on to the Court after you retired.
S Yes, in 1984.
O What is the function of the Court?
S It's the running of the University.
O The business side of it?
S It is the ultimate authority in the university.
O Superior to the Senate?
S Yes. Senatus deals with academic matters and makes recommendations etc. but anything on the content of courses and the Court would never veto that. Whether it's got the power of veto in academic matters I don't know. I think it probably theoretically has but in practice it wouldn't do anything about it. Pure administration and appointing of people that's all Court business. Discipline is Senatus but again it's appeal to the Court. It's the governing body.
O You wouldn't know whether its role has changed over the time that you were in the university? Were you conscious of them?
S Yes, one has been conscious of the Faculty, Senatus and Court since I came back in 1947. I don't think as a student I knew very much about it. I think the students of today know rather more about the functioning of the university than the students of the past.
O They get more representation, theoretically anyway.
S They get more representation, they have the need to know which I don't think is always valid but it's felt to be. It's felt to be a right rather than a privilege. I wouldn't know if it has changed from my time in the university. I think gradually with restraints and financial stringencies that have come along, ghastly though they be, there has been a slow and steady and recently an accelerating shift of emphasis from heads of departments through to higher bodies and then now I think it's very firmly in the Court. I think this is so because the money comes from there and therefore they have got to be in the position of saying what is or can be done.
O So you are controlling which departments flourish in a sense because of the distribution of the money side of it?
S Yes. Whereas a head of department way fifteen/twenty years ago was a very important person, well he still is important from the teaching service research side, but as far as what goes on in the university, yes if he's got a case he can put it up but the Court will decide.
O Will the Court decide or will the Principal decide?
S This is very difficult. I think it is the Principal with advice. I've seen nothing in my time on Court to feel that in any way is autocracy.
O Do you find that different Principals over the years have affected the university just by the nature of their personality? You've seen five in your time. You just missed George Adam Smith?
S I just missed him and Hamilton-Fyfe from then on. This is very difficult to answer as one has gone up the university ladder one has seen Principals in a steadily different way. I haven't seen any of them at work for long enough with my own capacity static as it were. I think the Principal is an important person and a Principal's activity can affect the whole university. There's no doubt about this. He's not just a business executive commanding. It's like any great service commander, there are many different ways of doing it. Some of them do it jolly well and others don't do it terribly well but there are very few who get into positions of that sort without being good in some way. You may get crazy majors and crazy half colonels but you don't get very many crazy brigadiers or generals. They've all got something. The same applies I think to university principals. There is no doubt that …
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