Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Public health microbiologist who chaired two major E. coli inquiries and advises on infectious diseases like MRSA and swine flu.
On the island
Eight records
Sonata in D minor, BWV 964Favourite
Well, this is harpsichord music. This is Bach sonata in D minor. I think for me this just epitomizes, you know, the fantastic talent that Bach had. There are all sorts of different kinds of Bach, and this is the sort I like the best.
James Reese Europe's 369th US Infantry Band
Well, this is jazz as it was introduced into Europe. This is Jim Europe's 369th US Infantry Band playing at Memphis Blues. And this was the all-black regiment in the US that really distinguished itself in the First World War and won Croad de Guerre by the bucketful and was a major, major advance, I think, in terms of getting racial relations in the US right.
Sonata in A minor for double bass and string orchestra
I like double bass music and there isn't that much about it, and this is fantastic double bass music. And the real reason I'm putting it in is that my grandfather, when he worked to work at the metal hospital, he got a bonus for playing a musical instrument in the hospital band and it was double bass and he got two pounds a year extra, which was quite substantial.
Yes, it's Vivaldi, which is another of my favourite composers, but let's go a little bit out of the usual seasons and all that kind of stuff, and have Andrea Scholl, who's a counter tenor, singing one of Vivaldi's cantatas. Now, my father was a very good singer, and I think at one time he could have been a counter tenor...
This is the turn of Hungarian folk music, and I like Hungarian folk music, and this is Hungarian folk music from Romania. ... I used to play this music on my car radio when going up to a little house on the Murray Firth with my two daughters, and they would call this the poll tax music...
George Elrick and Annie Shand Scott and her Band
And Nipster pluck. This was recorded in Aberdeen in the Tivoli Theatre. And it's about a farm worker being hired. ... I think this epitomises the rugged independence of the farm worker despite all these hard times.
For me personally, popular music went off around about nineteen twenty nine. It's never really recovered. ... I think the epitome of jazz for me and the epitome of popular music is the Man City Blue Blows and you know, it's got a fantastic sort of group...
Well, this is this is the Kelty Clippy, which is a a a song written about the Five Coalfields, basically. ... It's been my privilege most of my scientific career to have a woman boss, actually. And women mentors in my career have been very, very important. And they've had to work hard. They've had to be like Kelty Clippy and take no nonsense...
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:20How much sympathy do you have for all of us [the public] who run around worrying if something's going to get the better of us?
Well, a lot of sympathy because a lot of the fear is unjustified. But on the other hand, one does see tragedies as well. So one has to put it into perspective, into balance, and that's often a good way of making people wash their hands, for example. And then you have to live your life anyway, and you have to take risks.
Presenter asks
9:11Tell me about this Victorian Lunatic Asylum, which holds a small but significant part in your family history.
My grandfather went to work there at the end of the nineteenth century. In his first month he slept in the refractory ward with the noisy patients, and that was the test which he passed. ... He did well and eventually became the the chief male nurse. ... Those are the sort of stories my grandfather told which are fascinating about the life in the hospital. Where I worked as a medical student myself, when it was in its sort of it wasn't closing, but it was on the verge of being run down.
Presenter asks
10:37Did [working at the asylum] help to formulate some of your beliefs and some of your motivations about what you would spend your future doing?
The keepsakes
The book
Dionysius Lardner
he was a Victorian publicist of science. And he got the most fantastic set of authors to write this encyclopedia. He got Walter Scott to write a bit history of Scotland and really the top names of the day. And it's also got astronomy in it, so you can look at the stars. And it's 133 volumes. So I think if you'll allow me 133 volumes, I think it'll keep me reading for a while.
The luxury
So I can look at the animal kils in the ponds, if there are any ponds well, there has to be some water supply on this island, and look at all those fantastic kind of you know, water fleas and things like that, which uh they're linked with the world because they blow around in the dust and everywhere in the world has pretty well the same sort.
Absolutely. Well, it drove out any religious belief I had because I could see suffering on a grand scale. And I thought, well, you know, if there's any plan and it has suffering in it, it's not a very good plan. So that sort of finished off religion for me in an organized form.
Presenter asks
15:21It's always curious when people who are trained in medicine choose to work with the dead rather than the living. Why was that?
Well, I f I I just felt that was a more int interesting intellectually interesting part. ... I got into the bacteriology where ... the bugs are living and there's a bit of risk from catching them when you're working with them. ... And questioning as well. And I'd always had a fairly strong curiosity bump. And th you could see that microbiology, for example, there were still vast number of unanswered questions, and it was a good place to go to try and get answers to some of them.
Presenter asks
21:31Is it true that you studied at the lab which saw the last fatal case of smallpox in Britain?
Yes, I'm afraid to say it was a very tragic business. I was asked to examine a PhD thesis in the lab in Birmingham, which unfortunately the virus escaped from and killed somebody. And the tragic thing is that the research was high quality and it was being done really to put a line under smallpox. They rushed the work through because the lab was going to be closed because of worries about safety. And that was probably the main reason why the virus got out.
Presenter asks
25:30Do you think it's realistic, that when people are at their most vulnerable in hospital, that they feel in a position to say something's not right here?
No, it's really very, very difficult for them to do that. I mean, they may may not feel up to it because they're sick in the first place. And then of course they're they're really under the care of a doctor and a nurse and they perhaps don't want to offend them or criticise them. But when it comes down to things like hand washing, I I have met patients who have watched people coming in and not washing their hands and so on. And that's the time when perhaps something should be done about it.
“There are more cells in our bodies which are bacterial cells than our own.”
“Part of life is death, as it were, and and Uncle Jim was that was his business, and maybe that was it.”
“For me personally, popular music went off around about nineteen twenty nine. It's never really recovered.”