This is Brian Longworth's being interviewed by Derek Hockaday, 31st July 2005.
Brian, let's begin at the beginning there. When did you first go to the act of 1954?
I joined the engineer's department at the Radcliffe as the Turner.
Well, most of the people in the department. That was Liz Smith.
And he had an apprentice and his name was Charles.
And we called him Spider. But I mean, that was just everybody had this spider.
He became a fireman, Oxford Airport, the Kidlington.
So what were you doing then? I was I was I was the Turner in the engineer's department of the old Radcliffe.
And when I was in the old Radcliffe. Yeah, but we about interactive.
Well, there was a separate block. There was a separate block.
And it's quite funny in a way, because might you remember,
Matron Preti is a matron already used to go round the works department dishing out cigarettes at Christmas.
Really. And she she would come down and she'd have her two ladies with less ornamental cups because
all the nurses wore caps in those days and she'd got these two sort of lieutenants,
if you like, she'd walk round.
But she used to go right round the hospital and she would go into the boiler house and she would speak to the blokes, you know, the stokers.
And that's one of the things I had to do for the boiler house was they had a special cast iron.
Well, it was like a plug, if you like, a long plug.
And what happened is it was automatic feed for the coal into the boiler, you see, and sometimes it jammed and they didn't want everything to break.
So this cast iron is very weak.
Cast iron is only strong in compression. Right. But it's very brittle, but it's very hard to machine because you get a surface hardening of cast iron.
So what you have to do is if you're machining it,
you have to get under the hard exterior and it's because it's self lubricating once you start because it's a lot of free carbon, right.
As graphite and EcoStar. Yeah. So that's what I used to do.
And I used to make these things and every now and again they break. So I'd have to make another one because the fitters were pipefitters.
And as I said, there were two of them with one apprentice. But I was the Turner.
Yeah. Because I, I did a city and guilds machine shop engineering and I got a final in that.
Right. So that was in Oxford, was it. Yes. They check out the camera and you used to go up to the tank half past six.
I lived at Woodstock. I was about 12, 13.
Oh Lord. Help us to help us nine and have to cycle home in the winter.
Yes. And you were working there. Oh, chef is there now.
And so roughly how old were you when you started the directive?
Well, I've I would be about would it be about 53, I suppose.
And you'd done national service? No, I didn't. No, I didn't.
What happened is I was in actual fact, I'd had a medical for the Navy.
And the thing is,
I was riding my motor bicycle and I fell off the darn thing and I was in Stoke-On-Trent with concussion for a fortnight and they wouldn't take me.
And I think the reason was I thought if the Naval Service had affected me, you know, they might have been sued or something.
And then I show and they said, no, no, we don't want you.
And so that was so you left school and went to Lucie's.
Lucy's right. Oh, yes. I went to Lucy's. And in actual fact, I got an apprenticeship at the depressed steel and I went up.
This is of my own, but I wasn't doing very well at school and and I thought, well, I must get a job and get some money.
And I went to the press still, who were reputed to be the second best lot of apprentice paid apprentices.
In England, because it was an American film, the prestige they made.
Yes. And they they also they made bodies for Rolls-Royce.
Yes. And the other thing they did was they did industrial fridges.
That's what they made. And they started to make domestic fridges after the war.
This was and my dad, because he worked on the maintenance, they got the second one off the production line and it lasted four years.
But when Dad died, we moved mother over to here.
It stopped never to go again on the front, but it was donkey's years and did very well.
So then you went from Luis's to the active? Yes, that's right. What made you applied there?
Well, the thing is, I was I was working at the cement works as the Turner, and I was talking to one of the blokes in the cement works one time.
And he was saying, you know, it was hard work we got.
If we did what they called dirty jobs, we got dirty money that was tuppence two pennies extra an hour.
And because you were paid by the hour. Yes. And we worked six hours on the Sunday from 6:00 in the morning to 12, and we got double time for that.
What did you do on Saturday? How many hours per day? Well, the thing is, they.
I don't know why, but when I was an apprentice at Lucie's, what they did was I'd done two years of the apprenticeship,
which was five years as a veteran turner, and then I don't know why.
I've got no idea. The only thing was I'd got this reputation for being very good motorcycle's because I've rebuilt
a lot of motorbikes in my time and they suddenly shifted me onto the maintenance department.
And there was one of the chaps in the mountains of the main turner was a chap whose brother started a motorcycle firm in Oxford.
And I was the second Turner and there was about five of us.
It was a charge and there was Arthur Barlow, who said he was a millwright, you know, from up in the north.
Yeah, but he was a very good engineer,
he really was a it had a he had a mate who'd been draughted into engineering during the war as people were, you know, they didn't muck around.
They just said, you will go to so-and-so and you went and.
And it was quite funny because this chap used to carry Arthur tools for him is the
mates always did and pass him tools when he was doing the job and that sort of thing.
And he went round to inspect one job.
And the bloke who was in charge of the machine that he was inspecting said, I want the organ grinder, not the monkey.
Yeah, and engineers. I mean, what you must realise that engineers considered the people that worked in banks as inferior were quite right to now.
But I understand that those those doctors, by the way, were all right.
They thought, well, you know, they're doing an important job because I got ARCI.
You've heard of that. Well, when you're doing OK welding, I have a very bright light.
Yes. And the thing is, you get this terrible pain and you get down to the hospital and they would treat you,
you'd go go well you was the thing is you had to be very careful because where they are welding was done,
it's supposed to be sort of cordoned off so that you don't get the flash, you don't arci and the flash.
But it's quite easy if it's if it's not done properly that you do get on it.
I can tell you what I bloody well anyway.
So that was one that was one thing. But what took it to the right level then.
Yes. Well I went to the raclette because I when I worked in the cement works,
we would I was talking to one of the blokes and he said, well, if you if you want to do you know, I mean, it was it was heavy,
dirty work at the cement works because part of the time, although I was the second turn,
I also had to go round and work on the rat, which I think of the little tank engines, you know, that spring.
Yeah, up from the quarry, you can still see the cement chimney today, which won over well over 10 years.
No, no, not Chinna. No. If you go along the road to Banbury.
Yes, I know the one. Yeah, that chimney down in the valley as far as I know.
I know the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, they were out there sometimes.
I was out there. Yes. For about 18 months. I don't know how you thought it was off the job and there.
Well it was, it was different. I mean first of all, it wasn't a dirty job.
I mean, believe me, working a little even little railway.
And it's it's hard work. And, you know, I mean, we used to use we had a large selection of spanners, brittle spanners,
and we used to put soak the nuts, which were very rusty in parts of the engine.
We used to put cotton waste around them and set them with release oil.
And then we put a a spanner on them and we'd hammer it round with a sledgehammer, literally, and we never broke it.
So did you get paid better in there? A. No, it was no.
In actual fact, to be quite honest, I wasn't paid as well, because the thing is,
there was no overtime in the radclyffe, you know, but it was it was a more interesting job.
Yes. And I as I said, I was the Turner. So, I mean, I didn't do any pipe wrestling or anything like the pipefitters did.
And I did say to you didn't know about the West, the plumber and his brother.
They they did old fashioned plumbing, but the pipefitters did all the all the radiators, that sort of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And also the water, some of some of the water pipes,
but not all of them because some of it was done I say by the plumbers and that was
Les Mis and that bloke Fred who you've seen in the photograph and his apprentice.
So where are we now and where you just can't do it.
How many hours a day, a week it be working? Well, the statutory engineers week was forty four hours and it changed in 1947.
It used to be it used to be 47.
And the unions were agitating for years.
Because you had to go in on a Saturday morning and most a lot of blokes said, oh, they didn't want to work on Saturday morning,
and in the end they decided that 47 hours was too much cut out the Saturday, 44 hours.
My my dad got furious because he was a strong union man.
And he said for years and years we fought to get rid of Saturday morning.
And now what do they do? They go in and get overtime time and a quarter.
Well, that's right. I mean, in a hospital, you don't have a Saturday.
Well, yes. Well, were you I mean, Arthur Parish and I at one time, I mean, we had to do some I can't remember what it was.
It involves some machinery for the main operating theatres. And the only time we could do it was Saturday afternoon, which they weren't busy.
You remember the movie theatres? Yes. You know, and Mr Elliott Smith is.
Yes, I do. And Mr Mr Corey is a Mr Abernathy is.
And Mr Abernathy. Well, that bloke Les Smith was walking down the corridor and he got his apprentice with him, shot this bloke,
these young chaps by the Giles and he was explaining different parts of the hospital, you know, from Piccadilly down.
And Mr Abernathy walked along nicely and he said, as Mr Albanese said, Mr Abernathy specialises in haemorrhoid.
What's haemorrhoids? Well, that's veins, you know, in your back pocket.
You see, we call Mr Abernathy the arsehole cream and he and Spartacist the also king.
And he said, shut up, because they love your guts for God.
They said, And did you do the same every day because you were not you used to arrive at work and find out what you had to do?
Well, that's right. Yes. Well, some sometimes I mean, I've repaired dressing drums, you remember?
Yes, I did. And did you know that the chap that used to do it, his mother and father were members of the university,
but I'm afraid the brains didn't continue to him. And unfortunately, he was a nice enough bloke.
But, you know, one would have expected with both his mother and father to me, but it wasn't pennachio and, you know, just the luck of the draw.
So you know better than I did when I was thing.
Right. Anyway, after a while, there was a vacancy came up because.
Did you know Alfie Lord? No. Right. Well, Alfie Lord worked in where the telescope used to be.
Yeah. And he was a technician. And the bloke in charge of him in effect was Dr MacFarland.
And he knew. Yes. The Blattmann. Yeah.
And it's quite interesting because I was telling Brenda Evans husband, David was a consultant.
He told says that you knew that. And I said, oh, I know somebody was involved.
He planned to use it, talked on the phone. Oh, Dr.
Foley. Subsequently he became a fellow of the Royal Society.
Yes. Yes. Then so a into interviewed me for a job because what I did was I wanted to I wanted to get out of the engineering department and I mean,
it wasn't a bad job and I enjoyed myself.
But I mean, let's face it, we weren't highly regarded by a lot of the staff that we were just pairs of hands.
Yeah, but Alfie Lord, in that workshop, I mean, he was as I said earlier, he was a post office trained and he was good at electronics as it was then.
And and he got an assistant who was just an ordinary technician.
And I applied to take his place while he did national service.
And so I went over there and the first job I was slightly involved with was a machine that was all made of stainless steel in 58 GI.
And it was the top quality stuff, but it was very, very tough, difficult to work.
So I got only involved in that in the last bit.
And then they wanted photographs taken in the operating theatre.
And Mike Gardener is right.
He was going backwards and forwards all over the place. And the thing was.
What he did was he got this camera called a robot royal.
And this was a wind up camera and it's film, obviously, because this is years and years ago.
And what they what he now feels and I did was to make this I mean, I was only the pair of hands.
I mean, I don't claim anything else. Also, there was a chap that worked in that outfit or do very poorly with one of the doctors who was a Quaker.
He was a Ph.D. He wasn't a medical bloke. No, I can't remember his name, but he was a Quaker.
And he he and Alfie used to do all sorts of things together.
It's quite funny because the first one I got the job, I was interviewed by Dr MacFarland and he said to me at the time,
he said, if you know we like you, we will ensure that you stay in the hospital in employment.
And he said, So this is only a temporary appointment basically for about 11 months.
Yes. But he said we will not let you go.
We will find you another job in the United Oxford Hospital, which they did.
And at any rate, this robot royal camera we were, which was fitted in this thing.
And what it did was it had two fields of view and it was remote controlled by the surgeon with pads on the floor.
You pressed one pad and it had one field and then you press the other pad and it had a different field.
And then when you saw what you wanted,
you put your foot on a sofa and it took a flash photograph and the camera wound on because it was it was a window.
It was a mechanical device just wound until the next exposure.
So when we finished, we were invited to go in and Mr Elliott Smith was doing the operation.
And who was his housemate? Somebody that ran a mile very Bannister, Japan, as we was.
And they said, come, come close. You know, this is what we thank you for doing this.
You only it was Alfie lowered mainly. I mean, I was only I the boy and when that went very strange, was about to come back.
They got me a job in the X-ray department but never heard that.
Did you work at all with and I mean did not to see him.
No, no, no. I mean he would he would know.
I mean we would see him occasionally because he used to come in with somebody, one of the other doctors.
And of course, he was quite an important bloke, you know. You know, I mean, actually, he was a very nice.
Yes. You know, he really was a gentleman. Yes, that's right.
And and the thing is, apparently the story went that, you know, he got this woman that was a biochemist.
Well, she married this German bloke who was a storm trooper.
And her name when she got married was a willcock.
And Alfie came in. Alfie came in to me one day and he said, oh, you know, talk to people.
I said, yes, she dropped the cock if I delivered.
And and he and he was this young and he was a big bloke and he didn't pretend to be anything else.
I was I was in the SS s SS, you know, what was he doing?
You know, she married, you know. I know.
But in the UK was he was thinking if she got him a job driving one of the blood transfusion because she she got she got a bit of influence there,
I'm sure. That's right. Yeah.
It was quite amazing, actually, that I did.
I met him several times and he was you know, he was all right.
Yes. He was a big bloke, you know. And I should say, the one thing about him, he didn't make any apologies for it.
And he just said, well, you know, I was a stormtrooper, you know.
Yeah. And somebody had to do it. So then, Brian, you went on from Macfarlane.
Oh, then haematologists. Yeah, well, once we'd done that camera, the thing is they Terry Strange came back from Busari.
I've seen him. Do you. Yeah, well, he he used to play for Oxford in the minor counties cricket.
Yeah. And he was a fast bowler. Yeah. And one of the blokes Electrum always fancied his chances as a batsman and I said, did you know Terry?
And he said, oh, he was pretty quick. He, he played for the R.A.F. cricket team and he was the only.
Rank in the team. Everybody else was in officer here, but I have none of the officers who go about this quickly.
But I mean, you know, he was quite a sportsman if he played football for the YMCA in Oxford.
I mean, I played football against him to his name.
I got on very well with him, you know, and he came back. And then, as I say, the thing is they transferred me up to the X-ray department.
Now I'm I don't know much about electronics. And I stayed there for a while.
And Fred Kemp. Yes, course.
And Alan Nichols was the chief technician. Yes. You knew Alan.
Never know. Well, we were one of Dr Kemp's things was these X-ray machines in shoe shops and.
Yes. And he was dead against that.
And also what we had to do was we had to we used some sort of plastic with lead in it to sort of make sure that the X-rays didn't go here,
there and everywhere. It's sort of only where they wanted them to go.
And, of course, what they were doing and they were he was very hot on any X-rays, you know, that cut them down.
And one of the things we did was we got these what they call fig leaves.
So what we did was we moulded pieces of Perspex and we put leg sheet on it.
So we had for the blokes the testicles and the ladies, the ovaries.
And Dr Kemp came over to the workshop one day and said, I'm a bit worried, Dr Kemp.
Why? So Nikko's well doctor can be said, these young girls, these radiographers, they've got to put these things on men over the testicles.
And he said they're young girls. He died of laughing.
He said nichols' and ho, ho, ho.
I almost tears running down his face. And he said, Nickols, haven't you heard of the thing about hospitals?
Oh, no doctor can. Well, because he said hospitals are a place of many, many virtues, but almost as many vices.
And today it was near the front of the hospital. Azerrad. Yes, it was.
But we used it. We used the workshop for the X-ray department at the Churchill.
And, you know, years ago in the Churchill, there was gardens.
There was. And it actually was quite funny because Cutline trained at the Radcliffe as a nurse.
And then she what she did was she this was when I was in the X-ray department.
She we got you know, she got pregnant and she and I suspect you've heard of these pregnant ladies get strange desires,
says some one one Kathleen knew how to eat cold.
Well, no, no. And that's known. Yeah, definitely. Kathleen's phobia was, if you like to call it that was beetroot.
Right. And because I worked in the X-ray in the X-ray workshop, a next door was the gardener's hut.
So I used to come round and and they'd say, could you look a wheelbarrow?
Well, could you clean this or this, that and the other, you know, because we got all the tools in the workshop.
Okay, fair enough.
So I went round there one day and I said to the bloke got beetroot and he said, yeah, you have a bag of beetroot, no trouble at all.
So I said, okay, so anyway, I asked for two or three times and in the end there's a bang on the door of the workshop
one day and there's this bloke with a sack truck and the sack is full of beetroot.
And this is perfectly true. She damn near the lot and she would tell you if you ask in this show.
But normally the the gardeners are producing for the hospital kitchen.
Oh, yes, yes. Yes, they were. Yes. Well, there were quite extensive gardens because I there was no this building that's gone on since, you know,
and there were two ray departments and one was the diagnostic unit, which I was in,
and the other one they had a bloke who'd got a higher national certificate. He was the chief technician in there.
But they were the they were the council treating, treat, treating people.
And he and a national certificate is. Well, it's about.
Two years into a degree, apparently, I used to say, and it's quite a stiff course, I bet.
I bet. I mean, I could certainly couldn't get it. I couldn't do the maths.
I'm not very good at maths. I'm afraid it's one of those things.
At any rate, a job came up then with Professor Alison.
Is it the fifties? Yes. Yes. Uh. Wait a minute.
Yeah, 19, somewhere of 19 between 1957 and 58, that's when he came to the right.
There was no this is when I came to surgery, right. OK, now what happened is.
I was very friendly with Dr. Fred, right? Yes, indeed, and a clergyman son, apparently, he told me right.
And he's quite funny because he was talking about it. He was telling us dairy stories about medicine.
And he was sort of a houseman, I suppose, in those days. And when Kathleen had Peter, he Peter had some rare sort of jaundice.
And there was a woman doctor who drove like a bloody maniac.
I can't remember her. But she said to me, you know, your newly born son has got some sort of jaundice.
And I said, well, I did know that. Yes. And she said, I think he'd be perfectly all right.
And Dr. Rice said to me, I've examined your son's X-rays, Brian, and I can assure you that [INAUDIBLE] be perfectly all right.
But he said, I've arranged for Dr. Kent to see them. And I said, that's totally unnecessary, Doctor.
Right. You don't need to do that. I believe. You know, Brian, you must have a second opinion, he said, and he also taught me a lot about photography.
Yes. Is amazing. Jeff Fager. He was easy.
He was a very nice boy, because years later, this is many years later,
I had this sort of hiatus, hernia trouble, and I went in there and who should see me?
But Dr. Right. And he said to the radiographer, he said that Brian was one of us and he must have special treatment.
He said, come on, Brian. He said, I'll show you. And he he said, now you drink this water.
And he said, there you are. Look, you can see it coming back up. And I could.
Yes. And he said I said, well, I have to have an operation doctor.
Right. Don't be so silly. Brian said he said, don't be so silly.
No, of course you won't. He said, I'll tell you exactly what to do.
He said, what you do is you find some indigestion tablets that agree with you.
And he said, if you find that it happens any time you take an indigestion tablets.
So he said, you know, it doesn't matter where you buy them. He said, you know, you can use any of them.
I've always got some in my pocket and I've got something. Yeah, right now,
the only thing is I read an article in the paper about some bloke who got the
same trouble and he'd been taking indigestion tablets have used it for years.
And then he just developed this cancer of the oesophagus or knocked the acid in the tablets, I would guess.
You know, I don't. Yeah, but with the first driver on a Smith sorry, with the fast car driver on a Smith.
That name rings a bell, but I I can't. I've heard the name, but I don't know.
I know it's one of the one of the one of the things I did get when I eventually got into surgery was
they had a cardiologist at one of the hospitals in Redding who used to send patients to the jail.
Professor Allison, an elf to operate on, and he lost his life on the Fastnet race.
And obviously, he was a keen sailor. And he you know, but the thing was, because he he'd got a sports car.
I can't remember what it was. And he was he drove up one morning and I was just going out to see somebody, you know, at the entrance of surgery.
And I said to him, that's a very nice car. And he was telling me all about it.
And then Marg White, the professor, you shouldn't have delayed him.
No. Now it's you know, he was interested in. Cause I was interested just to chat.
Oh, you did. You did the wrong thing. They should have done that, I think. Nick, to you.
Yes. At any rate.
So you got into surgery. Yeah. And who is that?
What were you doing? Well, I was I was I was Professor Alice work to flunk out because he was allowed one technician but got two.
He wanted an electronics bloke which I certainly couldn't do and he got an extra navigator's sorry.
Anex radio bloke flew in Lancasters and he he was he worked in the Department of Physics in the university.
And then he saw this job in the hospital and he applied and I was the mechanical
technician and he was the electronics bloke because of his radio experience.
And, you know, he was R.A.F. trained, obviously, and.
Yeah. Did you know Mike right? No. Well, Mike Wright was a physicist and his wife was a perpetual medical student.
And she would do certain amount of medicine and then she'd have a baby.
So she then took her rest and then she went back again, worked again a bit more medical studies, then had another baby.
And in the end, she finished up with three babies. What happened to her? I don't know.
In actual fact, it's quite funny because I met her on a tube train up in London and she said, Oh, I remember you.
And I said, I remember you.
But her husband, as I was it was a physicist in the war and he knew about radar and all that sort of stuff and wireless wires and stuff.
And the professor said to him once, and we want to know all about P.H.
Most important, of course, as you know better than I do.
And the thing is this, that the professor said we used to have monthly meetings and surgery and the professor was
a very good chairman because I said something one day and one of the doctors disagreed.
And he and he said, just a moment. He said, I want to hear Mr Long with what he says first.
He said, we'll discuss it later, but he's entitled to say what he thinks.
Everybody gets a fair share of saying. And he was very strict on that.
Very good. He was you know, you could say and if you said something and you disagree with it and somebody else came
along because I found that if you talk to a lot of educated people in this election as well,
somebody comes out with an idea and then everybody has to show that they've also got good ideas.
So you so you need a very good chairman. Yes. And the professor was and we had one at Lekan who you didn't know he lived in.
He's in a care home near. Dr. Brooks did well, he was a chemist, would have to bring him in here and let somebody know he didn't run,
like what he did was he obviously was a deep from Oxford.
But what happened? He was a very good English.
And he would he would get the scientists letter, which were they were quite a lot of them.
They were all plant people, you know. Fair enough. So was Scott Russell.
He was at the weapons trials when they vaporised the Freegate on Christmas Island and put a nuclear bomb on the frigate.
You'd heard about that? Yes.
And Rube, who was the deputy director, who was a radio chemist, and he was one of the few people that knew about it at his time.
And he was on the weapons trials and they were talking about if you were in the civil service, which we were.
What happened is you were equated to military ranks so that they were discussing it one day and they said, well, were you in group?
And he said, oh, I was the equivalent of a brigadier. So they said to me, What were you born?
I said, well, I never went, but I would have been a corporal. And and that's the punch line, because I used to say to him, You're laughing.
Hitler was a yes. Yes, it was Napoleon and Hitler.
Hitler got things done. Whether you liked what he did is knowing whether you got things done.
And I mean, Allison came down from Leeds, was it?
Yes, he did bring a lot of people. Yes, he did. And he brought Sister Curtis, who was the old fashioned type of sister.
And one of the first jobs I had, there was a frantic call.
And this nurse, they they got on one of these things which tracheotomy like a humidifier is.
And this nurse had dropped to connect the thing and broken it.
And I had this call from Sister Curtis, who was a very formidable sister.
And I got this call and I rushed down and I had to and she said, I want this repaired instantly.
I said, well, it will take a little while. I want it now.
I said, Sister, I've left my mom that have any right.
We got on very well. And there was another sister. Maggie was right and I didn't know her well.
She she travelled. If I had a patient that had to fly somewhere, she used to go with them to look after them.
And she was, she was a real northern lass, you know, nothing wrong with that.
But never call me sister off duty.
Never call me back and Maggie. Maggie or something like that when I'm on duty here, you know, is and she was all right.
And I used to get out. But it's quite funny.
Cathy loves me telling this story because when I got in surgery, I'd got an urgent call from the ward, come down, the machine won't work.
And you rushed down, you know, with a few tools. And usually we take and I've only two, you know, which measures all sorts of electrical things.
And and you'd get down there and you'd see that they'd cleared up.
This is an ACG machine. No. Any machine. Yeah. Any any electrical device does we're using.
But the lead would be cold up. And I'd say it looks much better to us if you plug it in, you get dirty.
And the other thing I did, Bob Marsh, is he was because he was a physician, wasn't he?
Yes. Yeah, it was he was lovely, actually. I used to go to him and ask him things and he used to drop what he was doing.
And I thought he's brilliant.
But I realised after a little while was that the quickest way was to deal with me and then get back to what he wanted to do.
But he was a he was a great bloke. He was he was a very and he married a very attractive nurse.
Did he? And a side rose as one does.
So Rosemary Simpkins and I still got when I went into surgery and he said and I was quite keen to learn some, you know, I mean, I'm not exaggerating.
I was very good at anatomy because I had a very good memory. I've got I've got Rosemary Simpkins knows.
I've also got Wheeler and Jack's Handbook of Medicine. And the other thing is I've got an anatomical atlas.
And I used to go the professor used to do a lecture.
On a Thursday morning from Hoppa state to help us noin and then occasionally he would take you around the ward.
Now in those days we didn't wear nametags, but I, I was I was I had to wear a white coat when I walked through the ward,
which I had to do, even if I'd got tools to do a job.
But when I was working up on the ladies upstairs because we had a light and some machine tools up in the in the gods,
so to speak, I used to wear just a brown coat, you know, like a warehouseman coat.
And I went into the elf used to give the lecture from Hopsital in one week and the professor would do it next or vice versa.
And one day Alf said and there was about 15 nurses in there.
And at one time there were two or three technicians in the and the others,
they weren't all that interested just in doing the job, but I was more interested in that.
And so I stayed. And one day Alf said, we've got an example of surgical emphysema.
Mm hmm. And he said, no, I want you girls to come and feel it.
So he said, what we're going to do is this. He said, I'm going to go in.
And there were several words about, I don't know, a dozen nurses and maybe the other technicians have dropped out.
And there was a housemate whose name I'd forgotten there and I was petrified.
I not exaggerating. I was very frightened to do this because this was, you know, between her breasts, her eyes.
And I'm not a groper. No. And anyway, Al said, well, OK, come on, down we go.
So you approach this lady. And he said, would you mind?
He said, it's an interesting condition and I'd like these nurses.
I want to show them what it is so you can see me. He said it's cold.
And he said, I've got these nurses here. And it just so happened that the housemate was right behind me because we didn't wear name badges.
And he said, Don't I know I was nervous. And he said, Don't be silly, Brian.
He said she just thinks you're a medical student or another a male nurse.
So I sort of swallowed and it was my turn last, you know, to feel this thing, which I did.
You know, I wouldn't worry about it now, but it was very fortunate indeed.
Indeed. Yeah. Yeah. And it was only the housemates said, come on, you know, don't worry about it.
He said she thinks she thinks you're a medical student. So that's what they did.
And I mean, Anderson came down with a very good name and then they spend a lot of time doing the new theatres for him, is that right?
Yes, I did. And you worked on that, did you? No, I didn't, because the theatres were already in operation when you switched and I switched.
Yes, they were. Älskling did a year in the Mayo Clinic.
Right. Because the heart lung machine was given mayo. Yes.
For a Mel Gibson. Yeah. And lots of engineering firms.
Ford in America built one that was highly complicated.
And what else? We had some machine that did all sorts of fancy things Mr Shinar and came down and I think he was some sort of engineer.
I'm sure he was, but he knew a lot of medicine and the doctors were asking him about this machine and he did all sorts of treacy's, you know.
Yes. And he could talk to them in their own terms.
But then, you know, Americans aren't oh, shoot first and think about it later.
And so, yeah, Mr Shina, I remember him because it was quite funny because Bob Marshall and I were looking at it one day and he said,
I can't understand this, Bryan. I said, well, I certainly can't.
I I said, what do you want to do?
He said, I'd like to give it a good kick to your patient so that I.
Good. And then it was he was in there one day and that was, I think Wesley James.
Did you know him?
Well, he was the reason I got into photography in the Department of Surgery because the professor wanted somebody to use a city camera.
And we had this as I said, I think earlier, we had this business where we had a monthly meeting with the and.
The doctors all sat round and the professor was in the chair and he went forth
and he one day he said Mr. Wesley James unfortunately has got to go away.
And there's an interesting operation and I want to film doing so.
He said, can anybody who's a cine camera. So have you done any photography this?
And I said, well, only as a very amateurish. And you've got a silly camera.
Yeah, I've got a little I think it's a check and put it you make but it's only eight millimetres.
He said, well, Miss Wayne has got my city camera at 16 millimetre, which was obviously a professional sized semi-professional.
He said when the meeting is finished, go down and tell Miss Wayne that she's to let you have it so that you can study it,
because I want this city at this particular operation tomorrow.
So I went down and I looked this thing and I took this blooming camera home.
Now, I used to live in North Oxford, down middle way, and there was a library just around the corner.
So I rushed in and I knew the librarian quite well. And I said good books on city photography.
And he said, Yeah, I think it's a couple. So he looked. Well, when I went in next morning, I was an expert.
I wasn't. But I more than anybody else about it.
And it was so simple because you just mounted this camera in the gallery and you focussed on what you wanted.
And then when the professor said, take this, you just press the button.
And he took it and that's how I got it. And we made a film about the whole operation.
Right? We did. I don't know. I don't know what happened to it.
It's probably long since gone because it was it was all film. And of course, it will be digital now.
Yes. And in those early days, the surgery was pretty successful.
Was it? Well, I think no, it wasn't.
I think about six I think the first six patients on the machine died to be on this show.
And they put. Did you ever know the deep Ohno's?
Yes, sure. Well, Tony Debono. Yes, it was supposed to be a surgeon.
Yes. And his brother was this bloke lateral thinking.
Yeah, exactly. But he was supposed to be a physician. He was, to be fair enough.
And in actual fact, Bob Marshall gave us a talk on what to do because, you know, they used what was called profound hypothermia.
Yes. And they dropped the patient's body temperature down to ten degrees centigrade, you know,
and they told us that normally if you drop a patient's temperature down to about 30 to see the heart stops automatically, I don't know what it.
That's right. Yes. Any rate, when it came to warming them up, Bob Marshall, there was a nurse to help me.
Nurse Djogo My name was and she had been educated in Switzerland, a finishing school, so she was fluent in French,
I mean really food and she was responsible for making sure I didn't muck up and sterile stuff you know.
Yes she was, that was her part of the heart of that was she and I and also Mavis Clifford, the ECG technician, helped those.
So there was the three of us. Tony DiBona was in charge.
And before we started this hypothermia, Bob Marshall said to me, we're going to drop the temperature down and then we've got to warm them up.
Now, Brawne, you are not.
You used the heat exchanger, but you are not to put water much over 50 degrees centigrade because protein mukhi angolite if it's hotter than 55.
And then, of course, nobody said anything. Might did honestly, I don't know.
I'm sure he'd have been a senior registrar there and was you know, he wasn't a consultant here.
And I don't think that, um. I mean, Mr. Webster.
Yes. Charlie Webster. Yeah. Yeah. He was an Army surgeon at an Australian nursing sister.
And in Korea, he told the Times that if he worked for Alessandrini.
Yes, he did. Then he became a surgical tutor.
Yes. And he he applied for the post and he came in and he his he said, I've got you.
Oh, running the show. So where did we get to? I heard no.
Yes, I mean, we got to Charlie Webster.
Oh yeah. Mr. Webster. To invite Mr. Kern there. Oh, well, that was that's that's nothing to do with this, really.
The thing is, Gutheinz is a bit bent over.
Yes. And we went to see Mr. Carr, the older actresses, and I was very impressed with him because during one of the professor's lectures,
one of the nurses said, which branch of surgery? So do you consider the best neurosurgeon when you did that?
Yes. And he said yes, a neurosurgeon.
He said, you know, he said, because I make a mistake and you've taught an intelligent human being into an idiot.
And he said that that is that is he said and this is bear in mind, this is in the late 50s.
And he said any competent surgeon will be doing open heart surgery before long.
And he said no neurosurgery at the top and very good.
Right back to Charlie Webster, then back to Mr. Webster. Well, he he he was quite a friendly bloke.
And and I had a barrackers fine on my left leg, which seems to disappeared now.
And he looked he saw it one day and he said, does that give you any trouble or not?
He said, well, if it does, let me know. And all of a sudden and then he became surgical tutor, of course,
and he was absolutely over the moon because as I understood it, surgical Chuter status, a three year appointment.
And he said the thing is, it's almost guaranteed to become a consultant.
And and what was his name? Professor. You know, professor.
What's his name? My Gardner's father was the Regius professor.
At one point, he was wasn't there. Yeah. And Professor Pickering.
Yes, sir. George. Yes. Yes. Because, you know, they went over to Cambridge and they they nick to sign, didn't I.
They did. Gorgeous Lane. Yeah. As well.
Who was the chap I told you I nearly I nearly had a job with him.
And you said it was a double barrelled name. Elliott Smith.
No, no. Elliott Smith. Mr Elliott Smith. So the you know, this bloke was a physician in the Department of Veteran.
Yeah. Grantly Yeah. Yes. Well, he thought I'd left the Radcliffe and I was working at Lekan.
And to be quite honest, I mean, bear in mind, when I was working in the Radcliffe, I was getting 600 pounds a year, OK?
And I was a senior technician and I went to Lekan as the lab steward, actually, at 900.
Good Lord. That was the difference in the pay. That's in the sixties.
Is it round? Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. About 1962. Yes.
And I, I went, I go, oh.
And you know, that was a big I mean 900 pounds a year.
Sounds ridiculous now. No it's alright. You know. And that was the Alsi there.
Yes. Yes, yeah. Yeah. It's got Russell. Yes. And they're doing no.
Sorry I interrupted. Hitching a ride.
So you are thinking of leaving that away?
Well, I was I was well, I mean, I thought the post in the medical department was a senior and it was a chief technician.
Right. And I thought, I don't know.
I mean, when I got the job in surgery, I read a lot.
I mean, I'm not joking. I did know a lot of anatomy. I can't remember it now, but I did know a lot.
And I thought I knew more than most of the nurses.
Now, the nurses, as Kathleen would tell you, now they're all got high levels and God knows what else.
But as Kathleen says, they don't know us now. And, you know, as an aside, we've got a girl who's got a degree, one of our nieces.
She works for Hallin House is and she lectures.
She's been around that. She's got a degree in this and she lectures round the world on care of the dying children.
Very good. But she's she's she because I said to her several years ago, I said, how long have you and I know this.
And she said, seven years. And I said, Goodness me.
T9 and Alison went to see him and one of the care assistants had put a cup there and he couldn't reach it.
And this is perfectly true.
Alison was actually disgusted with the nurses because she said there were three nurses there at the nurses station and he couldn't pick up his cock.
And she said they're not nurses, as I know, nursing. And so she she helped her uncle.
Yes. Yes. Okay. So you did you apply for granted?
Yes, I did. And I took I was invited to see him on Saturday morning,
and he took me around and he introduced me to several people and he said, this is Mr. Longworth.
And he may be coming to work, but apparently I picked another bloke.
Right. I must admit, I was better qualified to do the job than I was, but I could have done it.
Yeah, yeah. But he only stayed for a few months, then left.
And was that on? The protests were rough on everybody.
Sure. There was a big machine Grant had up in the old Regius Professor Department, George's line,
but he was building up the whole cardiac set up so it could have been just the cardiology department, as it were.
The right thing was, you know, apparent.
I mean, I don't know. I gather he was one of the up and coming young men.
He was is that was the you know, that was the impression he was he was he was a very he was very he was very good with me.
You know, he, you know, very friendly. I didn't get the job for.
Well, that happens. And so when you were with Alison, I mean, did you get any feeling that gradually the hospital didn't really approve of Alison?
Did that come over? I don't think he was very popular amongst some people, no.
But you thought he was a good thing? Well, I think he I thought he was now.
I mean, I'm not in a position to judge his competence as a surgeon because when he operated, he was quite nervous.
Right now, Afghanistan wasn't near the Afghan erm I mean as I said to Kathleen,
didn't like him for 12 years and I'm sure she said so because you've got this reputation.
Yes, that's right.
And he, his wife had been, she'd been herself, she was in South Africa and like he was if she'd been a nursing sister in South Africa.
Right. And she was a very nice person. Yes. I think we did go round there.
Did you ever meet Dr. Lloyd Rudy? No.
Well, he was president of some American business, chemical corporation like that.
And he gave the Department of Surgery, as I understood it, a quarter of a million pounds when a quarter of a million pounds was a lot of money.
Yeah, Rudy liked it. And he always referred to dogs as pooches.
And he used to operate on dogs, which Professor Ellison did as well.
Yes. And he used to go over to by Abraham and and they'd give a dog a heart defect and then they'd eventually because they'd kill it.
And in actual fact, there was a beautiful golden Labrador one day.
It's quite funny in a way, because the thing is this,
that one of the anaesthetist said to this girl whose name I've forgotten and what why are you the animal technician?
She said, I like animals.
He said, well, with your job, I should think you hate them. Yes.
Anyway, they bought this this Labrador and they they had a little deputations, several of the nurses, babies,
Clifford and others went down to the professor and said, Sir, this is such a magnificent honeymoon, we'd rather you didn't operate on it.
And he said, alright, alright. He said, find somebody that will adopt the dog and I won't operate on that particular animal.
They went round all the people asking, will you take this dog? And nobody would.
So he said, Well, I, I made the offer. That is it.
You know, it's part of the animal experiments. Yes. Where did you do that is where did the other one is?
There was a separate animal theatre in the Department of Surgery. Right.
It's quite funny, actually, because when this chap that was the wireless operator in the bombers at the end of the war,
Terry, did you ever know Terry Denton? Yes. Well, he was a right pain in the rear end, actually, and he thought he didn't think they did it.
The weather is quite funny, a little story about him, because one of the girls I know very well at that club,
she civil rights to us at Christmas, she she did something in the plant world up the tech.
And in actual fact, it's quite interesting because she took the advanced level of chemistry three times
when she only got on our level any time since she got three A-levels in chemistry.
But she she was quite a good doing the job.
She did that. It's quite funny, really, about her. I think The Science of it by Terry Denton.
She said she went to the tech, to Duke, you know, whatever it was she was doing and Terry Denton was there.
But she said he came in in a smart suit with a beautiful briefcase, very in a very authoritative manner.
And she said, I thought he was one of the lecturers. And she said he sat down and the chemistry lecturer came in.
Oh, welcome back, Mr. Denton. I see you're still with us because apparently he failed the Nationals several times.
I think he got it in the end. But I think you were telling me about him at their activities, right?
Yes. Well, he used to he used to work with Bob Marsh. Right.
And he would be in his white coat and Bob would probably be in his slacks and just an ordinary shirt.
And he would be watching at his desk and Terry Denton would be in there.
And he used to carry a tube of rubber curled up in his pocket, which like a stethoscope nowadays,
of course, Afghani was as far as either one of the first sling stethoscope around the neck like I do now.
But that was an American thing, as I understand it.
Anyway, Terry had this rubber tubing and of course, they would the patience to work on the treadmill and do all this with it.
I used to do this blood gas analysis. Yes.
And Terry Dent. And they would see Terry Dent. And I know Bob last week because.
Oh, good morning, doctor. Have come for so-and-so. You need to talk to Dr Marshall because he was doing something fancy with the Bloods one day.
And I said, come on. I said to Bob looks very technical, Bob.
And he said, Brian. He said, I could show you how to do that in this sort of thing.
Now he was and I said, say, is this young lady black?
And she said, I thought he was somebody really important. And she said it wasn't until the chemistry master came in and said, oh, well,
come back and see, we've got you for nothing to get to when you're working with Anderson.
Did you work with other departments or surgeons at all? Yes, we did.
We had a Spanish surgeon. We had two Norwegian surgeons and one of them, that one was named Sfeir Sky or something like that.
And the Alabamas How to Our Health and how his wife was a Norwegian GP and she had one of the first thalidomide babies in the country to.
Right. And in the UK. Yeah, I said yes in this country.
Yes, apparently, Mavis. I mean, I used to I used I Mavis Clifford now I used to be in some photographic
organisation and we used to meet occasionally and she used I used to drive her car,
take her out in actual fact is quite, quite bad because one night we had to go over somewhere over on the east side of the country.
It was quite a long way. And she had this Maurice like a minor drop head and she said, Brian, can you drive?
And I said, I'll drive. So we're driving back.
And it's quite late at night. And I suddenly thought we were out and he had them.
And I thought, this animal, this bloody car. And I thought, oh, Jesus, we got a bloody puncture.
And I know, I know. And it was late.
And I thought, oh, and I said, Mavis, I think we've got a puncture.
You've got a spare. We've still got a spare in the tyres. I said, well, let's get out and have a butcher's.
We had a look and I thought, oh, they're Mitchell next. Mitchell and X used to run soft, right?
And Mitchell and X were bloody useless tyres. They were so hard.
They lasted years, but the road holding was negligible. You can't have it both ways in the car.
You either have hard rubber and it lasts a long time or you have soft rubber.
And of course, it's improved because that was years ago and I thought if this is a punch cut, it will be a home out with a single girl.
This is going to be very dodgy. But fortunately, it wasn't a punch. It was actually next.
And I swore to Kathy when I got married, I will never, ever get in bed with another woman.
And I'm not exaggerating. Derek, one of the nurses in the Department of Surgery, came to see me and she was a brand new nurse, you know, staff nurse.
And did you know did you ever go to the professor's wine and cheese things?
I went to one out beyond Kidlington. Oh, yeah.
That was Dr. Lites place. What was it? He rented Shepton Manor yet.
Right. Okay. And he he had a marvellous party. Christmas party.
Yes. And they were dishing out the sherry in tumblers because they couldn't find any wine glass that these other parties were in the hospital.
Yeah, they were. He used to entertain the department. I mean, one one month it was every two or three months.
Of course, one month it would be the Department of Anaesthetics, another it was the summer, you know, different.
And he would go there. And you were allowed to talk to your own staff.
Well, if he saw you talking, he would come up to you and say your hosts or hostesses ensure that our guests,
Kosmaj, we used to go down to the covered markets, used to buy all this bread.
She used to buy a lot of white wine and all sorts of red cheeses.
Yes. And this happened every, oh, I don't know, not every month or anything like that.
Perhaps every four or five or six months, something like that, you know.
And that was that was him is now that's one of the machines.
Is it in the thirties that are. Yeah. That is that is the gibbon mail machine.
That is to give it my machine. And Alf went to America just to study things like that for a year.
Yes. Before he did start doing that. And is that blood.
Yes it is, yeah. And I told you the story about the fifty fifty dollars a point did not know.
Well, well you may have told him before. Not on had no right. Well the thing is this, that this machine came from America.
Now there is electric cycles. A sixty when I was a fifty.
Yeah. So the thing is all the American figures for the machine performance were American and they decided and this was with Bob Marshall,
the professor of health and several others, that we ought to practise with it.
So we got some out-of-date blood to measure flow rates and all that sort of stuff.
And what happened is these American doctors came over and they came in and of course, American machine very proud of it.
Obviously, I'm one of them looked at the blood and he said, what's that?
We said, it's blood. Real blood.
I said, real blood. But you're using it.
What are you doing? I said, well, we you know,
we're measuring flow rates and checking it and all that sort of thing and getting to know the machine because we've shown only just right.
Real blood. They looked at one another. He said, do you know in America?
And bear in mind, this is a what was it about 1958? He said that's fifty dollars a point in an American hospital, you know,
and they were they were gobsmacked and you might say were, you know, and summerell their hooved Tessa Morrel.
I can't remember that. Right. She was there in the sixties, but probably.
Well, the what was what was Tashima, which was a surgeon.
She'd have worked with Afghani. I'm sure we know lady surgeons had no problem when I worked there.
What there was were to it. You know, the department had all these consultants.
There was a consultant, plastic surgeon. Right.
Who came from the church. All right. What was his name?
Well, you could always tell the plastic surgeons because they were better dressed than anybody else, because he used to be used to be a a joke about.
Then what do you do? I'm a plastic surgeon. Well, what sort of things do you do?
Well, snip, snip, snip, snip. And Bob's your auntie and Mr Calahan, right?
I didn't know him. Mr. Callahan. Right. And one of the nurses that cutline you used to think he was absolutely wonderful because he was.
Very beautifully, and he did very expensively, you know, and the mother, you know, she she said, oh, I could see him.
He she used to say to Kathleen I could drop him for him going forward.
I think, you know, it was. And Mr. Williams.
Yes. A dental vote. Yes. Or he lived along the 420.
Right. And I only knew that because there's a house along there we call the Humperdink House.
It's like Gretel right near the far right near the turns to Bucklin between.
Right. And I was I made a film years ago for the Women's Institute and I met a lot of people.
I, I photographed the cottage hospital in in Burford and with Met, you know, as an advertisement for the Women's Institute.
And I did all sorts of things with that when all sorts of places.
And I was talking to her one day and she said, Oh yes, my father lives there.
What I said, yes. I said, Well, Humperdink, you know Hansel and Gretel.
Oh, yes. He said, you're not the first person to call it that.
And now there's one interesting story about that which is totally unconnected with medicine.
You know, most of the time I went to these very up-market ladies who were doing Meals on Wheels for the W in Banbury,
and I was filming them and we went to one house and this poor old deer have been beaten up and she was terrified.
And one of the they managed to get her to meet one of these two ladies.
And I say they were very upper crust types, you know,
and one of them would go to the door with her Meals on Wheels and she'd knock on the door and the poor old thing would come to the door and she'd say,
It's only me, Mrs. So-and-so, you're quite all right. It's you know who I am, don't you?
And the door would open a few inches and she'd give this meal on well, and then the young lady would disappear.
We went to another place. And lo and behold, what happened?
The we went in and we were invited in, the two ladies and myself and I filmed her and the two ladies,
of course, and her mother lived on an Indian Regius reservation in America.
And I mean, she was she was sort of pretty ancient then.
I mean, this is years ago and she must have been like seventy five eighties.
And she said, yes, my mother lived on this Indian reservation, she said, and it was miles from anywhere.
She said the nearest sort of frontier town was over forty miles away.
And she said, my mother was taken ill. And who cured the witch doctor there and did.
Yeah he did too in foreign parts. Now in State Department there was an arm and a lady arm in Yemen, Sri Lanka, Sudan.
I didn't know natural. She must have been.
I know one thing that happened was they had a warrant officer, their ex army, and one of the sisters went down and asked him to not smoke in the ward.
They could go on the balcony and smoke, but they couldn't smoke in the ward.
And he he was abusive to her and she was a sensitive soul.
And the professor happened to go down and she was in her office crying.
And the professor said, What's the matter, sister? And she didn't want to tell me, come on, I need to know.
Mr. So-and-so has been very abusive to me. He walked down the road and he said and I mean, I didn't see this, but I heard about it.
He walked down the ward and he said, I will not have my nurses spoken to like you did.
And he said, I value my nurses. And he said, if you don't like what the nurse says to you, there are certain rules in this department.
You do not smoke on the board. He said I. And you did.
And you were abusive. He said, I suggest you discharge yourself if you don't like it.
And then, of course, you wouldn't be responsible for a new financial.
And why did you stop the smoking? I mean, something interesting that's ahead of a lot of people, you know, going against smoking.
Well, they they they a lot of the anaesthetise, you know, the smoke.
Right. And what did they do? They all swapped the pipes and did did did you work with the anaesthetist?
Well, I knew what. His name, he became professor at Sheffield, as you remember his name,
he was a brilliant poet, and Dr Parkinson would always I remember as Dr Superblock.
Yes, I had my tonsils out at the Royal Richmond Hospital when I was five years old, and they'd left relics, as they did in those days.
And I used to get these attacks of sort of sore throats every few months and now said to me one day when I.
What's been your problem then? Brian and I said, told him about it. And he said, come into my office, I'll take a swab of your throat.
He said, But, you know, he was brilliant. I didn't feel it. But he was.
He was. But he was as calm as a cucumber always.
And he said to me, you've got some relics because he'd been an ant surgeon himself.
And then he switched from E.A. to cardiac and because he trained up that place in Capetown.
Gooch. Yeah, is. And any. So he said to me, you need those to be taken out.
So I want to see I went I saw Dr Paul Kalsi secretary you see, and I said I have an appointment to see Dr Parker's professionally.
And she said, yes of course you can, I'll make you an appointment and give you a ring.
So I was up in the workshop. Your appointment is with Dr Paul Casodex.
Go down to see Dr Paul Cross. And I said I'm a bit worried about this operation, Bryan.
I've never had an operation only when I was five years old. So died people.
And he said, I have no idea. And he said, well, if it will set your mind at rest, I will give you the anaesthetic.
So they prepped me and I was in the private bit of the Department of Surgery
and I will be down to the er a. theatre and I don't remember much about it.
But apparently what happened is the anaesthetist was about to put me under and the sister said, I'm sorry sir,
but this is Dr. Park House Patient and he will, he's going to come down to give you the anaesthetic, give the patient a city.
So there was a bit of who Hogge. I didn't know anything about this. I told me later.
So there was a bit of trouble and they rang off gunning and he said,
if you don't operate on my technician straightaway, I'll come down and do the operation myself.
So that endear me to them. Any rate, they did the operation and they took me back up to the private ward in which we had in the Department of Surgery.
And Dr Parker sat with me until I came round neck.
Yeah, very good. Yeah. Yeah. And in actual fact, I spent two or three days in the comes and Alford and we lived in Oxford at the time.
Now I arranged to take me home and he picked me up and there was a lady in the car as well and she was in the front with health and he said,
Well, Brian is one of the technicians. And he said he's just had his tonsils out.
And she said, oh, and I said to her, that can be more painful than the whole operation.
And he said, Do you know what we used to do? We said we used to get them to eat dry toast.
Right. I wouldn't have thought that was a good thing.
But, you know. And then other needs that you work with, any other anaesthetists.
Yes, that was one that came down from Thomas's. It was to know because we've got lots of instruments, quite a lot.
And I was trying to run the machine and yeah, I've got this because it was cutting and everything.
So I can't operate a rocket for cutting it off in the operation.
But every time I try to do, you know what it's like, it's in the way it gets in the way if got a rocket from now.
Dr. Paul Curtis is a marvellous back in. To tell you another thing about him, we had a lady anaesthetist.
I can't remember her name and she wasn't a very nice person.
And one of the anaesthetic nurses shouldn't have done it.
She just went off to lunch and the girl came back and this woman anaesthetist tour of a strip in front of everybody, about 15 people.
The next anaesthetic nurse did the same to Dr. Pokaski cheap.
But he didn't do that. He her outside well away from everybody.
I told her very gently that you asked my permission to leave.
Yes. I don't expect you to just walk out of me.
Right. You know. Yeah, but that was the difference. Yes.
I can't remember the woman's name. I remember. I can't remember Scheu 88.
And she certainly was. You know, the thing I did I'm not sure about.
You know, when you first went. Yes. Where Geographic Day was the engineers set up?
Well, there was a separate building in India at the Radcliffe down near the boiler house.
Yeah. Where's the boiler has exactly the to the wind.
So. Well, you know, the lady's college was next.
Yes. Some of. Yeah. So well I was down there, it was down.
I remember today that was down there and the Stonecrest used to keep a ladder so that the undergraduates on the side of the moon.
Well when Kathy was a nurse at the you she hadn't got a post one night.
So I round up back on the motorbike to the church, you know, passed.
So she promptly stripped off her skirt and climbed over the wire fence.
We weren't always like this, but I mean, there were friends of the church and they did.
You know, that long drive, don't you? Yes. Oh, right down the. Yes. Because, you know, when I worked in the accident.
When I worked to the church. Yes. But I mean, the long drive. But what either side of it or at the end.
No, if you went down towards the hospital, you know, you turned off the road, I guess then I'm in the road and on the left for some houses.
Yes. And there was some trees. Yes. And this fence. Yes.
That's still on the right hand side was the ambulance department.
Yes. And there was a couple of blokes I knew that was the chief mechanic and his assistant.
And I can't remember either of the names.
But one of them, I think it was the assistant mechanic had a boat on the Thames who the name of the boat was.
Who cares? Yeah, yeah. Dunklee, I think was that was the mechanic, right?
His name was Dunkley. I'm not sure. But they had a fence on that side.
Yeah, they did. Yes. And of course, Kathleen said this was the bloke she would tell you.
The surgeon. Yes, but Afghani would operate on most people, too.
Well, I don't doubt that it is. How do you take sugar in your native Afghani didn't like going on holiday.
And I think he's got three boys, right, that his wife has been in South Africa, nursing sister.
And he was quite funny because one day we were going somewhere because he used Rudie Light,
years old, Volkswagen Camper, one of the prearranged ones, you know, air cooled thing.
And he also had a Rolls Royce and a Bentley. Now, I can't remember which round it was.
One of the cars used to be driven by a chauffeur,
but he drove the other one himself and he bought this Volkswagen camper because he used to like to go see a.
That's right. Yes. Yes. Thanks very much. So he went home, so he bought this old box.
I got an elf used to borrow it. And we went up to London.
We went to Guy's hospital to see one of our mates.
Then he goes in there, two guys, and he said, We're going to meet Tony Ross.
He said, he's a mate of mine. And he said he was famous. I mean, he was very well.
And he said any kind. And he he said he said, don't you know what?
I don't see how you can help fill out. And and I was reading about him because he was on the telly years ago,
because when they when he lost the National Health Service, when he retired, he probably went over to Africa doing higher ups.
Well, at least. Yeah, yeah. That's very good news.
But then it was surgeons is you know, surgeons love to operate.
Do they do it? And they know and that's why I didn't want to go on holiday, that he just wanted to go on operating.
And yeah, he did it. And he said to me once, he said he'd been on holiday and he said, you know, Brian, he said,
when I got back, he said I had to do something simple, like a hernia, know, sorry, you know, appendix.
Right. He said I had to work my way back into surgery, is still there to get some comfort, get confidence back.
Why do you think I've stayed in this country and didn't go back to South Africa?
Well. And he an elf, would only talk about patience.
Yes, elf who's not not for a party. Yeah, he was again in.
No, I think that was the case with quite a few South African doctors who came over here yesterday.
Yeah, I told you about the two Norwegian surgeons.
I say one of them, which is quite interesting, he said, because, you know, all these unqualified people like myself.
And did you ever know what was his name that used to help Mr. Pennebaker Potter jump?
No, no, no. This this bloke, he he became like the theatre sister for when the previous professor of surgery, Professor Care.
Yes. Well, apparently, he just he met him somehow.
And the Professor Cairns wanted an assistant to help him with surgery.
And this chap did it. Yes. And he worked in the Radcliffe for years.
Yes. I remember about him. I forget his name. But he was famous.
Yes, he was. And he said to me one day, he said they wanted me to help with a guy.
And he says and he said, I refused. He said no. He said, I like to work.
And of course, he was he was working with, you know, his name.
Most of the other bloke living. Yes. Warper in Wilpena.
Yeah. And Mr. Mr Pennebaker, of course, used to smoke cigarettes.
What was it. Could get me some Puffy's or something. And he used to operate on Spine's Stoke Mandeville.
Yes. Yes, yeah. Yeah.
And so you're saying, well how do we get under the er surgeons again.
Oh well the thing is that it was, it was thinking about Ben, the bloke who helped.
Yes. And as I say, the thing is in those days, if you said you could do a job, you had to do it.
And I mean, when I went when I went into the hospital, I'd heard about operations and I'd never seen any.
And then when I got into surgery, I saw a lot.
And Alfred would come out and he'd come out at night if there was an emergency and there was nobody else on the shop,
and he would come out and he would grab anybody to assist him. And he came out one day and I was I've been there doing some work with Mavis Clifford.
The economy. Right. Which one of you chaps is going to help me?
Mavis said, I'll help you out. Come on then, Mavis. Let's go.
I mean, if I'd have been quicker, I could agree as well. But the thing is, you know, we did all sorts of things.
I used to intubate the dogs, right, for the animals. And it's like our daughter said, she said, and you will know this at least as well.
I adored her. But she said in medicine there is no room shy.
Violet. No, she said, your shown one, you do one and you teach one and that's it.
And you and they showed me how to interject a dog once and I was expected to get on with it.
I couldn't do it now, but I did it. And did you intubate them before they were anaesthetised?
You know, before that must be quite tough. Or will they tame those?
Well, they were they were they were used to being handled by people. Yeah.
Usually they were quite passive. And another thing.
Right. Rabbits. Yeah, rabbits. What did you do with them?
Well, we operated on them well they used to practise sewing arteries in rabbits.
And because it's obviously it's quite small. I mean now they don't think anything about operating on children.
And I remember Dr Parker saying one of the things about anaesthesia is you have to be so careful with babies
because he said it's very difficult because he said one minute they're there and the next minute you've lost them.
And he said, it's very tricky because I watched I was with him one day when one of the young anaesthetists
was anaesthetising and this patient was thrashing about and he said that is not a good job.
And he was telling me about this machine that they were developing and he said it was for battlefield injuries.
And he said, you know, he said practising with this, he said and I tried it.
And he said one sniff of the mixture and you're staggering the next sniff you out.
But he said that was specifically for getting soldiers out of class.
Yes. And apparently that was Professor McIntosh was right.
Instead of being nice because he was professor of anaesthetic and you were there when he was.
But you didn't work in the industry. No, I had a row with the.
Chief technician there, Mr. Salt, we don't know him as I knew him well,
he came in and he was telling me what I should do and I was hopping mad because said,
Mr. Salt, you are a chief technician in the anaesthetic department. I'm a senior technician in the Department of Surgery.
No, I said I appreciate your position, but you're an anaesthetic person.
No, I'm not. I'm a surgical person. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but you've got no authority over me whatsoever.
And I'm walking across a contract. And he said to me, You're not speaking to me.
I said, well, I apologise for that, Mr. Salt. I said, we had our differences.
And that's all over and done with. But I said I must observe the common courtesies.
Good morning to you. As it was he known for that sort of thing?
Well, I think with all with all due respect to everybody concerned,
I think some people were in a position where they thought, you know, they could interfere in other departments.
Yes. And I think that was that was it. I mean, I'm not saying he wasn't good at his job because, I mean, he was.
Well, I think he was it. Yeah, he was well, he was an expert in moulding things like rubber and.
That's right. Right. You know. Yeah.
Oh, no. I mean, you know, as I said, as Kathleen said, nowadays, you've got to have a string of letters behind your name.
And we didn't we just grew into the job. Yes.
And you could do it. We couldn't really. It that's when you were you as I said, you were shown what to do.
And I mean, another thing we did and this was, as I told you earlier, Alfred,
give a lecture or an hour, we'll take you around the world and explain things.
And several of the other technicians dropped out. But I was interested and I there was Brian on about twelve nurses, almost fifty.
And one day the professor was very likely to go around and he would fire questions at somebody.
No, I bragging now, but I was good at anatomy when I did.
I was pretty good at it. And he goes, well, my daddy is one of the senior nurses.
And he said and he asked one nurse, what's the name of this file, which he did all the time, you know, and I'm sorry.
So I don't know. So he said to this and she was I say one of the staff nurses, she said, Oh, nurse so-and-so, do you know the name of this baby?
She said, No, sir, I'm sorry. Sorry. He said, does anybody?
So I stuck my hand up, you see, when he should do you know, the I'm one of I've I as he goes right.
And he said quite right. So Kathy loves this story because the nurses all found out.
Of course, I waited until all the girls had gone as one should, and she was stood in the doorway and she was a big girl,
actually, but she looked down on me and her voice was dripping with contempt.
And she said, my we were bloody brilliant. And, you know, when I said, I'm sorry, I just want to be good at it.
But I tell you another thing that happened, and this, again, is a true story.
And one of the nurses of a long time before one of the nurses said about one of the patients, how long has he got, sir?
And he said, I cannot say this was during operation. No, this is in the nurses lecture in the right.
Yes. He said, I can't say that. He said, I'll tell you a little story to emphasise the point.
He said, many years ago I was a young halsman and he said one of the patients I was attending said, How long have I got Doctor?
And he said, I'm sorry, not very long. He said, 25 years later I saw this bloke and he said, not much of a doctor.
I know.
And if you ask our daughter and I suppose you'll just decide and you say and she deals as a GP with people with cancer and all that sort of thing,
and if they say, how long have I got? And she said, well, if you got a certain cancer, you know, ten percent.
Well, if so, yes, 50 percent will live much longer and you might be cured, you know.
And, you know, she she she was saying,
you know this you're not allowed to discuss patient's history with anybody else but the patient or perhaps another colleague in a medical,
you know, if you've got because she's she said they had one bloke who was a member of the Royal College of Physicians.
She said, now, that's a pretty high. You don't get many GP's with that.
Vacation.
Yeah, and she said it was very useful having Mike because she said if you had a problem, you went to Mike and said, hey, Mike, what about this?
And Mike would usually have the answer. And she said it was very, very useful to have that.
But she was saying about this business, about telling patients and they had a because I mean,
she was obviously a busy and she'd got two children and they were being looked after by one of the local farmers wives while he was a farmhand.
He was the cowman and the shepherd there on this hill farm.
And he'd got a relation.
And a lot of them were intermarried up there, you know, and one of the people that did help her, he became ill and he she was pestered by the family.
What is wrong with him? I can't I cannot tell you we surely you can tell us, you know, I'm his wife.
No, I can't. It's between me and the patient and I don't discuss I will discuss his operation with a colleague if I want some guidance,
but I will not discuss it with his family, anybody.
And they she said they got surety about it, but she said, no, that is what that is what I have to adhere to.
She said, I never discuss another patient.
I mean, sometimes she would say to us, you know, we don't talk medicine to her usually, but sometimes she will say, Oh, so-and-so.
But she would never mention a name. She might say, well, her husband had had pancreatic cancer.
And apparently she said he was brilliant because she said they said in the hospital he was being treated at the north.
Of course, she said, is he at the maximum dose?
And he was encouraging all these other people and he's been cured.
Wonderful. And she said she said he had the absolute max, you know.
Yeah, I bet you would. Good to know. Did you have anything to do with your paper at all?
Well, I met it right more than once because Meyvis took a photograph of almshouses you.
Yeah, absolutely. You knew that if I knew you went out there.
Yeah, well, he was he was something to do with it.
Yes, he was the warden. Yeah. And Mavis took off. Yes, he he told it actually.
I was up in the workshop with Mavis when he came up there and she got this photograph of this old boy walking across the contract.
So the contract and I was carrying a bucket and he came in for some reason I can't remember why.
And he said, Oh, that's also inside. How did you know that, sir?
On the wall. Yes. And he said it's one of the one of the jobs that the Regius professor does.
You know, one of the things and funnily enough, one of the girls over there used to live over there.
She was the warden. I there's something to do with those almshouses.
So long cutover of the Gulf at Ghaffur.
That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was I felt like MyFord. Yes.
Yeah. And and they'd rallied round.
And I mean, what were your interactions with David Pickering then.
Well, the social really well. I mean, he came up and he sort of I can't remember he came up to talk to Mavis for some reason.
She was I mean, she was good at her job.
She really was. You know, she she was very attractive.
You got you don't have to do all these voluntary things if you if you want a relationship, you you've got to play your part in the relationship.
I said Kathleen did. I took her to a motorcycle racing at Silverstone when she was on night duty.
And she said, you know, she said I was writing the report and I kept falling asleep on the couch potatoes.
So believe it or not, one of the motorcyclists came off this year, of course, on the motorbike,
hit the ground and slid along, landed almost as close as that patio is to us.
And he was dead and he just hit the ground broke and he was gone pretty quick.
Yeah, but we are seeing and can't even tell you the same.
We've seen motorcycles come off arms and legs fighting got off because we went I went before I knew,
cutting into one meeting at a place called Anstee.
And it was father and son were racing and the son came off rolling along the ground and his dad was leading.
And as his dad went past, if I used to say that he survived and yet this bloke came off dead and did the dad win the race?
I can't remember because they used to race one of these.
And so, yes, I had an and would obviously.
But the Goodwood Silverstone, we went all over the place.
Yeah, well, that's a good note to end up. But anything you want to say that I haven't asked you about, I can't think of anything.
No, I as I emphasise, I enjoyed my job in the hospital.
I would dearly love to got back into it, although it would have been in the Department of Medicine and, you know, what's his name probably currently.
I mean, he was apparently, as far as I know, he's supposed to be an up and coming young bloke in those days.
He was. Yes, he was. Yeah, was. And there were some I mean, I told you about Harold Dallas.
You did not. Well, I know not today.
Well, he did our mental graphs and he wanted to get some extra qualification.
And I told you about the story when, you know, they were all discussing something and he he was in there writing some report that he wanted to do.
And he suddenly said the answer to that is so-and-so. And they said, oh, did you know that, Harold?
Well, I'm very clever. And I I mean, the Bob Marshall was there and several other doctors, you know, mostly surgeons, by the way.
And they all laughed and he stood there and he said, I'm very sorry, but I'm very clever and very good, you know?
And he interviewed our daughter for a distinction in surgery.
He was a visiting professor. She went to Leicester Medical School.
She was in the firm. She was in the third intake.
When they're expanding the medical schools she wrote to, she went on an interview to Birmingham, which she didn't like.
She said, I don't want to go to Birmingham.
So I said, alright, and she qualified and she and she she went she did Ironi at Birmingham, which was quite a famous place, apparently.
Yes it was. Yes she she was doing psychiatry.
And they she she did a six month course in psychiatry.
And the bloke wanted to join his firm, but she said no.
And when. But Harold and I sort of appreciated that, I'm sure you do appreciate it.
That good? Well, when you read the article in The Guardian, the Tea Party.
Yes, it did. And did I remember him, too?
Yeah. That's a lovely interview. Brian, thank you so much.
Terrific.