Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Allergy specialist who introduced the pollen count and revolutionised hay fever and asthma treatment, known as the grandfather of allergy.
On the island
Eight records
Little Brother Dance With Me (from Hänsel und Gretel)
Jennifer Larmore, Rebecca Evans, Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras
This is going to Gleinborn. I've only twice been to Gleinborn, but to me it means something, and this particular bit of music I think you're going to play now was particularly appealing.
Bridal Chorus (from Lohengrin)
This is because my mother was playing the organ and my twin brother and myself had to provide the air for it. And so it's the first bit of music at the age of seven that I ever really listened to and enjoyed.
Three Little Maids from School (from The Mikado)
When I was at school. We were all boarders and there were no girls. And every winter we did one of the Gilbert and Sullivans. I was a treble and I always enjoyed any of the Gilbert and Sullivans that we did.
Choir of St Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Dearnley (organ), John Scott (conductor)
Every now and again I go to St. Paul's Cathedral and listen to Evensong there. … I thought Japanese, girl, and at the end of it, when it was all finished, I said to her, You were at the service, weren't you? What takes you there? And she said, I have to interpret from English to Japanese from three o'clock in the morning, most mornings, to Tokyo. And she said it's very stressful occupation and she said, I get so stressed. She said, I come to evensong at Saint Paul's.
Queen's College, Oxford. They have various gaudies. … there was a story that goes back a very long time, where a student at Queen's had gone to study Aristotle in Greek in the forest just outside Oxford, and he was attacked by a boar, and he threw his Greek book down its throat, and his life was saved, and the boar, of course, died. And they've celebrated this particular episode ever since, with this gaudy special dinner with Carols. I happen to be an honorary fellow, so I get an invitation to all these gaudies and they're very enjoyable to go to.
This is a personal interest in someone who I remember being born. I knew her father quite well, in fact we did papers together at Guy's Hospital and here, not even thirty years later, she is appearing singing in opera and it was marvelous to hear her singing a major part.
Fantasy in C major, Op. 17 (first movement)Favourite
I am happen to be a Draper and Sir Nicholas Jackson. For the last twenty years he runs these marvellous concerts in the evening at Draper's Hall, and he likes to encourage young people. … the last concert, for instance, there was a girl playing and just looking at her hands to see what they can do. That she can play for over twenty minutes without any music is another thing that intrigues me very, very much.
Nimrod (from Enigma Variations)
Band of Her Majesty's Welsh Guards
I love listening to bands playing. Not only do they play music, but they march when they play. … they'll play this bit of music and it can be very sorrowful and very moving and it makes you realize. All my friends, they lose their lives and I've been lucky and I haven't. But I think it's worthwhile looking back and I think the music that the band plays, it makes you again think you're lucky.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:24In layman's terms, what most excites you about what's being done in the area of allergy research and work right now?
Well, in things of course inevitably have changed terrifically since I started working in the allergic field, particularly genes. Now there's a terrific amount of work being done on genes. I happen to be an identical twin. And you'd think that I have the same genes. No, we're all different. I myself have had seasonal hay fever for about ninety years before I've grown out of it. I've had acute anaphylaxis and so on. But my identical twin brother and if you'd seen him when we were both eighty, you couldn't possibly distinguish us. The great thing that did distinguish us was that I form allergic antibodies and get symptoms, and he never did. Why this is, we don't know. There are so many factors we now look at. … What does the mother eat during pregnancy? That may be important. Breastfeeding, non breastfeeding. What do you come across in the first few months of your life? This certainly is very important. Do you live with cats and dogs, and do you get immune to them? It looks as though you probably do. There are so many factors, but we don't really know.
Presenter asks
3:46Is it true that in the 1970s you had a patient named Saddam Hussein? Tell me about that.
Well, I always remember it was very exciting to go to the palace in Baghdad, and of course at that time I and most other people hadn't heard of Saddam Hussein. And it took about twenty minutes to see the great man. And I said, Why are we taking so much time? And he said, Well, so many of his predecessors have tended to be shot, so we have to be very careful. Anyhow, if he wasn't sleeping, praying, or eating, he was smoking. He was smoking at least forty cigarettes or more a day, and this is what is causing his chest trouble. … I thought because he was so addicted he wouldn't give it up. And he said, When are you coming to see me again? And I said, I don't think you're going to stop smoking, and therefore I have no intention of coming to see you again. … But strangely, the following morning when I was waiting for my plane, a little man came up to me and said, Someone you're interested in has done what you want him to do. … I'd given up smoking. That day that I saw him.
The keepsakes
The book
Axel Munthe
I read when I was about fifteen or sixteen the story of Son Michele by Axel Munter. Every single chapter is almost a book in itself, and it it's very medical and it and it's f it's fascinating.
The luxury
[I think] a pair of binoculars. So I could look at birds and possibly the ship that's going to rescue me, I don't know.
Presenter asks
7:42Your father had fought in the First World War. What sort of man was your father?
I admired him and liked him very much. I always looked up to him. My father was very poor, as my mother had been left a great deal of money. In fact, in her early twenties, because she had a very good singing voice, she actually spent one year in Switzerland studying singing. My father was at Oxford, at Boredom College and he'd got a classical scholarship there. But he I had this idea that it would be me that would be going to Oxford and I was lucky that I went there.
Presenter asks
14:24I said in the introduction that there was a moment when it literally was the toss of a coin that saved your life. Can you explain how that happened?
On the troop ship there were thirty five doctors, and when we arrived in Singapore I and this other doctor went to an Indian field hospital, I think it was, and when we'd been there for three days, an officer came along and said there are two hospitals, one is at Tanglin, and it's largely dermatology and some V D, and the other is the main military hospital. The job there will be an estis. We both wanted to go to Tanglin. So this officer got a coin out and he said to me, Franklin, call. I said heads, and it was head. And therefore all was well. And I went to Tanglin. The other doctor went to the main military hospital. And when the Japanese came over, they murdered everyone in the operating theatre, including the patient who was unconscious. So this was one of the occasions where literally a spin of a coin saved my life.
Presenter asks
24:02In 1955, you experimented on yourself. Can you tell me what the experiment was and what happened?
I've always been interested in insects, and as an analyst, I'm particularly interested in why do some people have severe reactions and even die, for instance, from a bee or wasp thing. I happen to know that if a mosquito or a flea or any insect bites me, I know all about it. So I thought I would do an experiment to see what happened. So I got an insect which I knew I'd never come across before, one that lives in South America. It's now in the southern states of USA as well, called Rhodius Pradixus. and I let it have a meal once a week. I kept it in my car, and the first thing on Monday morning before going to my department, the energy department, it would have its meal. And for first meal, no skin reaction. A week later, a tiny little papule. And it slowly increased so that by the fifth meal, my arm was swollen for a good three days. … The eighth meal I thought I better do in my own sideboard of a hospital, and that caused me severe anaphylaxis. I mean, I eventually had to have three injections of adrenaline.
Presenter asks
33:13What do you think is the greatest lesson that life has taught you?
Oh, that's a difficult one. I don't know. I see so many people who seem to get depressed by small or perhaps large things. Marriages go on astray and there are all sorts of things happen. I think I have been very lucky. I have never been depressed and even when I was a prisoner of war, we were almost hopeful. I've enjoyed all my life, in spite of all my what I call near misses, and I think I've been very happy and I've been very lucky. I always say I must have a guardian angel looking after me because I've been so near death so many times, but I've always escaped. So I've been lucky and I've never been, as I said before, depressed. I still travel around and I hope to be in Barcelona in a month's time, for instance.
“I thought, if I am a doctor, I would know how to deal with them as people.”
“I decided I'm going to forget everything that I've gone through. I want to forget everything.”
“I would prefer to die in my own home rather than die in a place for old people.”
“I always say I must have a guardian angel looking after me because I've been so near death so many times, but I've always escaped.”