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This is Chris Adams being interviewed by Derek Hockaday, 26 August nine to one for Chris, what really led you to aim for Oxford or applied?

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So I was keen to do neurosurgery. And I think the genesis of that was at Cambridge.

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I really enjoyed the neuroanatomy and I used to make a lot of their model aeroplanes and I felt I could use my hands.

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So the two combined to make neurosurgery and I was a God after Cambridge I the guys and then got a job.

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But the guys, mostly neurosurgical unit was Murray Faulkner and Peter Peter Show had been at Oxford.

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He was and Murray in fact, they've both been at Oxford and regarded Oxford as the sort of mecca for neurosurgery with Hugh Cairns and Joe Pennypacker.

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And so after I got out of my fellowship and got a master ship and I was sent down to Oxford to do an essay job, a book, and in those days,

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as if James were fairly senior and I had my fellowship in a Mastership, but who just of us in it was Mike Brooks and myself.

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And I was there a year and there's Joe Pennebaker and John Potter.

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And while I was there, a chap called Dick Guy came over for six weeks and I got on very well with Dick.

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He was very nice Australian chap from Sydney, and I didn't realise that at the time.

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But Joe Pennypacker had decided Dick was going to take over from Joe's direct.

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Joe's the director of Neurosurgery, which was a very unusual title,

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and there weren't any others I didn't think came from Cairns as best he took 11 in Kansas who'd been direct had their share.

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Yes, Cairns had the Nuffield chair as a neurosurgeon.

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Yes, I went to I had a son who was a thoracic surgeon anyway.

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I would then buy one of these remarkable sort of strokes, effect or lack.

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There was a neurosurgeon in Swansea that had a subarachnoid haemorrhage and he went to Cardiff to be operated on.

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Unfortunately, he died. So the senior registrar from the guys mostly went to Swansea.

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So I went from Oxford as a locum senior registrar, which then became a continuous senior registrar to replace this chap.

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So I went from message to senior registrar and was never a registrar.

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And then I was been there about 18 months.

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I swapped from Maudsley to the hospital, which is now closed.

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And I got a phone call from the guy saying, Would you like to work in Oxford?

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So, you know, I swallowed and said, well, yes, it sounds very nice.

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And and he said, well, I'd like you to apply.

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I've been appointed to take over from Joe Pennypacker and I need a second chap because John Potter's decided to retire.

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But in effect, yeah, same time he became postgraduate dean and a very Part-Time neurosurgeon.

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And so I applied, got the job, but I was only thirty two and started work on the 1st of April, which.

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Nineteen seventy two. Yes. And I remember very well, I've been incredibly proud to go to this fantastic hospital,

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the Radcliffe Infirmary, and I was welcomed my first day by Burrowes which is Cannavaro.

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Yeah, the secretary to the governors and he said, Welcome Mr. Adams.

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I, uh, I'm here to facilitate your work and he's a good man.

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And that was the last time I ever heard a medical administrator say that.

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Yeah. And I thought it was a lovely hospital.

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OK, that was a great collegiate spirit. Uh.

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And we want to get on we worked really hard,

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but all the consultants room was fantastic because we could meet and we could talk

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about and patients and it was a great way of getting consultation without any fuss.

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And then, of course, that law was abolished. So when I turned up, the tech guy said, well, I'm a director, so I knew he wasn't.

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And I said, well, actually I'm a consultant.

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And so I got a call and I'll do one week on call and you can do the other.

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And I'm afraid we had a bit of a battle over that. But I, I'd see how Joe had treated John Potter.