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This is Derek Hockaday talking with much investor at his home in Fallbrook on the 4th of June to one for Martin.

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Just tell me how you came to come to Oxford. What led to that?

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Well, the immediate reason was that Richard Doll later Sir Richard Doll was appointed Regis, professor of Medicine.

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Prior to that, he had going to be deputy director of the MRC Clinical Research Centre at North Park.

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And I was all set really for a shift to North Park, but then somewhat out of the blue became the Regis professor appointment.

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And in those days, it was still a little bit of money around.

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And Richard was able to bring three or four of his sort of chosen junior colleagues with him.

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These included Malcolm Pike, Richard Peto, the Peter Smith and myself and one or two others.

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And so we were able to come to posts at Oxford.

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So in July 1969, I think it was.

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I became a clinical lecturer in Richard Dols department, the department at the Regis Professor of Medicine.

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And now that was. Were you in the main building up in the George Pickering's Road area, or were you in over towards the institute?

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We were in the George Pickering area and a very prominent person there,

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and somebody who I remember very fondly was John Oliver, who is who was first assistant.

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And I found John very supportive and helpful person.

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Some people found him a little difficult at times. I always found John extremely helpful and I was very pleased to have him around.

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Obviously, there were others left over from George Pickering's time.

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Perhaps the most notable would be Laurie Bailin, who was who's now a professor in Australia, where he'd be retired now.

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But at that time he was, I think he was one of the first assistant to the Regis professor and a very good clinician, another very nice person.

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And there were lots of other, very pleasant people there, too.

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I'm interested what you said about Joan, because your sort of medicine was in German sort of medicine and he was a laboratory worker.

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It's very good that he was able to facilitate your sort of supplies.

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Well, I can give you one reason why I was in favour from word go.

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And that's simply we both were derived from University College Hospital and John Lewis said, absolutely.

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So John Arnold was very, very loyal to you C-H, and there were quite a lot of people around.

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But if you were from UC H, then that certainly gave you a good start in the John and rigidly had been there.

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No. Well, Richard Richard, certainly the MRC Statistical Research Unit,

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which is the outfit I joined when I joined Richard Doll in 1966 that was based at University College Hospital Medical School,

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but Richard himself was not a graduate of fussy age. I can't remember exactly which medical school he came from, but it wasn't UK age.

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What led you to go towards epidemiology and statistics and research in that sort of field?

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Yes. Well, that that is actually an interesting question.

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When I was at school,

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I had always assumed design is going to become an engineer because I've always been deeply interested in mechanical devices and engineering devices.

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And when I went into the lower sixth form at my school, I went into the maths, physics and chemistry six four.

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But my headmaster intervened and said that was not what he hoped I would do.

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And at that stage, after a lot of bargaining, he persuaded me to go into the biological sixth form and do botany, zoology, chemistry and physics.

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And that, of course, meant that I then became a doctor because I think of the 12 boys in that class, 11 became doctors.

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Even at that time, I was very interested in data on how and why and and quite numerical.

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And during my medical training, I was always very interested in aetiology and pathogenesis and how things,

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how they occurred in the community for infectious diseases, how they spread and things of that sort.

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So that interest was always very latent. Now, after I qualified, I actually made a remarkable and unusual decision.

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I decided, in fact, to take time away from clinical medicine and to learn about statistics and computing.

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And I was fortunate enough to obtain a post in the Department of Statistics at Rotherham,

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said Experimental Station, which is actually an agricultural show.

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But that, of course, was headed by Dr Frank Yates, who is the officer in Yates, a highly distinguished statistician.

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And I worked there with two people. I work with Dr Brian Leach, who is a veterinary epidemiologist, and we're Dr Michael Healy.

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Michael Healy, eventually becoming professor of medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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And I also became very closely involved with an obstetrician gynaecologist, Leonard Baron from Newcastle,

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and we started analysing data and writing papers together while I was there.

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He was up in New York. He was up in Newcastle. Tragically or sadly, he was late 80s.

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He died last December, a very valued friend and colleague.

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After a while, I decided that I had probably learnt enough about statistics and computing as much as I wanted to learn anyway,

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and I decided to go back to clinical medicine, which I did for a while.

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So I actually completed my house appointments very late.

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Both of them were done at Barnet General Hospital and the first one was done with.

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The surgical job was done with David Bailey,

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who had been first met at first surgical assistant at U.S. age and who I knew well, who was very good to me.

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And the second was with Dr. Oliver Garrard Garrard, who was a distinguished physician, and I learnt a lot there at the end of the year.

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I was uncertain whether to continue with clinical medicine or whether to move into epidemiology.

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It was really meeting Richard Doll and talking to Richard Doll that persuaded me that I would actually like to become an epidemiologist.

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And that's how it answered. Yeah, I met Richard at Rotherham St.

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Richard quite often came to Rotherham, said he was doing quite a lot of work with Michael Healey, right?

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And so that's really how I first met Richard, and that's where we met and those around, you know,

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and I met while we were still at school and we first met when I was 17 and she was 15.

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And it she was really, quite frankly, so beautiful that I tell you it was the first time I saw her.

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And it produced a relationship, a happy relationship.

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But she was the last it. We've now we're now well beyond our diamond wedding.

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So there is some reason I always connected with references to that room.

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And you are. No, you are absolutely right.

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Because Anne, she worked as a secretary at UCL and she worked for Jay-Z Young and she worked for Linda Brown, George and she.

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She then went and worked. Rossum stayed in Frank Gates's departments.

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Have I when she went there because you were there, you know, she was there.

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That's the thing to do in there. No, I don't. I don't think it's I and was working at Rotherham instead before I went there.

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And she continued to work there for quite a while afterwards.

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That's something that I was wondering about when you joined Richard Doll.

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Were you at that stage doing your own number crunching or were you already relying upon big computers?

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No, by then, by the time I joined Richard, so most of the stuff we did was being done on computers.

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But on the other hand, the desk calculator was also the vital bits of equipment we had the highly obnoxious bronze figure machines,

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which which are dreadful to use, and we also had really quite nice machines made by facet desk calculators and also, I think, electronic calculators.

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Just about beginning to appear. But no, we used the University of London computing facilities and I I was competent enough to do what I needed to do.

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The University of London computers. So when you moved to Oxford, how did the facilities for computing compare with London's?

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Well, I think the facilities for computers at Oxford probably were better, right?

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Although I had less to do with them immediately than I did while I was in London, because most of the work I did at Oxford was collaborative.

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And usually the even in those early days would involve somebody who was more experts at computers and computing than I was.

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I mean, fortunately, I had learnt enough to understand how things worked and what programmes did what and what results meant and things.

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Things of that sort.

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But nonetheless, I wasn't really after I can do what's really in the frontline of computing, and that would be the boundaries set up,

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which is that if this was indeed then based in Bambi Road and the computer that was in use when I arrived there,

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this computer and which seemed to do what was required, but of course, compared with what we have now was laughable.

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I remember Jim, then men were dinky. So was there a sort of little subsection there?

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Well, what happened was I came I came with Richard in 1969,

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and the one of the first things I said about doing in my spare time to the distress of my family was to write my MDA thesis.

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And this was on the basically all the benefits and risks of oral contraceptives and air in which I have done a lot of work

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and I'd done a lot of work on that topic while still at the statistical unit in the Multi Statistical Research Unit.

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So that occupied my spare time. During the day, I was doing all sorts of other things.

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Other projects of various sorts, some of were MRC projects and some of them the other sorts of projects.

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And I I stayed as a lecturer in Richard's department until 1972,

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when I then went to the United States for six months and worked with a man called Herschel Drake on drug safety studies.

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He ran an outfit called the Boston Globe Drug Surveillance Programme.

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So I worked with him in 1972. That wasn't a sabbatical.

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It was unpaid leave. But I may say I was paid twice as much in America as I was in Britain.

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When I came back for a short while, I was acting director of the DHS,

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as it was then the DHS as a cancer unit, a unit which had been directed by Richard Doll.

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But he was sort of reaching retirement age. And but I was it was while I was doing that job that I was asked if I would become

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would accept the post of this sort of social media dimension that was in late 72.

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I was asked, no, sorry in 1973. Mm-Hmm. And I did agree to that.

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So I became head of that group, and that group was based in Kimball Road.

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It was I took over the premises that had been occupied by my priest, predecessor Alice Stewart.

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And it was one of the people, roadhouses, and that's where Jim and others were based.

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So that's why Jim was there and indeed why I was there.

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When you were working with Richard Perle before you came to Oxford.

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First few years in Oxford. Was he somebody who very much directed the group?

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Or did each member more or less do what interests me and the bit of each, really?

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Richard was certainly always interested in what members of his outfit were doing, and he was always available for advice and encouragement,

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and he would read through draughts of papers very carefully and often was a co-author.

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But he for the most part,

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he did let people pursue subjects that interested them precisely provided that they

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were relevant to their image and important and that they were going to be done well.

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Now, in fact, it's worth mentioning here that one of the first tasks I was given when I joined

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the MRC Statistical Research Unit in 1966 at UCLA under Richard's direction.

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One of the very first things I was asked to do was to investigate the possible relationship between venous thromboembolism and oral contraceptive use.

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And I set up one of the definitive studies which showed that there was a very marked increase in risk of venous thromboembolism.

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The relative risk was about eight for the oral contraceptives that didn't use.

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It was a hospital based case control study. So that was something that Richard asked me to do.

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One on behalf of the MRC one hospital group 19 hospitals was included in that study.

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And it gave such clear results that it gave me an enormous insight into the methodology of studies established to examine the safety,

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in particular a widely used medications. And it launched my career in two directions.

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First of all, in the direction of drugs and drug safety, and during my working life, I worked very, very extensively with the CSM and the MHRA.

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And secondly, on the field of fertility and control of fertility with which in which I work very extensively with the World Health Organisation.

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So a lot of my work went sort of in the woman's health is and the other branch really went more broadly into the drug safety in direction.

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MHRA Did you say what the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, what used to be this?

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Well, the CSM, I think, is the Commission on Human Medicines and the Dunlop Committee is and started off.

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You remember, following thalidomide, all those horrors I put in about 30 years or one or other of their bodies.

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And in fact, I only stopped. Yeah. In fact, I did some work last year at the age of 77, so but I don't think I likely do anymore.

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And did that mean a lot of travelling up to London? Yes. One day a week or.

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Oh well, I did a lot of travelling up to London anyway, as I did lots of other things.

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But the CSA meetings were monthly, but at one time I was also doing the.

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There was a separate adverse reactions drug and the drug committee that was considered an adverse

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drug reactions and that used to meet also monthly and they wouldn't be at the same time.

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So even even in that area, I could be trundling up to London for two days a month.

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But as I said they were, I was still heavily involved with the MRC and various other bodies, so I did plenty of commuting to London.

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And how much reviewing, you know, looking at projects. And so for the MLC, would you have done a lot?

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Yeah, a lot, but not as much as I ended up doing for W.H.O., but I put huge amounts of effort into W.H.O.

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I the the the the section that deals with human reproduction.

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The control of fertility was certainly during the time I was principally active.

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A very important part of W.H.O. I don't know how important it is now.

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I hope it's still very important because too many people see same day Graeme Smith was involved with David and David and I.

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We had many a chuckle together and you travel up together sometimes.

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David's wonderful sense of humour used to pop up every, every meeting, really.

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He used to. He used to laugh at me a lot because I always insisted on eating polio medicine,

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sometimes chocolate during the meetings, and he he he was tickled pink by that.

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I didn't quite know quite why he found it so funny, but it was quite funny.

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Now, while you were involved with contraceptives, did you get into the world of fertilisation?

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And I mean, stepped in it with the role that only.

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Only indirectly, insofar as that area of activity was a major interest to W.H.O. because W.H.O. was not only concerned with control of fertility,

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but also with infertility, which is a tragic problem just as unwanted children can be a tragic problem.

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So the I certainly served on all this with Steptoe at W.H.O., but I never did any research in those areas.

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And now, you know, to the outsider, the contraceptives seem to veer to and fro a bit as to their dangers.

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And would you agree with that or?

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Well, I think one of the major problems right the way through was with the media and the 10 still to the 10 still to be true.

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I, they often report inaccurate information and sometimes information that is completely wrong.

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And because contraception at that time at least was the sort of subject that always caused people to pick up their ideas.

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Any finding that you came out with or others came out with would excite a lot of attention in the media, especially if it was bad news.

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And I may say an awful lot of the work I did resulted in good news.

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Yes. For instance, we were very much involved in demonstrating that oral contraceptive use has no important effect on breast cancer.

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It does in current use by young people.

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It increases risk by a tiny amount because the disease is so rare in users who are young.

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The effect is really barely detectable even in huge studies.

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And of course, the balance of benefit and risk for oral contraceptives is definitely now been shown in many studies, including those of our own.

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To be positive, the benefits outweigh the risks. That doesn't mean there are no risk, but the benefits outweigh the risks.

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The the other thing I would say is that although I was very interested in contraception,

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not just oral contraceptives, but other approaches, including sterilisation and also an abortion,

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but I became more generally interested in women's health, and I became increasingly interested in the old reproductive cancers and in breast cancer.

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I became interested in the menopause and its consequences, perhaps especially osteoporosis,

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but also called it kind of the cardiovascular consequences.

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And also in the 1980s onwards, I became heavily involved in these screening issues in relations,

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especially the breast and service that turned out to be an interesting area.

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Were you involved in the herpes and cervical cancer story?

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Not here again. Not not directly in that.

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I mean, we didn't collect samples that were then investigated for evidence of herpes infection,

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but we did do studies that were very relevant to the infectious aetiology or the basically infectious aetiology of cancer of the cervix.

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We did a very risky study in which we investigated the husbands of women who had only ever had one partner,

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but women who nonetheless had cancer of the cervix.

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And we found that essentially all the women who to the best of our endeavours investigations had only ever had one partner, either husband.

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We found that in every case virtually, that was not true for their husband.

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And obviously, that supported the notion that there was an infectious agent of his herpes was of interest in the early days.

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But of course, is human papillomavirus subtypes really the underlying problem with with cancer, the cervix and and people don't.

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Really speaking, don't get.

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Certainly the common forms of cervical cancer without human papillomavirus, but other things may accentuate the effect of human papillomavirus.

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So how did you find that out by talking to the husbands at length?

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I mean, was that sort of evidence is that this is published?

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Derek, unfortunately in The Lancet.

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But we we interviewed the women as part of a study of the aetiology of cancer, the cervix, and it was done by a careful interview.

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And then we let a long time interval pass it, and we then undertook a study of the factors affecting disease and illness in the men themselves.

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But we also incorporated the questions that we wanted to ask about sexual partners,

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and I'm happy to say that no link was made at the time between the two sets of interviews.

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I may say this this study obviously went through. An ethics committee was done in the 1980s.

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The interviewing of the men was all done by David Skegg, right?

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Hugh Davies, of course, later became vice chancellor.

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Until very recently, he's been vice chancellor of the University of Otago in New Zealand, and David had the courage to do these tricky interviews.

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But we did leave a long gap. Yes, and there was no obvious linkage between the two interviews, but it was a difficult study.

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We thought a lot about doing doing it, and we did get ethical committee permission to do it.

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And it is written up in The Lancet. Good to go to the meeting with.

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No prescribing is to be straight with the man today or for symptoms.

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Has that proven to be bad news or good news? Well, I don't think anybody for a long time would dream of prescribing still being wrong.

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The the we got very heavily into the investigation of hormone replacement therapy.

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It followed on on very logically from other work we've done and interested in menopause and postmenopausal events.

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The initially, as you know,

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the message in relation to hormone replacement therapy was feminine forever and

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long term use of primary principally conjugated equine oestrogens was encouraged,

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especially in the United States. Then it was discovered that unopposed oestrogen has increased the risk of thromboembolism.

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This is why I'm sorry I might say increase the risk of of endometrial cancer,

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but unopposed stimulation of the end of each year, resulting in endometrial cancer that caused a bit of a hiccup.

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And that led to the incorporation of a progestogen component in hormone replacement therapy because

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the progesterone would suppress the oestrogenic stimulation of the endometrium that later on,

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other problems began to emerge.

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We did the study in the mid-nineties, which we we thought would be a safety study looking at hormone replacement therapy and thromboembolism,

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and we thought it was a safety study because nobody believed that hormone replacement therapy, as opposed to the bill, caused thromboembolism.

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And this study was largely funded by sharing much to their credit.

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I may say because as it turned out, when we completed the study,

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we found that hormone replacement replacement therapy did have a two to threefold effect on increasing the risk of thromboembolism.

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So that was another problem for HRT. In the early days, it was believed that HRT is protective against cardiovascular disease,

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and I must admit that some of the early studies did support that point of view,

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but they were probably due the results and probably due to the artificial selection of people at low risk of coronary myocardial infarction,

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the artificial nection of people at risk of these, this condition for hormone replacement therapy.

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And so the early results were reassuring, and it wasn't really until randomised controlled trials were done, in particular,

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a huge American study called the Women's Health Initiative that the full picture came out about the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy.

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And there was an increase small increase the risk of arterial disease.

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In that study, venous thromboembolism was confirmed. There was also some increase in the risk of breast cancer.

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There were, of course, beneficial effects on osteoporosis.

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But the balance of benefit and risk for many women looked looked unfavourable and pull in replacement therapy has been used less and less now.

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Now is this misused clearly for women who have severe menopausal symptoms, but they will rarely use it for more than perhaps three or four years,

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whereas in the past, some advocates claim that women should use HRT for 25 30 years ago, taking it until until they died, if you like.

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So the HRT story, too has been quite interesting.

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One to get back to your oral contraceptives any real difference between the so-called generations of pill?

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Oh boy, has that been a controversial one?

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Well, there's no doubt that the early, very high oestrogen or most,

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most high oestrogen pills that were in use when I did these MRC studies and the study in the 1960s,

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there's no doubt that they carried a higher risk than pills containing less oestrogen

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and that emerged fairly early on and let manufacturers to modify their formulations.

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The early formulations contained considerably more oestrogen that was necessary the the then the later,

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then which obviously emerged in relation to a new generation of progestogen as the after the after the initial pills,

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we used the early pills with the high dose of oestrogen new pills came in, which used low doses of oestrogen and indeed lower doses of progestogen.

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Those was sort of second generation pills.

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But then a new generation of pills appeared in the late 80s and the 90s, using New Progestogen as the third generation progestogen.

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And the argument about whether they carry a greater risk thrombosis and embolism in the second generation pills innocent still continues.

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Generally speaking, most people accept that they do carry a slightly higher risk of thrombosis and embolism than the second generation pills,

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and that the industry in particular still continues to fight this call.

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And because many of those progestogen as their babies and their more expensive pills,

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they would obviously refer them to be prescribed to the generic ones which make up the second generation pills.

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Now, obviously, medicines always on the move.

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You know, things are changing, and I've always thought that sometimes epidemiological studies may not have been asking a question that was important,

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such as aspirin and particularly vascular disease as people found aspirin and thrombotic.

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And there would have been a lot of good studies before that never asked about aspirin therapy.

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How often did that sort of thing that I'm I'm absolutely sure.

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Sure, that's true. The sometimes associations are sort i.e. you're chasing specific hypotheses, but certainly in epidemiological studies.

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Findings, unexpected findings may pop out of the data and the interest in the, you know,

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the protective effect of aspirin against myocardial infarction that was clearly apparent in the database held by Dr Hirsch or Jake in Boston.

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When I went when I went to work with him in 1972, that was one of the things that we had observed and it was because they had a big database.

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They had lots of diseases and lots of exposures. They were they had probes.

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Sophisticated programmes that look for drug disease associations.

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That was one that came out very consistently and interestingly enough, at that time, Peter Elwood, Cardiff was with Archie,

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Cochrane was running, I think, one of the very first trials of aspirin on the basis that it might protect against Mark.

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I thought I'm not quite sure where the idea would come up from there,

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perhaps from basic research on the effects of aspirin in vitro or something of that sort.

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And when we conveyed the results from Boston to Peter because I knew Peter was doing this study,

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he broke the code in his study and he found that he was showing usually a

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protective effect and in a way that's where the modern aspirin story started.

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Mm hmm. But there are there are certainly other chance effects in these.

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I mean, we now live in the days where there are enormous databases, huge numbers of diagnoses,

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huge numbers of exposures and quite a lot of information on confounding factors.

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And people can dredge data endlessly for drug disease associations.

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I mean, think of the way that people now dredged data for genetic associations.

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I mean, the endless nightmares they're looking for gene disease associations.

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And so one has to be on one's toes in trying to sort these things out.

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The social and community medicine, what's its relationship to epidemiology?

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Is it putting into practise epidemiological findings or is it more than that?

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Well, social and community medicine was my time when I was appointed as what was called the social medicine came from Alice Stewart's department.

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The third part was devoted to social medicine.

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The community bit came from the fact that community medicine was then a popular new name for what we might now call public health and used to do.

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And indeed. And so that's why we became social and community medicine.

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I mean, the those titles covered a very wide range of possibilities.

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Obviously, looking at the importance of social factors and behavioural factors in relation to disease would be an obvious one from the from the name,

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but also looking at the community based problems and looking at health care

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and using epidemiological methods to try and evaluate the benefits or risks,

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perhaps of different types of health care. And now all I personally was always interested.

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Most in the clinical side of epidemiology is most interested in investigating investigating

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diseases and what might cause them and what might prevent them and how they might be treated.

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But there were other people working within that discipline whose interest might be entirely

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on the organisation of health care and the evaluation of different types of health care.

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So it's it was it was a title that really covered a huge range of possible topics.

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But nonetheless, epidemiological principles, I think still underlie the different sorts of investigations were undertaken,

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whether they were in the health care area or in the more clinical area.

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So in a way to see if the difference between looking up to one person and looking after a flock and you know,

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some people put their emphasis on what happens to the folk. Others are concerned at the time with one particular.

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Well, absolutely right. And certainly, people concerned with the organisation of health care would be very concerned with the flock.

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But of course, using every person based epidemiological methods,

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the individual is of great importance to because you would have to be collecting data from and about individuals.

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You just mentioned here something that you might not bring up, but which I think is of some interest.

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And that is that when I was appointed to The Post in 1973, which I took up in 1974,

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the the chair and social media medicine in my job description was a charge to look at.

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The future of academic, academic, general practise good, and at that time, that was quite a difficult thing to be asked,

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especially apps in a medical school like Oxford, because I think general practise at that time was still regarded as somewhat second best.

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And there were people whom I shall certainly not name who thought there was no academic content in general practise,

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which of course, you and I know is absurd. So I did meet a certain amount of opposition in trying to further this.

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However, early on I got involved with an amazing chap called John Hessler, who was a general practitioner.

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And I think in Reading or Hindley, I think it's only fair.

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And John was such a dynamic force, and he and I worked really hard together to try and develop academic general practise,

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and we worked closely with the Royal College of General Practitioners.

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We got some money from the Dorothy McKenzie Trust, Royal College of General Practitioners and eventually with Rosemary Roos help.

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We got sufficient together to appoint a reader in general practise.

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And that, of course, was my dear friend and colleague Dr Coffey.

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Yes. And Godfrey and I worked very, very happily together over more than two decades,

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and academic general practise at Oxford now is really a very important part of the medical school.

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And so I do feel a little pride in a way that that was something we managed to achieve against a background of some opposition.

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And you know, I was going to ask you about the medical students with,

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did you would you see yourselves starting with general practise when the medical students went out to the general practitioners?

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Or were you more asking epidemiological questions about general practise?

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Oh, you know, I can't remember exactly what the medical students did before we began to get with

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with regard to general practise before Godfrey and I started to try and pull.

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You've started to appoint tutors and say, Well, we got some support from the dean of the school, more support from me.

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And then, of course, students went out to general practise.

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I think they did have an attachment before then.

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I'm not sure about that. But once we began to formalise it,

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then they were being taught important parts about aspects of disease or point of view in primary

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care and the interface between primary and secondary care and all those sorts of things.

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The girlfriend and I, we worked so closely together because the department community developed a social community.

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Medicine eventually became the brunt of community medicine, general practise and then the Department of Public Health and Primary Care.

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That's how it was when I retired in 2000, and Godfrey and I worked hand-in-glove.

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Godfrey, although an excellent clinician, was deeply interested in preventive medicine and in epidemiological methods,

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and we we produced Joint Teaching Programme for general epidemiology and public health and primary care.

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And so we would have common teaching programmes and often teach with general practitioners.

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And of course, we're were really great general practitioners around.

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I mean, Andrew Marcus Schofield, oh, people like that immensely, right?

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The general practitioners in Oxford and yes, Andrew Marcus and Theo Schofield being just two of them.

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Martin Lawrence, Yes, the late Martin Lawrence was, of course, another very bright star and many others too.

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Uh oh yes, we we have had very good people and we managed to appoint some remarkably good judges.

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And anyway, I think we did manage to establish the base.

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Was it subsequently developed into something very good, the general after?

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I'll just mention this very quickly. When I retired and Caulfield had retired before Michael Schofield, another I man, he was you sage.

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He was a Houseman when I was a student, so Godfrey and I knew each other well.

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When Godfrey retired and then I retired, David Weatherall was.

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Determined to separate general practise from from public health said the departments became separate and golfing, I opposed this.

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But David was wise and powerful and said the department did split.

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Martin Lawrence would probably become head of the advanced general practise, but he tragically died from cancer of the colon around that time.

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And instead, David meant it. Now David is a member of my department.

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He was trained in both community medicine and general practise, and he was.

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He was an amazingly effective head of departments, especially from the research point of view.

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And he really, I think, has built built general practise enormously during the 10 years that he was around,

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I suppose from about 2000 to 2010 or 2011 or whatever it was, David decided to retire at 60.

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Mm hmm. Uh, he's he's he said. He said to me, I think the time is right.

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The the the the effort I put in, as has left its mark.

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Yes. I always thought the business of the students living with the GP's that was was universe or was it just wasn't it?

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Wasn't it? But that's to be very, exactly the very.

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Now how much did you see the students? Otherwise, I mean, lectures, tutorials, what we we developed a course that was repeated six times a year.

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Right? Which was a two week module. And it would include it was small, obviously small group based and the the groups.

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The most of the times were about 12 people and perhaps 14 sometimes.

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And just doing you for that.

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Yes, we would have we would appoint a tutor for each group, although the tutor would bring in other people to lead sessions.

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And so some of whom would come from the NHS and some who come in the academic department.

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And we would have a series of seminars and exercises and some for a while goodly while public health visits to the.

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Some of our NHS colleagues were keen that we should continue with some public health visits to places like Far More Reservoir,

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for instance, and students like this, and drew a budget for a long, long time.

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They used to go to British Leyland and the they would have a session at Epsom Sessions and Occupational Health.

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And I always remember. I can't resist mentioning this, but at that time, British Leyland, as you probably know, this were building Rolls-Royce bodies.

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And for a long, long period,

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Rolls-Royce bodies were built there and they were enormously carefully filled with any deficit with the lead containing material.

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And around that area where they were doing that work on the bodies,

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it was a line beyond which no female of reproductive age was allowed to regress because of lead.

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And you can imagine the sort of general response of the delightful young lady.

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Is she now proof of being stopped at this words?

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That was a rule. So if you were, if you were going to keep that rule, then you wouldn't go to Bell.

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So we all accepted it and was it wasn't about lead poisoning there.

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I don't think so. I think it was all enormously carefully controlled.

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I think Bell had pretty good occupational health service and you're looking just sort of medical surgical grand rounds.

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I did go sometimes and very occasionally I might be on something.

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Uh, I was. I, as any question might sort of turn off.

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I have to admit I I used when I used to go,

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I had always felt some trepidation because I just wondered whoever was conducting the round where they might produce some impossible question.

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Because they might they might find a question about health service organisation,

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about health economics, about morbidity, mortality, well, distribution of disease.

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You know, anything would be regarded as fair game. And and there's, you know, one or two of our colleagues might not have been above throwing.

383
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Googly and bowling are good, and I'm just trying to formulate this, whether there is anything I should have asked you about that I haven't.

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Well, I'm I mean, obviously I did a lot of research and I did write a large number of research papers over the years and since my retirement,

385
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I've written another 40. Wow. Well, from our data, much of it from my.

386
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That's the Oxford FBA contraceptive study, which is a prospective study started in 1968, and I only terminated follow up in 2010.

387
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And it generated huge amounts of data about women's health generally, but also especially about contraception, about other aspects of women's health.

388
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:13,500
So obviously, I spent a lot of time doing research the I think it might be worth mentioning that I became very,

389
00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:22,500
very involved with the breast cancer screening programme in.

390
00:51:22,500 --> 00:51:33,690
I was asked to chair the National Advisory Committee when at the time that the breast cancer screening programme was started,

391
00:51:33,690 --> 00:51:38,400
and I was asked indirectly by Sir Patrick Forrest,

392
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:45,030
who has read this massive surgery in Edinburgh, who had done written the Forest Report,

393
00:51:45,030 --> 00:51:49,800
which is a report in which the government based their decision, set up a programme.

394
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,700
So I chaired that committee and I also helped set up the programme.

395
00:51:53,700 --> 00:52:06,810
But the greatest praise for setting up the programme was undoubtedly go to Neil Grey meal and I would hand in glove.

396
00:52:06,810 --> 00:52:14,700
He was terrific. He's he's and he's a remarkable polymath, an amazingly good organiser.

397
00:52:14,700 --> 00:52:22,080
And I think the reason that we managed to set up a good programme is much more huge more than it is to me.

398
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:28,140
Nonetheless, I had the frankly difficult task of chairing the National Advisory Committee,

399
00:52:28,140 --> 00:52:36,000
which advised the government and which also advised the field and right from the word go.

400
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:46,350
The breast cancer screening was quite controversial and I was I chaired that committee for two, I think actually for 10 years the end.

401
00:52:46,350 --> 00:52:52,860
And then I was asked to chair the National Advisory Committee on the Cervical Cancer Screening to survive.

402
00:52:52,860 --> 00:52:58,230
The cancer screening has been around since the very early days of the 1960s,

403
00:52:58,230 --> 00:53:06,960
but it only became a proper programme end the 1980s and nationally supported it under control of the national director.

404
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:14,160
My very dear colleague Juliette Patnaik, somebody else?

405
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:19,950
This is my word for well over two decades, she's still director.

406
00:53:19,950 --> 00:53:29,550
Mm-Hmm. Terrific. Terrific director. And I think it was really she that got me asked to chair that one.

407
00:53:29,550 --> 00:53:33,240
And that that was pretty tricky, too.

408
00:53:33,240 --> 00:53:38,160
I mean, one of the decisions we made, for example, we made many,

409
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:47,460
but one that we made was the decision that the national programme shouldn't begin until age 25 rather than age 20.

410
00:53:47,460 --> 00:53:55,800
And if you actually look at the data and look at the statistics, that is the most sensible thing to do in both not only financially,

411
00:53:55,800 --> 00:54:01,710
but much more importantly, much more importantly in terms of benefit risk.

412
00:54:01,710 --> 00:54:05,190
And that was grossly hugely controversial thing.

413
00:54:05,190 --> 00:54:13,620
And I mean, we we got we were involved during the time I worked as chairman of those committees, and I put a lot into it.

414
00:54:13,620 --> 00:54:21,300
We were involved with all sorts of difficult questions. Then to my amazement, I was asked to chair.

415
00:54:21,300 --> 00:54:26,830
I think it was in 2006, well into retirement.

416
00:54:26,830 --> 00:54:32,420
I was asked to chair the National Advisory Committee on Screening for Bowel Cancer.

417
00:54:32,420 --> 00:54:40,260
I wasn't an expert on bowel cancer, but I did know something about screening and I did that for three years, the first four years.

418
00:54:40,260 --> 00:54:54,210
But I decided when I hit 75 that I wouldn't chair any more national programmes because not just because young people should do these things,

419
00:54:54,210 --> 00:54:58,130
but also because one becomes a little nervous. And this one is.

420
00:54:58,130 --> 00:55:06,810
Using one's onions unknown to oneself, just I think it's the danger of going on for too long.

421
00:55:06,810 --> 00:55:11,360
Yeah, and I was really rather determined not to do that.

422
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:19,760
But those screening programmes, they I mean, they were enormously interesting.

423
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:28,640
I put a lot into them. They have been they've certainly the breast cancer screening programme has proved to be quite a controversial programme.

424
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:35,840
Lesson one time is around. Nothing to do with me that, you know, the benefit and risk is being questioned more in recent years.

425
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:42,770
And but that it did did form quite quite an important part of my work.

426
00:55:42,770 --> 00:55:51,350
I've stressed W.H.O. I did endless work on all sorts of committees in the reproductive field for W.H.O.

427
00:55:51,350 --> 00:55:59,330
The other thing I did is put a lot of effort in is that I was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

428
00:55:59,330 --> 00:56:08,540
Richard Doll was a member when he retired. He suggested I should serve as if I didn't know enough to do it, and I agreed.

429
00:56:08,540 --> 00:56:11,480
Now, at the time I joined it,

430
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:22,010
it was hugely rewarding because it was chaired by Richard Southwood and I declare himself with our vice chancellor and Dick,

431
00:56:22,010 --> 00:56:26,860
who is just terrific, so wonderful to work with.

432
00:56:26,860 --> 00:56:30,470
Another sadly dick has died, of course, as well. Yes.

433
00:56:30,470 --> 00:56:43,550
And I said to such to complete rotations of the Royal Commission, Environmental Pollution and Dick chaired the first one.

434
00:56:43,550 --> 00:56:47,930
And I mean, the second one was chaired by somebody else. But it was also very interesting.

435
00:56:47,930 --> 00:56:51,590
But dick, it was just so great to work with Dick,

436
00:56:51,590 --> 00:57:02,120
and he became a really rather close friend and somebody who I hope there's always been a bit of a hero for me got involved with this.

437
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:07,850
He did, which it said it would get involved the AC.

438
00:57:07,850 --> 00:57:14,910
I think that was a pretty uncomfortable thing for him. I think everybody who was involved is he found that pretty uncomfortable.

439
00:57:14,910 --> 00:57:19,610
And then McRae, was he NHS employed?

440
00:57:19,610 --> 00:57:31,790
Yes, Neal. Yes, he he came as a public health doctor and he was he was NHS employed throughout.

441
00:57:31,790 --> 00:57:35,990
How much did you have to do with, say, I had it together over anybody else and.

442
00:57:35,990 --> 00:57:50,630
Yes, I I felt very I felt it very important to work with and to help my NHS colleagues as much as I could,

443
00:57:50,630 --> 00:57:55,880
even though they were much more concerned with the organisation of health care.

444
00:57:55,880 --> 00:58:06,530
But obviously, they were concerned with preventive medicine and infectious diseases and vaccines, preventative vaccines, maternal and child health.

445
00:58:06,530 --> 00:58:12,110
But that health care organisation was a very dominant problem for them,

446
00:58:12,110 --> 00:58:20,450
and I had the again, the tremendous pleasure of working very closely with Alex Gatherer.

447
00:58:20,450 --> 00:58:31,340
He also died recently, and if he fell ill to a good age, he went on working for W.H.O. for a long time right after his retirement.

448
00:58:31,340 --> 00:58:38,870
And I went to a lot of his meetings and I tried try to work with the the practitioners,

449
00:58:38,870 --> 00:58:49,580
the NHS practitioners and I used to go to regional meetings and so on and so forth, and I think I managed to make a useful contribution.

450
00:58:49,580 --> 00:58:58,220
I hope so. And of course, the other person I work with very closely in the same way was Rosemary Booth and afterwards, Ronnie Pollock.

451
00:58:58,220 --> 00:59:06,050
Yes. And again, you know, Rosemary, another great Oxford style and a wonderful lady.

452
00:59:06,050 --> 00:59:10,610
Tremendous to work with. Always immensely kind to me.

453
00:59:10,610 --> 00:59:15,470
I remember when I first was first appointed, Rosemary said.

454
00:59:15,470 --> 00:59:20,900
She said actually my first script, she said, laughing, but she came to see me.

455
00:59:20,900 --> 00:59:29,870
And she said I thought, who is is very young at home and young man, she is yours.

456
00:59:29,870 --> 00:59:33,360
I was quite young and I think she didn't know me very well.

457
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:45,230
And then we become 35. And I was I was appointed at 37 right and the rosemary was terrific throughout.

458
00:59:45,230 --> 00:59:51,110
And it was said that region gradually over the years lost its influence.

459
00:59:51,110 --> 00:59:58,070
Well, you will know, Derek, how much Rosemary contributed towards the technical school and the things.

460
00:59:58,070 --> 01:00:01,940
We try to do what would you collaborate with their own?

461
01:00:01,940 --> 01:00:04,970
And what sort of things would you be doing?

462
01:00:04,970 --> 01:00:16,550
I went I went to Rosemary's Regional Medical Office at meetings at which many planning issues would be discussed.

463
01:00:16,550 --> 01:00:24,590
Most of them organisational and managerial, but some of them more clinical.

464
01:00:24,590 --> 01:00:27,950
And I managed to contribute to the quilt,

465
01:00:27,950 --> 01:00:43,250
the quite a few the things that they were considering and to offer some epidemiological input to population matters that would come up at the meeting.

466
01:00:43,250 --> 01:00:48,420
I worked very closely for the Regional Medical Research Committee.

467
01:00:48,420 --> 01:00:56,330
I used to chair their all their committees and offer advice advice to the region.

468
01:00:56,330 --> 01:01:04,490
Rosemary would often ask me for my view on some steps that she was going to take in relation to

469
01:01:04,490 --> 01:01:11,100
the clinical school and one she she often used to ring me up or ask me if I'd come and see her.

470
01:01:11,100 --> 01:01:20,420
We often used to drink a sherry together, Rosemary USU manager, producer, Sherry late afternoon, and we would we would chat, chat about things.

471
01:01:20,420 --> 01:01:25,880
But equally, Rosemary is very interested in what we were doing.

472
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:33,940
She always wanted to know what we were working on, and she was very interested, for instance, in breast cancer research.

473
01:01:33,940 --> 01:01:38,360
And of course, she eventually died from the disease.

474
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:43,340
And she so so there was a lot of interaction quite well.

475
01:01:43,340 --> 01:01:49,790
It was fairly informal, but the regional medical officer meetings and the assembled armadillo meetings,

476
01:01:49,790 --> 01:01:52,790
regional and district medical officer meetings,

477
01:01:52,790 --> 01:02:03,240
I used to attend faithfully and a lot of I think what I managed to contribute would be through that sort of medium and.

478
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:15,870
U.S. general travelling around the world, presumably, well, the a lot of the things I was working on were very topical when I was working on them,

479
01:02:15,870 --> 01:02:22,650
so I was invited to give talks at many conferences in different parts of the world.

480
01:02:22,650 --> 01:02:33,750
And also, I became a consultant to their projects, also collaborative drug surveillance programme, and I was there as a consultant for many years.

481
01:02:33,750 --> 01:02:46,470
I used to go two or three times a year to work with them for a week, and W.H.O. certainly generated some interesting interest in foreign travel.

482
01:02:46,470 --> 01:02:51,960
So yes, I think I did my share of travelling around the globe.

483
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:57,090
Did you get involved with nutritional side of things in there?

484
01:02:57,090 --> 01:03:11,210
Well, the the answer to that is not personally to any great extent, but you will know, Derrick, that it was a considerable interest in my department.

485
01:03:11,210 --> 01:03:22,620
Yes. And I must admit something else that I really tried hard to do in my department was to be really,

486
01:03:22,620 --> 01:03:26,220
genuinely interested in what my colleagues were doing.

487
01:03:26,220 --> 01:03:33,450
And I wanted to know what they were doing, and I wanted to try to support them and encourage them.

488
01:03:33,450 --> 01:03:48,660
So I certainly would discuss will be get involved in that area when plans were being drawn up, say by somebody like Jim Manuel or Andrew Neil.

489
01:03:48,660 --> 01:03:59,490
People who had an interest in diet and more than one DPhil student in our department researched in the nutritional area.

490
01:03:59,490 --> 01:04:08,790
So although I didn't do any sort of hands-on work in that area myself, it was certainly an important interest in the development.

491
01:04:08,790 --> 01:04:13,530
You must have supervised a lot of details. I did. That's great.

492
01:04:13,530 --> 01:04:28,500
Helpful is it's hard work. But what I said when I gave a little speech at my departure dinner was that if I look back on my life, uh,

493
01:04:28,500 --> 01:04:36,720
professional life, then I would have to say that the most rewarding thing was working with the DPhil students.

494
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:40,770
The We had wonderful DPhil students.

495
01:04:40,770 --> 01:04:47,280
We were blessed with many of them being Rhodes scholars.

496
01:04:47,280 --> 01:04:52,620
I mean, David Skegg been, for example, but with them in many, many, many others.

497
01:04:52,620 --> 01:05:00,030
And they turned out to be such amazing people and such a pleasure to work with.

498
01:05:00,030 --> 01:05:13,170
And it was possible they would work often on something that either I myself wanted to pursue or something my department wanted to pursue.

499
01:05:13,170 --> 01:05:20,400
Because, as you know, DPhil students always have to find a project. Some know exactly what they want and they come, but most don't.

500
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:26,910
And so it was possible to work very, very closely with the Hmong, often on something very close to the heart.

501
01:05:26,910 --> 01:05:38,190
And I used to see my fellow students frequently, and I just great enjoyed working with them.

502
01:05:38,190 --> 01:05:49,710
And almost all the ones we had did remarkably well and and have have gone to interesting posts in different parts of the world.

503
01:05:49,710 --> 01:05:56,010
I can think of only two who for whom it didn't work out.

504
01:05:56,010 --> 01:06:34,290
One was a young man in South Africa who I think was just somehow overwhelmed by the complexity of what.

505
01:06:34,290 --> 01:06:37,800
But again, is the Oxford environment involved in that?

506
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:51,060
Well, I think I think both those people go as much support as could be offered both in the parliament and more importantly, from colleges.

507
01:06:51,060 --> 01:06:57,840
I think I think in both cases, the colleges did everything they could, but the load on them is, Oh, really?

508
01:06:57,840 --> 01:07:06,510
Oh gosh, yes. I mean, people come from a closely supervised world and really act.

509
01:07:06,510 --> 01:07:10,560
Ultimately did did their own patch.

510
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:22,360
And and I think it's for some people who come perhaps from the heavily supervised activity or from a very underdeveloped activity,

511
01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:26,070
see the kind of environment they meet.

512
01:07:26,070 --> 01:07:32,310
And also it could be very difficult. But mostly they were just fantastic.

513
01:07:32,310 --> 01:07:42,690
They didn't walk on those roads enough. Of course, nothing to build is great, and some of them came on other funds, often from their own country.

514
01:07:42,690 --> 01:07:47,250
And they were they were all terrific, really.

515
01:07:47,250 --> 01:07:52,020
I mean, even those two tragedies they mentioned to you, they were there.

516
01:07:52,020 --> 01:07:57,420
Just very sad. Yes. How many people did you have to reject who were applying to do it?

517
01:07:57,420 --> 01:08:01,750
Do you feel? Erm,

518
01:08:01,750 --> 01:08:15,930
we if we had gone as far as getting to the Applications Committee of the Clinical Medicine Board and being accepted by the Applications Committee,

519
01:08:15,930 --> 01:08:20,790
we would certainly never define rejection. So is that where the main selection occurred?

520
01:08:20,790 --> 01:08:32,550
You feel the the where I first explain where more people would often approach you in the format and and you would encourage them.

521
01:08:32,550 --> 01:08:36,660
I think in fact, we reject we rejected very, very few people.

522
01:08:36,660 --> 01:08:41,490
I would say most people who wanted to come and work with us, we accepted.

523
01:08:41,490 --> 01:08:44,730
I mean, obviously, we absolutely lapped them up.

524
01:08:44,730 --> 01:08:50,040
If you were a Rhodes scholar or another Dominion scholars, we knew they would be great.

525
01:08:50,040 --> 01:09:03,060
But but the majority of the others came often with funds from home and they came with good credentials.

526
01:09:03,060 --> 01:09:10,290
And actually, we didn't have too many people, a handful, perhaps.

527
01:09:10,290 --> 01:09:19,470
What else would you like to say? Well, I know you've done very well.

528
01:09:19,470 --> 01:09:26,700
I mean, I think I I think I ended up doing what suited me best.

529
01:09:26,700 --> 01:09:37,320
Mm-Hmm. And because I was able to combine an interest in methods and solving problems

530
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:49,860
with with with medicine and clinical medicine has always been close to me,

531
01:09:49,860 --> 01:09:56,400
and my interests have always been quite been close to clinical medicine.

532
01:09:56,400 --> 01:10:01,090
And that's tended to be the sole variable, which most of my work has been done.

533
01:10:01,090 --> 01:10:07,050
But how I would have worked out as a clinician, I don't know.

534
01:10:07,050 --> 01:10:22,920
I I have a feeling that I might have been troubled by being too conscientious and just kind of worrying

535
01:10:22,920 --> 01:10:35,660
too much about the people looking after and whether I'd really done the best I possibly could for them.

536
01:10:35,660 --> 01:10:49,430
I think I think if you if you consider the people in surgical practise, I I never really thought of being a surgeon.

537
01:10:49,430 --> 01:11:03,950
People who succeed in surgery tend to have pretty robust personalities, and I don't think that they can survive if they take too much anxiety.

538
01:11:03,950 --> 01:11:12,980
And perhaps no doubt. I agree. That doesn't mean to say that they're not terrific people.

539
01:11:12,980 --> 01:11:20,330
Many of them are, and I count many amongst my dear friends.

540
01:11:20,330 --> 01:11:32,360
That's a bit less true, perhaps in on the side bets as opposed to surgery, although that can be.

541
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:44,220
There's also can be very harrowing. So I think maybe taking into account my personality and my interests and the way things panned out,

542
01:11:44,220 --> 01:11:51,380
I've been very, very fortunate in the way my my career develops.

543
01:11:51,380 --> 01:12:04,100
And you mentioned Dennis Stewart. And I was just thinking epidemiology would seem a subject that women aren't so notable in number and achievement.

544
01:12:04,100 --> 01:12:14,060
Well, general practise, of course, is something that attracts some particular a lot of women on our general practise and the ABCs of GP's,

545
01:12:14,060 --> 01:12:19,920
the quite a lot of people want women went into public health.

546
01:12:19,920 --> 01:12:34,520
Yes, and yes it did. Indeed. And certainly a lot of my fellow students or women ride around and they were outstandingly good.

547
01:12:34,520 --> 01:12:38,000
I mean, if you if you look at if you look around now,

548
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:48,020
I suppose the most outstanding woman you would pick out is Valerie Burrell, who who is now Dame Valerie Burrell.

549
01:12:48,020 --> 01:13:04,490
And she is. She directs the Cancer Epidemiology Research Unit and is has done lots of really very good work.

550
01:13:04,490 --> 01:13:09,660
There are a lot of people in her unit are women, but a lot of know. A lot of my colleagues were always women.

551
01:13:09,660 --> 01:13:18,710
I think the public health and epidemiology do it to appeal to women, and I think that for some of them,

552
01:13:18,710 --> 01:13:26,240
it it might offer a career in which they were less like to be called out a bit in the middle of the night.

553
01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:30,760
And we have to be realistic about this if you have three small children.

554
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:33,650
It's not great to be called up in the middle of the night,

555
01:13:33,650 --> 01:13:41,240
but I don't see in that in any way, depreciating the tremendous contribution that women make.

556
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:47,090
And I think I have had the privilege to encourage and bring along quite a few.

557
01:13:47,090 --> 01:13:52,580
And did did you get involved in prostate cancer at all?

558
01:13:52,580 --> 01:13:56,810
Not, not directly. No, it wasn't.

559
01:13:56,810 --> 01:14:07,730
The breast, cervix, endometrium and ovary were the Kansas that I was most interested in, but I always, you know,

560
01:14:07,730 --> 01:14:17,900
kept an eye on the male reproductive cancers to testicular cancer and in particular, prostate cancer.

561
01:14:17,900 --> 01:14:28,460
And obviously, I've been close to the question of prostate cancer screening because that's a hugely

562
01:14:28,460 --> 01:14:37,130
contentious area and an area which is not followed in present in the United Kingdom.

563
01:14:37,130 --> 01:14:42,890
The it is the opinion that the National Screening Committee and I agree with this.

564
01:14:42,890 --> 01:14:53,580
The risks still outweigh the benefits using PSA as the as the substance you're measuring.

565
01:14:53,580 --> 01:14:58,160
We need better screening methods for prostate cancer.

566
01:14:58,160 --> 01:15:06,380
It may be that screening by PSA can save a few lives from prostate cancer,

567
01:15:06,380 --> 01:15:16,500
but at a terrible cost in terms of the diagnosis of cancers that would never have killed person and had the disease.

568
01:15:16,500 --> 01:15:25,520
The people who undergo radical investigation and often radical treatment and you know that it is the false positives as well as false negatives,

569
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:30,230
of course, that have to be considered so carefully in any screening programme.

570
01:15:30,230 --> 01:15:33,590
And there's a big, big problem for prostate cancer. So.

571
01:15:33,590 --> 01:15:41,720
I've I've certainly had less interest in the aetiology of prostate cancer, not as much to say about it even now,

572
01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:52,610
but certainly in early diagnosis, the screening an isolated incident that involved some extent with that, unless you say something I don't know.

573
01:15:52,610 --> 01:15:56,580
And there's virtually no one else goes to be questioned.

574
01:15:56,580 --> 01:16:02,920
But Richard Dolan is to it. They had different views.

575
01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:13,820
Yes, I think it's well known that Richard and Alice didn't see each other.

576
01:16:13,820 --> 01:16:20,300
I mean, Alice was clearly an extremely evil woman, and she had, of course,

577
01:16:20,300 --> 01:16:27,410
clinical origins she worked with which, you know, do you know, I think you see LJ LJ here.

578
01:16:27,410 --> 01:16:31,970
And so her clinical knowledge was was good.

579
01:16:31,970 --> 01:16:46,290
She made notable discoveries about the effects of radiation in utero, especially in relation to leukaemia.

580
01:16:46,290 --> 01:16:52,910
I'm absolutely sure really why she and Richard didn't see eye to eye.

581
01:16:52,910 --> 01:16:58,460
I'm quite sure the underlying conflict.

582
01:16:58,460 --> 01:17:04,830
But there's certainly there was something there.

583
01:17:04,830 --> 01:17:09,350
And it's true. The gossipy question it may be, but it certainly there was.

584
01:17:09,350 --> 01:17:16,340
I mean, so in your view, she wasn't pushing evidence that she shouldn't have been and sort of exaggerating.

585
01:17:16,340 --> 01:17:22,880
Well, of course, you know. Oh, well, there may have been an endless argument about the effects of very low dose radiation,

586
01:17:22,880 --> 01:17:31,550
very innocent people still under the influence of very low dose ionising radiation in relation to cancer.

587
01:17:31,550 --> 01:17:36,880
And certainly, I think Richard and Alice had different views on that.

588
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:42,770
You know, it may have been in part that I may say in this position,

589
01:17:42,770 --> 01:17:50,600
when I was appointed, I obviously had to see how it was I was to give her department.

590
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:59,520
And at first I did sense of hostility, but it didn't last.

591
01:17:59,520 --> 01:18:08,270
You know, I'm sure she soon, soon soon became friends and she was actually very kind to me and helped me, which she could.

592
01:18:08,270 --> 01:18:12,980
She was a very, very tough lady and a very remarkable lady, Alice.

593
01:18:12,980 --> 01:18:17,120
And in some ways, I suppose you could say the hard act to follow.

594
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:23,210
But of course, her involvement Michael was totally different from a different world and different.

595
01:18:23,210 --> 01:18:34,670
Absolutely. Totally different. It is. And so they were never they would set out to make it work.

596
01:18:34,670 --> 01:18:44,330
You couldn't make it completely direct. Yes. And she, of course, had followed while while he was a distinguished, distinguished person.

597
01:18:44,330 --> 01:18:48,920
Yeah. Well, Martin, that's terrific interview. Thank you very much indeed.

598
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:53,074
We'll have to see it's a movie.