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?
So I was keen to do neurosurgery. And I think the genesis of that was at Cambridge.
I really enjoyed the neuroanatomy and I used to make a lot of their model aeroplanes and I felt I could use my hands.
So the two combined to make neurosurgery and I was a God after Cambridge I the guys and then got a job.
But the guys, mostly neurosurgical unit was Murray Faulkner and Peter Peter Show had been at Oxford.
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.
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,
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.
And I was there a year and there's Joe Pennebaker and John Potter.
And while I was there, a chap called Dick Guy came over for six weeks and I got on very well with Dick.
He was very nice Australian chap from Sydney, and I didn't realise that at the time.
But Joe Pennypacker had decided Dick was going to take over from Joe's direct.
Joe's the director of Neurosurgery, which was a very unusual title,
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.
Yes, Cairns had the Nuffield chair as a neurosurgeon.
Yes, I went to I had a son who was a thoracic surgeon anyway.
I would then buy one of these remarkable sort of strokes, effect or lack.
There was a neurosurgeon in Swansea that had a subarachnoid haemorrhage and he went to Cardiff to be operated on.
Unfortunately, he died. So the senior registrar from the guys mostly went to Swansea.
So I went from Oxford as a locum senior registrar, which then became a continuous senior registrar to replace this chap.
So I went from message to senior registrar and was never a registrar.
And then I was been there about 18 months.
I swapped from Maudsley to the hospital, which is now closed.
And I got a phone call from the guy saying, Would you like to work in Oxford?
So, you know, I swallowed and said, well, yes, it sounds very nice.
And and he said, well, I'd like you to apply.
I've been appointed to take over from Joe Pennypacker and I need a second chap because John Potter's decided to retire.
But in effect, yeah, same time he became postgraduate dean and a very Part-Time neurosurgeon.
And so I applied, got the job, but I was only thirty two and started work on the 1st of April, which.
Nineteen seventy two. Yes. And I remember very well, I've been incredibly proud to go to this fantastic hospital,
the Radcliffe Infirmary, and I was welcomed my first day by Burrowes which is Cannavaro.
Yeah, the secretary to the governors and he said, Welcome Mr. Adams.
I, uh, I'm here to facilitate your work and he's a good man.
And that was the last time I ever heard a medical administrator say that.
Yeah. And I thought it was a lovely hospital.
OK, that was a great collegiate spirit. Uh.
And we want to get on we worked really hard,
but all the consultants room was fantastic because we could meet and we could talk
about and patients and it was a great way of getting consultation without any fuss.
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.
And I said, well, actually I'm a consultant.
And so I got a call and I'll do one week on call and you can do the other.
And I'm afraid we had a bit of a battle over that. But I, I'd see how Joe had treated John Potter.