Sunday 11 September 2011

9 September 2011

I really don't think it could have gone any better. What a perfect time to have a get together, just when most of us are free of work commitments and ready to take up long-neglected friendships again. It was a real thrill seeing so many old friends interacting and getting on so well. An extraordinary phenomenon which I experienced on several occasions was looking at an unfamiliar face, and then as recognition dawned, watching it "morph" into the face I remembered.

In the next few days I plan to post a fuller account of our reunion, and contributions from all of you are welcome. Once we've got this posted, perhaps with some photographs, I'll email everybody, including those who couldn't get to Guys last week.

Thursday 8 September 2011

Kay Allsopp

A last-minute contribution, making a total of 37. Well done everybody. There have been over 2500 visits to the blog, the majority I suspect by me. LY

Dear Lawrence

Checking back on old messages to get the times etc for Friday, I realised I've failed to send a biog of any sort. I can only apologise

I suspect I'm far too late but in case not, here's the outline.

Married to (Dr, Bart's) Peter Ashby for nearly 48 years. Son 46,m, Director Eli Lily,was in USA, now back here , 3 kids. Daughter 43, m. lives in Wales, 2 kids. Works in Child Potection.

I did sessional work while my children were small, then worked for the MDU, latterly Deputy CE. President of the Medico-Legal Society.

After I retired, volunteered with RMBF (Chairman Cases Committee, on the Board etc). Also volunteered with the Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Fund, now called Perennial.

More recently have qualifications from City and Guilds in Stitched Textiles. Hard going, back to school for 4 years! Now one of the 09Group of Textile Arstists, exhibiting with the Group, and do a little teaching of Textile Art etc.

Can't think of anything else!

See you tomorrow...are you still 6 foot 8.......or perhaps you never were that tall, just seemed it! Kay Allsopp

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Richard Worden


Richard Worden, now aged 80 years!!

Why at 25 years of age, with one child, a wife and an established career, did I decide to pursue medicine? Even with the alleged clarity of hindsight it is still not readily apparent and I certainly had no ambition to be a GP. Gladly, no regrets. I am truly grateful for 50 years of physical and mental fitness and an experience of the patterns of life only to be found in clinical medicine.

Two marriages and happily, still married to my second wife having clocked up 27 years, encompassing seven children, nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Life gets busy at times.

Initially my future was to be in obstetrics and gynae. I spent a considerable period of time in the wilderness of locum work until, with a third child on the way, a practice in Aylesford offered me a partnership. This was then a semi-rural practice and the M2 had not been constructed. At the time of my retirement in 1993 I had a training group practice with four partners. We had our own purpose built premises serving a population of twenty thousand plus. By now the M2 and the M20 had arrived!

After my retirement I was recruited for the Disability Tribunal Service until they retired me at 75 years of age. Since my second marriage with the addition of another family we are happily enjoying a range of personalities and nationalities as most of the children have travelled overseas to find a spouse. At the last count we have French, American, Irish and Cameroonian gene pools to strengthen natural selection. My main interests have been sailing and beekeeping but sadly at 80 years of age and moving from the country to a town both interests are now from an armchair.

I am glad to see the names of David Stevens and Graham Williams on the reunion list, hope I will still recognise them (just had my cataracts removed).

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Malcolm Blacklee


Hello Lawrence,
I remember you as being extremely tall and hence rather good at darts being able to nearly lean over and put them in rather than throw them.
I entered in the 2nd MB year as I had achieved 4 A levels at School. After this my academic prowess tailed off somewhat but I did achieve the FRCS (Ed) in 1971. Following qualification House and Registrar jobs followed in Southend, York, Derby, Winchester, Orpington and Ashington in Northumberland in General Surgery and Orthopaedics. I met my wife Nadine over the operating table in York and we married in the harsh winter of 1963 honeymooning in the Lake District where we walked on the ice on Lake Windermere. 2 Children followed and I saw my GP colleagues doing well and so I switched to GP in 1974 finally settling in Pickering in North Yorkshire in 1975. I kept on with my Surgical interests having a weekly list at Whitby Hospital until 2004. I retired from Full time GP in 1999 and since then have travelled a fair bit; I went to Mongolia with an outfit called the Borders Exploration Group which was a private organisation taking mainly school leavers from the border areas of Scotland to different parts of the world to work play and learn. We spent 5 weeks in Mongolia in 1999 with days in China as well. I will always remember the Chinese staring at the Scots boys in their kilts in Tiaenamen Square. I went with the same Group to Peru for 5 weeks in 2003 where we built a medical centre up in the Andes south of Cusco, trekked to Machu Pichu slept on an island on Lake Titicaca and had a few days in the upper Amazon jungle. Fortuneately the teenagers and leaders of both these trips were fit and my medical calls were few and far between save for one awful episode in Mongolia when one of the teenagers was killed in a road accident. My wife and I both skied until fairly recently and we both play golf. Travel is now for holidays only but we have been to several European countries as well as China, Cambodia, Laos,north and south India,Shri Lanka, Egypt, Morrocco, South Africa, America and Canada. We have 3 grandchildren now and we will try and see as much of the rest of the world as we can before the grim reaper claims us.
Malcolm Blacklee

Sunday 4 September 2011

Pene Key






Pene has kindly sent this "blurb" for her autobiography, a copy of which will be available for inspection, (and perhaps ordering), on Friday 9th. Pene received her OBE in 1976 for services to children in Cambodia.

Pushing the Boundaries – Memoirs of a Travelled Doctor

Pene Key’s autobiography


Dr Pene(as everyone knows her) has given us Pushing the Boundaries – Memoirs of a Travelled Doctor, through which she invites us to share her journey of forty-five years and some of her amazing experiences in different parts of the world. It is a powerful, absorbing and colourful story.

It has been my privilege to watch Dr Pene O.B.E at work in places like Dogura, a remote mission station in Papua New Guinea; and Bhubaneswar in Orissa, one of India’s poorest states; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital as it recovered from the trauma of the Pol Pot era. She was consistently authoritative, passionate and dogged. She knows her stuff, she cares deeply for the people she is serving and she sees the task through to its completion. Whatever the problems, the boundaries get pushed out. Sustained by her Christian faith, she is fearful of nobody, least of all intransigent males!

I believe there are hundreds of thousands of people on our planet who owe their quality of life, even life itself, to the health interventions and preventive systems that Pene has helped governments and other agencies put in place in the two-thirds world. Not that she has finished. As the last chapter makes clear, she is planning the next ten years, with malaria control, stroke research and more international projects in her sights.

Pushing the Boundaries is a wonderful chronicle of past adventures and achievements, but its primary purpose is about the future and the potential of the rising generations. Pene has dedicated her book to her three nieces Jane, Sophy and Helen, who are all making a significant difference in their worlds of child and family protection, veterinary medicine and the education of teenagers. She is challenging Imogen, Phoebe, Libby, Holly, Olivia, Ella, Laura, Clare and others yet unborn to rise up and push out the boundaries as they take their place as future leaders. Not to mention the many male Keys as well! There is a bright future for family chronicles.

Friday 2 September 2011

Simon Brook



I first thought about being a GP when I was evacuated to my Uncle and Aunt in the war and my GP Uncle took me on home visits. After qualifying, I did House & Casualty jobs at Lewisham and then Obs. & Gynae. at Redhill General.
In 1962, I married Pam Barnardo, a London Hospital Nurse, and in 1964, trained with my Father-in-law in Reading. After working for 2 years in Yorkshire, I joined a partnership in Cambridge.
We were privileged to be involved with teaching and training students and doctors from 1973. The clinical school then started in 1976 and the photo shows the Chancellor and Prof. John Butterfield, (then Regius Professor,) at the opening of the new building.
I was a clinical assistant at the old Maternity Hospital for 10 years, eventually being attached to Prof. Douglas, Cambridge’s first Professor of Obstetrics. As an honorary assistant I was a keen user of the GP delivery scheme until the whole unit moved to the new Rosie Hospital.
In 1990, I became a clinical assistant in the care of the elderly. This eventually led to working on a short term specialised ward for Patients Awaiting Alternative Accommodation elsewhere (PAAAFEs) in Addenbrooke’s. I was also involved as GP rep. with the pilot study on the implementation of the NHS & Community Care Act.

Our practice was probably the first in Cambridge to care for a patient suffering from Aids. I was the GP rep. on the Joint Advisory Group on Aids and organised a visit to St Stephen’s & St Mary’s to study the care of these patients. This was postponed by the hurricane, in 1987!
Besides my research on the introduction of Western Medicine to China, I have been involved with research on the Placenta, the early diagnosis of Pregnancy with the introduction of Ultrasound, Bone Density, Hyperlipidaemia, and the Contraceptive Pill. It has been a great pleasure to co-operate with so many colleagues in this way.
After semi- retiring in 2001, I worked as a locum for several years, until fully retiring in 2009. We have four grown up children and so enjoy spending time with them all and their families. Our seven grandchildren, aged between 20 and 1, are keeping us young!
Pam and I do hope you have a wonderful reunion and send you all our warmest greetings.

Tony Hanne


“Strangely since the day I left Guy’s to go to my first house job in Guildford, I have seen none of you except Alan Bird who turned up here in New Zealand as a visiting expert in Ophthalmology. I therefore remember all of you as beautiful young people full of energy and dreams. It is with enormous regret that I am not joining you for the re-union next weekend but there is one consolation. In my mind none of us will be one day older – and nor will I.



I have marvelous memories of my time at Guy’s. I still remember the lecture rooms, the path. museum, the library, the dissecting room, and the labs., the wards, the cafeteria and the quad. Many of our teachers were brilliant. Some were delightfully eccentric. Many of their wise words and maxims are still fresh. What I so greatly appreciate is that so much of what they taught me was sound principles rooted in a great history which have stood the test of time even though the specifics have changed.



After three years rotating round the Royal Surrey County Hospital and a year tasting and learning to love general practice I left England to visit my parents who had moved to New Zealand. My intention was to stay for a year but from the first day I felt at home, and took root here in Auckland. I found general practice well organized and resourced so that there was every opportunity to practice good medicine accessible to everyone. I spent 1 year in an affluent suburb, 21 years in a group practice in a poor area and the last 24 years working solo from home. I have no plans to retire from medicine because I so love what I do.



Over the last 20 years I have developed a special interest in ADHD, first among children and now largely in adults, and this has opened up fascinating doors of opportunity to research, write, teach and be an advocate. I had 7 years as a part time Senior Lecturer in General Practice in the Auckland Medical School and have had many students in my practice. I have never forgotten going to John Fry’s practice in Beckenham during my time at Guys which gave me a good yardstick for teaching students.



There has been opportunity to be involved as an examiner and in various management roles in the Royal NZ College of GPs which has given me a taste, but only a taste of medical politics. Two years ago they graciously made me a Distinguished Fellow.



I have to make a confession. I have lived a double life. It began in my second year at Guy’s in which I found a Christian faith with the help of some of you. Beginning in student days and continuing to develop while in Guildford I developed a deep involvement in Christian work among young people. In my first year in New Zealand the openings to share my faith all round the country somehow mushroomed. Only a year after arriving I was looking for a base to give young people training in Christian leadership. I found a beautiful old home in 4 acres of garden on the cliff top overlooking the sea on the edge of the city, and began a programme which has drawn over 3000 students from some 75 countries and continues today.



Right from the start the whole idea was crazy. Was I supposed to be a doctor or a Bible teacher? I have never received an answer so I continue to do both – and it makes sense. Christian teachers often have their heads in the clouds and need down-to-earth reality which medical practice constantly provides. GPs can become cynical because most people don’t take any notice of our good advice so we need a source of lasting hope.



Thirty two years ago I met my amazing Kiwi wife, Christine, who has shared the adventure of our double life. We have two great sons, Nick aged 29, developing strongly as a writer while continuing post-graduate study, and Pete aged 21, still training as an outdoor education instructor and recently awarded the NZ Bravery Medal.



If you want to know more of what we do, we have two websites, www.drhanne.co.nz and www.foweylodge.com which explain a bit of our double life.



Should you find your way to New Zealand, one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth, we would be eager to make you at home and show you around. Just one warning. If you look at a globe you will see it is not on the way to anywhere.



Have a great re-union!