Dear Norman
It’s a pleasure to write ‘a little something’ about our time(s) together, as Kate put it in her email.
We both did PhDs in the Physiology Department at UCL, me after I’d finished medical studies in 1962 and you, I seem to recall, between the intercalated BSc and the clinical course. However, we both ended up a few years later as Lecturers in the department, though working in different fields. Even there, our interests crossed later after I returned from a sabbatical in the USA after which I switched to working on the physical and exchange properties of single capillaries.
Our closest working relations, however, were with teaching and examining medical students. When working together examining the unfortunate students who were slightly above or slightly below the pass mark in their written examinations, I remember that you thought I asked really difficult questions and I thought the same about you. Maybe it was because we didn’t know the answers to the questions the other was asking!
Over the years we kept in touch, you at Southampton and then Hobart and Melbourne and me at Charing Cross & Westminster and then the Wellcome Trust. On one occasion you invited Deirdre and me to Hobart as your house there was not used very frequently after your children had graduated. A year or two later, we took you up on this kind offer and we had a wonderful holiday in Melbourne and Hobart where you and Kate were the most thoughtful and delightful of hosts.
So Norman, congratulations on your celebrations and may there be many more to come.
Laurence