Ed.: In the absence of any
other contribution, here is one written by the Editor, who chose
to upload two 'thumbnail'/full size image pair as an
introduction. If any visitor is still interested, 'click' on them
for full size pictures.. RETROSPECTIVELY YOURS
From Motala to Penshurst
By Eric Pihl
Introduction
Ed.: In the absence of any
other contribution, here is one written by the Editor, who chose
to upload two 'thumbnail'/full size image pair as an
introduction. If any visitor is still interested, 'click' on them
for full size pictures.
Chapter 1. Until 1945
I was born in Motala, Sweden in the Autumn of l934. I have few memories dating back to the pre-war years. One is of a camping trip to Gothenburg, where we looked at the latest 1939 Ford one ton truck through a wire fence. I wanted Dad to buy a red one. Later, probably in August that year we started to hoard coffee beans in large glass damejeannes, since it had become obvious that a major war was about to start. One day my grim faced parents told me that The War had started. 1940 was a bad year; my parents experienced irretrievable differences and mother moved to Stockholm. She nearly drowned, walking across the ice to Motala. Next memory is that of starting primary school, a walk of four km a day. A journey on my own by train to Stockholm was exciting. Eric Hamarin had returned from Spain a few months earlier. Despite his efforts, Franco was able to march four columns against Madrid. The fifth column had already infiltrated the city.The winters 1941 and 1942 were unusually cold, but building snow grottos on the ice and lighting a candle inside was a creative experience. Heating fuel was in short supply, so keeping warm was quite a problem. The outside loo was uncomfortable at -32 C. However, there were many redeeming features, growing up in Sweden at that time. The amount of freedom and little parental control would make today's youngsters envious. Wintersports like skiing - sometimes the only way of getting to school, when we were snowed in for days - and ice skating bred a tough lot. During the Summers, boating on the lake just a few metres away from our house was exciting. Water was pumped straight from the lake - no pollution in those days! "You do not dump anything in the water!" Summer refrigeration was seldom a problem. Sweden is not particularly warm at the best of times, and ice cut from the lake during the Winter was stored under sawdust for several months. Rationing and a chronic lack of money to buy food was a problem shared by almost everybody. Occasional foxes and crows found their way into the pot, but an illegal bartering system was well developed in the country, so we suffered less than city folks, although making a living from a three acre market garden, when the soil was frozen for five months and hot houses required expensive heating, was not always easy. I had to work in our market garden from the age of 7 after school, and had little time to do my homework
Dad was called up to serve in the army for a total of 18 months. He told us that when Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union, the Swedish army was just waiting for orders to march into Finland, and join forces with the Finns. "Finland's cause is ours", and a large contingent of Swedes volunteered and fought on the Finnish side. The order to cross the border by the army never came, and the Finns managed well during the 1939-49 war. They had a highly efficient, well prepared national service army. The Russians wore long, dark overcoats, had no skis and were an easy target for the Finns, who wore white uniforms and attacked on virtually noiseless skis during the nights.
There were no incursions into Sweden by either side. My only memories from the warfare that raged outside the Swedish borders, were news reports quoting "Deutsches Nachricten Buro", and seing a few trains with German soldiers from "Division Engelbrecht" on their way to and from occupied Norway. This was considered a necessary evil, since the Swedish government had neglected our defense during the pre-war years. Well, the allied side received help on the quiet - wayward German V1 and V2 rockets which had landed virtually undamaged in Sweden, were hastily flown to England for examination. On another occasion, an English "blimp" was drifting over our heads, the anchor wire hitting the power line just above my head, although it could have been many metres away, since we just heard the noise.
I was an avid reader and read every available book in our school library, leaving to the last heavy volumes of "The Great War" , and Sven Hedin's travels in the Gobi dessert. I used to read all my mothers old books, by a torch lamp, under the blanket so as not to be noticed. Selma Lagerlof, a pre-war Swedish Nobel prize winner was one of my favorites.
The Swedes got tougher as the Germans were losing the war, and I have a memory from early 1945 of an army display of a mock attack by soldiers firing blanks from submachine gun model 45. A quoted figure of 340,000 called up defense forces gathered near the border with Norway, after continental Germany was being occupied but had declared that the intact German army corps in Norway would keep fighting. However, also this army capitulated on the 17th May, 1945.
My last memory of the European war was in the Summer of 1945, when two most impressive American B17 bombers, which had been damaged over Germany but escaped to Malmslatt outside Linkoping, were displayed on "Air Force Day". They were to be flown back to base. A German Fieseler Storch was open for inspection, and we youngsters were allowed to inspect and sit in the cockpit. It was a remarkable machine used mainly in reconnaissance, since it could fly so slowly that a man running on the ground underneath could keep pace with it. In August that year we learnt that the Pacific War had ended by the "Americans dropping tennis ball sized atom bombs and obliterated several Japanese cities". During the war years sympathies were divided early on, since the arch enemy from at least 800 years back were the Russians. But public opinion shifted gradually, and once the United States became involved, few pro German sympathizers were left, especially since an estimated 1/3 of the Swedish population had migrated to the United States since the years of overpopulation and starvation in the 1840's. There was virtually no family which did not have a relative "over there". A song making fun of a Swede visiting the "old" country but having "forgotten" his mother tongue, sounded like "Very, very welcome home Mister Swanson..." (Svensson, i.e. son of Sven, is a very common, archetypical Swedish name.)
Chapter 2. My Early High School Years
My parents had agreed that my father would let me complete four years of
High School, which would correspond to "Junior High". My ranking in
primary school was rather high, but my grades were average at high school. What
was the use of little schooling, since none was really required by factory
workers? We had four large industries. The Central Torpedo Works had done well
previously, but faced fewer orders immedaitely post war, the iron foundry,
Motala Verkstad (Eng. syn.Motala Works), was facing increasing
competition, and the smoke stack industries were in general decline. Electrolux
and Luxor could only sell so many vacuum cleaners, and radio sets respectively.
The immediate post war years saw an increasing affluence. Our industries were
unscathed by the war and ready to export to the rest of the world. Volvo became
a major car and truck manufacturer, and SAAB (corresponding to Swedish Aeroplane
Pty Ltd) had many innovative designs and had become a major aeroplane
manufacturer. It became increasingly obvious that tension was building up again
in Europe, and we Swedes were rightly proud of having the third largest air
force in the world, virtually all produced at home. Light bombers and attack
planes were a daily sight in the skies. Although I can not remember the actual
year, probably 1948, a 19 year old pilot decided to have a bit of fun and
practise advanced flying over our heads. I heard a high pitched engine noise,
looked up, and saw a double engined Swedish B17 break up at a steep angle. A
parachute emerged, and began to drift towards the lake. I rode my bicycle home
and got into our row boat, but the parachute drifted too fast, and the co-pilot
drowned. There was a nauseating smell from the crashed plane, burning in a field
of carrots; the remains of the pilot were found in the upside down cockpit. This
put me off any aspirations to join the air force at 17, when the air force took
in recruits.
At home, we bought a refrigerator in 1947 - no more ice needed from the lake. It
was something to be proud of, when you could tell the others that "I swam
in the lake on Midsummer's Eve, 24th of June", although the temperature
barely reached 18C towards the end of July, and Autumn set in at about 10th of
August. The 8th of August was something of a national high point, when the
crayfish season started. Crayfish is eaten under almost pre-religious
circumstances; much ethyl alcohol is imbibed, and the song "the whole one
goes (repeat), " and the one who does not take the whole one, does not get
the half one either". Sadly, the cray fish fungal pest eventually set in,
and crayfish had to be imported, from as far as Turkey. I had virtual free
access to my fathers boat with an outboard motor, but had to pay for petrol from
my earnings in the garden. Also, I was presented with an old BSA 500 cc
motorcycle from war surplus, in 1950. Shortly afterwards I had a major
altercation with a turning Volvo which nearly killed me. I was taken to hospital
unconscious, with concussion and a broken scapula! I recovered and it was great
fun to drive too fast on gravel roads, often making as much noise as possible,
several kilometres from home, by removing the silencer.
The air force likewise got noisier. The SAAB J-29 "flying barrel" flew
over, sometimes several times daily. It had the world speed record for a few
months. One squadron was located 45km to the East, another across Lake Vattern,
some 30 km away. Our market garden did moderately well until the late 1940's,
when imports started to come in; it became difficult to compete producing hot
house tomatoes, with those grown cheaply in warmer continental Europe, where
less heating was required. I graduated from High School, grade 4, with "the
grey hat" token. It did not qualify for higher education entrance. The
market garden was no longer enough to provide a living for three people. I
sought employment in numerous places. The Korean war had just started, and
Sweden had a substantial unemployment. No luck! My last attempt locally failed,
when the heavy iron foundry industry Motala Verkstad told me that I was too
young. In retrospect, my lucky day! There was a joke in those days: "If you
aren't suitable for anything else, there are only three choices left, become a
clergyman, join the police force, or the army". Those who failed any of the
above, were often referred to in pseudo-military terms as "belonging to the
intelligence reserve". Anyhow, the boring church services, often
with a one hour sermon put me off, already after one visit to the local church,
a four km bicycle ride away, and besides, you needed further education, which
was out of the question under my economic circumstances. I was too young for the
police force, leaving one final alternative - the army.
Chapter 3. The Army
At the age of 16, I answered an ad "Join the Army". The infantry was considered too low class, and besides, walking, running, and riding a bicycle off road did not appeal, especially since life expectancy in combat is rather limited . I had already joined "The Home Guard", which entitled me to a field uniform, a bayonet, a Swedish Mauser long range precision rifle, and a few rounds of ammunition. The bangs were impressive, the force from the recoil awesome, and the thrill when hitting target at rifle practise exciting. This prepared me for the artillery corps, where I expected more bang, and riding trucks or motor bikes in limited comfort.I had just turned 17, when I was to report at artillery regiment A1, outside Stockholm, having signed a 4 1/2 years contract. My intermediate level of education resulted in secondment to "higher line" further education at a nearby signal corps regiment, S1. I found learning the Morse code at a resonable speed rather boring
..beep...bip...beep. A major bonus was that my mother lived within tram or walking distance from both regiments. Accommodation was unattractive. There were 17 of us sharing one living room
("logement"), and about half that number of toilets and showers - there was no privacy. Well, back to A1 and artillery training. During the Summer of 1952, the international situation was precarious; two unarmed Swedish airplanes had been shot down over the Baltic Sea. There was an uproar in the country. Years later on it was claimed that their missions were not entirely innocent in their attempts at finding out a bit more about the Russians on the other side of the Baltic. Could they possibly, and of course entirely inadvertently have strayed somewhat? We expected to be in combat, facing Armageddon fairly soon, when we saw Swedish jet planes in a show of strength flying East, with extra fuel tanks under their wings. These planes did not stray and returned safely. The year of 1952 enabled me to see much of Southern Sweden, in on and off road army trucks Magirus-Deutz
Klockner. The speed limit was 60km/h; they became a bit shaky at 100km/h. Towing and especially reversing with 10.5 cm howitzers attached did require some skill. One of the lessons was the message that life expectancy also in the artillery was about 8min during combat. Submachine gun model 45 did not have single shot firing capacity. During one of the lessons in its handling, the instructor entered the teaching room; suddenly a deafening automatic salvo broke loose. "This is the way you must not handle this weapon". Of course, ammunition used for such purposes consisted of plastic bullets, which pulverised in a special attachment.
Winter training took place during the coldest months of the year, January to March, 1953. We were transported some 1000km North, to the city of Boden (some 10K
inhab.), which had three army regiments, and a large fortification in a nearby mountain. Its only significant asset was said to be the railway South. "Laplander's disease" was a feared condition, its manifestation being brooding and outbursts of violence. I suspect it has something to do with Montesquieu's tenet about human minds reflecting nt on latitude from the equator. "Far, far down to the inhabited earth do you long from snow and ice" (freely translated from an 18th centure Swedish poet). However, it is rather similar to "going troppo" in the country of Oz.
Locomotion was limited to skiing and trucking, the latter with or without howitzers. The slopes encountered when skiing were often terrifying and had to be negotiated in sequences, leaving a choice between trees and the softer snow heaps during abrupt decelerations. Occasional appointments as aircraft lookout, i.e.standing up through a hole in the canvas, when the truck was driving in temperatures of say minus 20C, took its toll. We had to be 'hardened' and exposed to the elements. Camping in army tents in similar cold conditions was relatively comfortable, provided the fire post did not fall asleep. Of course one could easily burn one's boot soles at one end and freeze miserably at the head end; soldiers were sleeping on branches of spruce and fir trees. A slightly worse experience was when the tents were taken away, and we had to sleep in a circular clearing in the deep snow, a fire roaring in the middle --- for a while.
Hygiene is an insignificant problem at minus 20C; soldiers had a water flask, which was useless at that temperature, but water could easily be acquired by melting snow in our metal food canisters. The latter were similarly useful to cook vacuum dried food packs, and washing up was easy with snow and steel wool, since we did not have to worry about bacteria at sub zero temperatures. A most appropriate warning was not to drink any alcohol (which was banned anyhow), since our stomachs are not constructed to absorb fluid at minus 20C. And "keep your bladders empty; enemy bullets cause even more harm when hitting a full bladder". Good advise, but we never got to test its validity.
There were two highlights that year; there was jubilation when we heard that Joseph Stalin had died. I also received my full driver's license, to be used only in military vehicles until the age of 18. Anyhow, I survived Winter training, which partly took place above the Arctic Circle --- it gave us a thrill to see the road sign for the first time.
I applied for and got accepted for officer's training at Jonkoping, which had artillery regiment A6, to which my father had been drafted some 20 years earlier. It soon became obvious that there were large gaps in my formal education, since virtually all the other cadets had completed the equivalent of our
HSC/VCE. I felt that the army principles had gradually become the opposite to my own. As usual I ended up in opposition. The opportunity arose, when all long term army contracts were waived. I resigned.
Chapter 4. Back to the School Bench
My father had by now moved to the industrial, largely textile, city of Norrkoping. I applied for admission to the local senior high school ("gymnasium"), had to sit for an entrance exam, and failed the admission test in French. To my horror it was rather advanced. Luckily, the acting principal was unaware that I had done one year of French less than tested for, so I was quietly admitted. After one term I reached a high pass in French, and credit at the end of the school year. Those were exciting days! A minor problem arose as it gradually became clear that you did not have to stand to "attention" when spoken to by a teacher, nor reply with the Swedish counterpart to "Yes, sir". A bit of giggling went on. Anyhow, being two years older than my contemporaries, I had the determination to make it into the university. My father felt otherwise:" A manual job is good enough for him too!" I moved back to Stockholm and struggled through economic hardship, hard, paid for manual work as a night watchman, postie or truck driver during school holidays, and eventually the Swedish counterpart to HSC/VCE in 1956. My mother was most helpful in her small economical circumstances. I graduated at a 95% level in 1956 and made it into medical School, at the Karolinska Institute in August that year.
Chapter 5. Med.kand/B. Med.
The Autumn of 1956 faced new challenges; Sweden being a small country did not have any Swedish language medical textbooks. The course in Anatomy was based on Rauber-Kosch's textbook, completely in German; it took me one afternoon to learn the first half page. Histology was not much easier; the textbooks were American, Maximov and Bloom, or the cheaper Greep, which I bought, to be different. The first year passed and I managed rather well, being accustomed to army discipline. The second year saw a couple of highlights; the Nobel prize winner in Physiology, Professor vonEuler was a man of strict habits. He entered the lecture hall one minute before the formal start of the lecture, started his lecture on the second, droned through sitting for 45 min and finished on the dot, often in the middle of a paragraph, to assume at the very exact spot at his next lecture. His less famous colleague always brought his German shepherd with him into the lecture theatre. During a rather boring lecture series I spent the time learning to write with my right hand, being left-handed by nature. However, I never mastered the skill (if humanly possible) to write different messages with both hands, although it was easy to write the same sentence with both hands simultaneously. The vonEuler obscessive punctuality, and my ambidextrous skill came in handy at Monash 20 years later. From Montesquieu I learnt that you must "keep the patient amused" at all times, i.e. a few teaching tricks work marvellously well, when you want to keep the audience captive.
Another 'original' was Professor Jorpes, from whom I learnt not only biochemistry, but also "ta panta rei" written on the wall of the lecture theatre. It means that everything is afloat, presumably chaotic, amoebic, unstructured, for ever changing. Old Jorpes said that he and Doctor Mutt were" the only ones around here, who are fluent in Russian". It was said that Jorpes, being a Swedish Finlander by birth in Russian occupied Finland, had ended up on the wrong side in the Russian revolution, although I do not know whether he was "Red" or "White" at that particular moment. Anyhow, he had a prize on his head, "dead or alive", but managed to escape. His life's great disappointment was that he sent a sample for analysis of what subsequently turned out to be vitamin B12, to a Norwegian colleague, who bungled the essay, and Jorpes' Nobel prize chances. I graduated Med.kand in 1958, which did not suffice to practise medicine, being a pre-clinical degree of little significance. However, a "Medicine Kandidat, ...Sommar" used to advertise regularly that he could cure male impotence. At the time, I and my colleague students did not consider impotence a significant problem.
During the summers of 1958 and 1959 my father invited me to come with him on a camping trip to the World exhibition in Brussels, and to Germany, Austria, and Chechoslovakia, respectively. The Atomium in Brussels is most impressive. I did the driving and the talking, my father speaking only Swedish. We had a couple of exciting experiences in East Germany, where we only had the right to travel certain transit routes, but of course managed to get lost and drive along a narrow road, where a Russian T34 tank regiment was exercising. Similarly, we passed a resting column of Russian vehicles, heard of loud bang but came to no harm and decided not to stop. Presumably we were prey to a joke in the form of a banger, let off by one of the soldiers.
The third year of medicine was called "propeudevten", i.e. preparing for clinical studies, pathology being one of the mainstays. Teaching in Stockholm was rather specialised; the most common operation in one department was adrenalectomy, nowadays out of fashion.During two Summer holidays I was considered qualified enough to work as a laboratory nurse, performing blood bank duties, setting blood transfusions, and performing laboratory work, all necessary to earn enough money to survive another term. The fourth and following years of medicine could be studied at any of the five Swedish medical faculties. It was a matter of undergoing the following clinical courses at any of the four medical schools. The new University of Umea had just started up in the far North, some 700km away. They offered plentiful, cheap, subsidized accommodation, a high teacher/student ratio, student demonstrator employment, and a pioneering spirit, all of which I fell for. Back to the far North!
Chapter 6. Clinical StudyYears
The Medical School added much prestige to Umea, and B.Med. students were treated like human beings. There were only 30 of us, meaning more patient contacts, and a broader spectrum of disease conditions than we would have had anywhere else, and more admission work and history taking work than we wanted, but also doctors' dining room privileges. We were actually served meals free of charge. A major advantage was the availability of student demonstrator work in the Department of Pathology, which meant that I earned enough to complete medical school with little debt. The number of students doing some of the smaller medical subjects like dermatology-venereology, neurology, ophthalmology, at any one time was so small that we had personal tuition of an average of 6-8 students. Common question: "Where is Eric Pihl today?" "Probably ill at home!" (actually working). I had now learnt enough medicine to be able to work as an acting radiologist, house doctor in medicine, or junior surgical registrar, Sweden suffering from a doctor shortage during the affluent early sixties. My final course in surgery before graduation was called "assistanceship", which meant full responsibility and limited supervision. We worked on a three day rotating roster, outpatients one day, on call duties during the night, assisting at major surgery the following day, and ward duties and patient intake the following day. One learnt much rather quickly, and sometimes it was a matter of trained theatre nurses handing the right instrument at the right time. Senior surgeons were considered too old and worn out at the age of 55.
Chapter 7. 'Re-invited' by the Army, and Graduation
A lasting impression from those years were some rather original medical personalities, two health fanatics, one had carotinaemia from drinking large quantities of carrot juice, one had a habit of running 50 - 70 km on skis, and died doing so, and a dermatologist had a fondness for sleeping off high levels of ethyl alcohol in the snow. A gynaecologist professor was called the equivalent of "Handsome Pete". We loved him for his unconventional lectures and human character:"I am 55, and in 10 years I will be dead". "What is it I am saying? I haven't got a clue!" He was highly skilled, calm and effective.
In the Summer of 1962, I was 'invited' to do an army field training course in the organisation of medical services during war conditions, including how to deal with casualties of radiation and nerve gas exposure. The university city of Umea had a cavalry regiment, which had developed into training reconnaisance units, meant to operate in the roadless marsh lands above the arctic circle, rather than actually fighting from horseback Some of us medical students unsuspectingly accepted thier kind offer of horse riding lessons at a ridiculously low cost. It should not have come as a surprise when the army again 'invited' me to a six weeks field manoeuvre by the unit I was meant to serve in during times of war. A brown envelope "On His Majesty's Service, Department of the Army" arrived in the letterbox, and contained a terse order on a piece of grey paper:" You are to report at K4 on the ....". During a preliminary training week in town, I was allowed to select my own horse. Trouble was that those who knew better had chosen the best horses in advance, and the poor doctor was left with the slowest and most docile, until it had a minor injury, and oanother horse rejected because of its dangerous temper, came my way. A 30km 'march' on horseback saw me back in town, barely being able to walk because of intense pain in my thigh adductor muscles. There was worse to come. The unit was dispatched to the roadless wilderness in the far North for further training under field conditions. Army discipline had slackened during the preceding years, and most of us were now conscripts rather than young recruits, but there was still hardship. I, being the only and rather young doctor, and the similarly conscripted veterinary surgeon, referred to the Geneva convention, that as non-combatants, we should not need to carry the cumbersome submachine gun model 45. To no avail. "This is a war time unit, and your survival depends on a personal arm. Besides we haven't got any pistols".We started a march on horseback at 8pm one day, rode throughout the night, had a couple of 15min breaks, and a 1h breakfast stop. Some of the horses and some of the soldiers had to be sent back to camp with various blemishes. The march finished at 3pm that day. The doctor stood the test. Having completed this unit of compulsory military service, I wrote a submission about the vulnerability of such a unit, but received no reply. The following year the horses were replaced by all weather snowmobile-like vehicles, and I was never re-invited to join the military service, at that point having served a total of 2 1/2 years.
In December 1963 I had completed all the required courses and exams, marched into the University offices, presented my exam book, and was declared Medicine Licentate (equivavalent to MB.BS). Becoming a fully fledged legally qualified doctor was a simple formal application, which I submitted two months later, in January 1964, in order to save the medical membership fee for 1963.
Chapter 8. Postgraduate Studies
After three months practise in Obstetrics and Gynecology, I was invited to join the University Department of Pathology and begin postgraduate research and studies. Although Pathology appealed less than clinical medicine, the offer to perform thesis studies and research as a salaried staff member was irresistible. There was no course work, and supervision was rather minor, but the teaching load, postmortem activities, and training in diagnostic pathology were time consuming. An average postgraduate Medicine Doktor project usually took five years, but also meant specialist pathologist's qualifications at the end. Electron microscopy was fascinating. My thesis was aimed at methodological electron microscopical studies of the pancreatic, insulin producing islets in various species. It led to travel abroad, one year to undergo a one weeks training course at the Siemens factory in Siemensstadt in Berlin. I had never seen a specific German type of elevator, operating according to what was jokingly referred to as "Pater Noster"; i.e. it never stopped, and one had to time jumping on and off rather carefully. The particular model of electron microscope was referred to as "auch Mediziner sicher"... safe to be handled also by doctors of medicine.
I presented my preliminary results at an international conference in Amsterdam. It was rather nerve racking to address the audience in my best high school English. At the conference, I met with Dr. Wilhelm Bernard and his group. They were very innovative in their electron microscopical work, and I was accepted to join them in Villejuif, a suburb of Paris, for one month in early 1967. Already during the first week, it was made very clear to me that the language spoken there was French. Wilhelm Bernard was Swiss, but had become a naturalized Frenchman. I was referred to as "Eric le Rouge" by a French Canadian, presumably in reference to one of my fellow countrymen who stumbled upon the United States some 1100 years earlier, although they preferred to call it "Vineland". A visiting female professor Leduc from Brown University in Providence in the US was jokingly referred to as "le Duc d'Orleans". Many years later, I read that the tall, thinly built Wilhelm Bernard had barely survived a massive myocardial infarction and spent his last few months in an honorary capacity looking after the roses around the research institution.
In May 1968 my thesis was printed, and I marched into the offices of the medical faculty of Umea University, was provided with a hammer and a large nail. It was tradition since Martin Luther's days to nail one's theis into the wall. The dissertation was a three hour public ordeal, leading to Medicine Doktor, which is the medical faculty's Ph.D. counterpart. I graduated with what corresponds to honors, underwent a one hour exam lecture in "Diseases of the Thyroid", and was given the honorary title of Docent i Patologi. The Docent title or qualification was (?and still is) a prerequisite to higher teaching positions at Swedish universities.
Chapter 9. Washington DC
My electron microscopical work resulted in an invitation "Why don't you come over here and work with us for a while" from Gunther Bahr, Chief of the Biophysics Branch at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington DC, USA. This was most exciting; I travelled by air to New York city, then by Greyhound bus to Washington DC, where I arrived in July, 1968.Washington DC was a divided city in those days. The 'ghetto' had burnt a few months earlier, smoke had billowed in over the Capitol, and the racial tension was almost palpable. I was most impressed by the United States. The credit union let me apply for a car loan one day, approved it the next, and handed me the money the day after. Second hand furniture bought at 6 pm resulted in a knock on the door at 10 pm the same day - there was the furniture. Items of equipment and consumables were available the same day. However, the 'no go' areas were frightening, if you happened to have the wrong color of your skin - white. A colleague used to put his 38 calibre pistol under the seat, if he ever had to drive downtown. We, i.e. my wife, daughter Susann aged 7, and son Martin, aged 5, had an armed guard at night patrolling the housing estate Summit Hill, immediately outside the Washington DC boundary, in Silver Springs, Maryland. There were four locking devices on the apartment door. I never saw a single crime committed.
We foreign guest researchers were a privileged group. We had commissary facilities at the Walter Reed post exchange, meaning low costs for food, clothes etc. We were also invited to join military guests from numerous other countries, e.g. Egypt, Ethiopia, South Vietnam, South Korea. on various excursions, e.g. to New York City, with the Statue of Liberty, Country Virginia, the 7th July celebrations on the Potomac River, and the inauguration of the newly elected President, Richard Milhouse Nixon. I spent January 21st, 1969 watching the inaugural parade on Constitition Avenue. Protocol required that you stood to attention and saluted "Stars and Stripes" each time it was carried past, at least 52 times. Kentucky's float had a live Colonel Sanders on board. I was also given a ticket to attend the traditional inaugural prayer at the State Department, sitting eight rows behind President Nixon and standing a couple of metres from Spiro Agnew, the Vice President during an interview. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung by a black singer, whose name I have forgotten.
My research went well, and I had four scientific paper published subsequently. There was also a job offer as Deputy Director of Research at the Industrial Hygiene Foundation in Pittsburgh. However, my B2 visa required me to leave the country for two years before I could come back and have paid employment. As a result, I applied for a position as Director of Pathology at the Base/County Hospital in Boden, Sweden. You can guess the rest, I received a waiver from the stringent visa requirements, and ended up appointed to the Swedish position at the same time. A terse letter arrived from Sweden to the effect:"You have been appointed by His Majesty King Gustaf Adolf 6th in Council, and are to take up the position as Director of Pathology, County (Base) Hospital, Boden, on the 1st September, 1969". This was obviously an order, which I dared not defy, and consequently left the U.S.A. in August that year. The flight home was with Icelandic Air, which at the time had huge four engined turboprop planes, carrying 168 passengers. It landed at Keflavik, outside the Icelandic capital Reykyavik, and subsequently in Luxemburg.
Chapter 10. Director of Pathology, Boden, Sweden
The hospital is huge, being the secondary referral centre for the top/Northern part of Sweden, some three hours drive from the Arctic Circle. I had been in the military service there, 15 years earlier. I was "the founding director" and only doctor in the department.Work was quite onerous. I was the only pathologist in a geographical areas corresponding to the Northern 1/3 of the country. Sweden in those days was a central bureaucracy (pardon the neologism). Parliament had decided that any new medical position had to be in the district general practice field. All important decisions were taken in Stockholm, some 1000 km South. The hospital was rather new and well equipped, but the problems were the same as in Australia in the year of 2000 - the politicians mistrusted and disliked the people and made all the decisions themselves, resulting in plenty of equipment, and new buildings, but dismally few employees to run the services. The department had three doctor's offices, equipped according to rank, but two of them without incumbents.
The long winter lasting from the first snow in August, until early May next year, was bitterly cold. We were driving on packed snow and ice most of that time. Suddenly in early May, there was an eruption of Spring, which lasted approximately three weeks, until full Summer Summer in June. Late June had one week of daily temperatures around 30C, which exceeded that of Madrid. This effect is due to the fact that the sun at those latitudes does not set for several weeks. In fact, one can read a book in broad daylight at any time of the 24 hour day. Flys in the ointment were many, in the form of numerous large and hungry mosquitoes, and a specifically malevolent Northern hemisphere type of fly, the knott. The latter is an abomination that crawls into any orifice, and bites. My poor son on one occasion looked as though he had an eruption of chickenpox.
Australia at that time was seeking skilled migrants, and sent recruiting teams around Sweden. At that time, the Norwegians were also looking for a pathologist to send to Kampala, Uganda. Curiosity, the harsh climate, the all powerful Swedish bureaucracy, and the lack of any help with the onerous work, led me to look for employment elsewhere. My experience from the U.S. was repeated, I ended up with two job offers at the same time. Uganda at that time had internal problems, so I accepted a position as a Senior Lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Chapter 11. Travelling South
The train "Nordpilen" (Northen Arrow) took my family and myself to Stockholm in early November 1970, a journey of approx. 19 hours. From there we travelled South by train from Stockholm. The same train was shunted on board a train ferry in Helsingborg, which took us across the Oresund to the nearest Danish city of Helsingor (of Hamlet fame as Elsinore; the castle is still there). We stayed for two days in Paris, a most impressive city. My only significant memory of Paris was the next day's headline in Le Figaro: "deGaulle est mort!". There was an army parade in Champs Elyssees, led by a horse guard contingent dressed in colorful old type uniforms. Another train trip, now to London and Southampton. My Monash employment conditions included a choice of travel by air, or ship, while paid. The opportunity to see more of the world appealed to us, so we arrived at the docks, where the majestic Oriana 42,000 tons, was waiting. We were to see much less of the world than expected; the Oriana had had to be refitted due to a fire on its previous voyage and was consequently delayed, cutting out several of the ports of call. The Bay of Bisquay was rather rough, but the rest of the trip was in calm but overcast weather until the Indian Ocean. Our first port of call was Madeira, where we watched the sleds running down the steep streets. Then on to Cape Town, the impressive Table Mountain, and an excursion by bus. I did enjoy a bottle of Cap Constanza, a fortified sweet wine, unavailable in Sweden because of the trade boycott. The next port was Durban, where we went on an excusrion to a traditional kraal, and an animal park, where the bus took us very close to ostriches and some huge and rather impressive looking "pussy cats", which our children wanted to pat.
After Durban, the weather became sunny but the long (I think six days) voyage across the Indian Ocean was rather boring. Then, the radio accents changed to Australian, and there was an unmistakable excitement on board. A new continent emerged, together with Australian customs and Immigration officials, before we were let ashore at Fremantle. One of the very first impressions was the intense sun light, coming from an unexpected angle. The magnificent "Christmas Trees" were in flower. Perth in those days of early December 1970, was rather relaxed. The Oriana then took us across the Great Australian Bight, and finally in through the Rip, into Port Phillip Bay, and berthing at the pier in Melbourne, on 5th December, 1970.
Chapter 12. Settling in in Oz
The first few weeks saw us in a comfortable flat in Clayton Road, Clayton, close to Monash University. Our children soon got new friends. We bought a second hand Austin 1800, a make we were already familiar with. However, driving an unfamiliar car, on the left hand side of the road, trying to find the gears with the left hand, and facing peak hour traffic out of Melbourne on a very hot Friday afternoon, was quite a challenge. Petrol was cheap in those days, when Australia benefitted from the Bass Strait resources, well before Fraser decided to impose an unfair tax, called euphemistically "world parity pricing". Income taxes were likewise fair, at 10% of a University Senior Lecturer's quite comfortable salary, the highest tax bracket setting in at six times average incomes - now in May 2000 at just about average income. It all went well for us, my daughter and I fell in love with a brick veneer house in Syndal, Mt. Waverley, because of its substantial garden (both are gone now, replaced by units). We paid $17k and moved in as soon as possible. This was the first house we had ever co-owned with a bank. The Dandenongs were a frequent goal on the weekends. During a subsequent school holiday, we could boast of having visited an orange grove in Mildura one day, and gone to the ski slopes at Mount Buller the following - a rather mad rush of long distance travel, but such was our curiosity.
In 1971, we could afford to buy a 10 acre "bush" block at Mt. Eirene road, Gembrook, where we spent numerous weekends trying to clear tracks through the dense bush. It was ultimately meant to become our retirement place. On one occasion in 1976, we arranged a meeting with a builder, who decided not to turn up, so he missed out on a substantial amount of work, and we never contacted him again. I was soon to go on University study leave to the United States.
Chepter 13. Lecturing at Monash
I already had some pathology lecturing experience in Sweden. However, facing 145-160 students in a huge lecture hall, in a foreign country, lecturing in a foreign language, was quite a challenge. Indeed, the challenge, combined with the opportunity to continue doing medical research, brought me there in the first place. I had already learnt a few "tricks" from my own university lecturers in Sweden (Chapter 5.), and gradually assumed a few of my own. They worked very well! I entered the lecture theatre well in advance of the students, scribbled a few well prepared notes listing the components of the lecture, starring the items in terms of importance on the board, left and re-entered at exactly 5 min before the lecture. The students found this (deliberate) rigidity amusing, but knew exactly what to expect. At 10 seconds before the start, they used to "count down, 10, 9, 8 etc", knowing that the lecture would start "on the dot". Another idiosyncrasy I occasionally practised was to alternate, writing with either hand, and occasionally with both hands simultaneously. This made such an impression on the students that my wife some 20 yrs later listened to a Monash graduate being interviewed on the radio, telling the interviewer that he once had such a lecturer - presumably myself. Anyhow, these and other tricks made them a captive audience. I never saw or heard anyone reading the newspaper at the back of the theatre, which was quite common with some of my colleagues. There was never any need to impose artificial barriers such as "pulling rank".
The students also taught me much about Australian life, colloquialisms, and words not listed in the dictionaries. I prepared my lectures well in advance, and when my knowledge ran out, trying to be one step ahead of them, there was always the resort, "in my experience...".
One year, the students were generally somewhat restive, wanting more clinical teaching and less basic pathology. They managed to get hold of a copy of one of my colleague's prepared exam paper. Thereafter, I had an alternative paper that could be "sprung" on them within minutes. The general student unease subsided in the mid-70's, and at that time I had also become a clinical MB.BS examiner, which added to "authority", which I did not need anyhow.
My relations with the students were friendly. I was in charge of our major teaching year, the 4th clinical, during most of my Monash years. This entailed organising the exams, collating the data, and subsequently the supplementary exams. The examiners board had the ultimate say in who passed or failed the year. These decisions hardly ever caused any serious heartache. A student 's performance was usually concordant in Clinical subjects, Microbiology, and Pathology, i.e. a fail in one was generally accompanied by a fail in one or two of the others.Students with borderline fails (N) were given a supplementary exam - generally my responsibility. No student ever failed "the supp".
The students often invited me to their social events. A lasting memory is that of "macrodecibel music" (please excuse the neologism) in the Camberwell City Hall, and the Moorabbin City Hall respectively, where noise levels estimated at well above 100 db was the order. One could shield one's hearing by propping the external auditory canals full of wet paper, but a thumping sensation in my chest, due to low frequency, high magnitude sound, was most uncomfortable. Do we have a generation of doctors with a neurogenic hearing deficit as a result?
Chapter 14. Research at Monash
My earliest research at Monash was aimed at an animal model of asthma - it did not bring any major benefits. I eventually established a good relationship with the Department of Surgery, whose Chairman and Professor was Sir Edward ("Bill") Hughes. He brought an immense knowledge of general surgery, and specially colorectal surgery to Monash. In fact his interview with the appointing board was referred to as "when Bill Hughes interviewed" the board. He was one of the three hardest working colleagues I have been privileged to work with, the other two being Donald Morton at the UCLA, and Jessie Das in Portland. I once triumphantly told a dear friend of mine, the surgeon Frank McDermott that I beat Bill Hughes by 5 minutes by arriving at work at 7.15 am. A rude laugh followed:"Bill Hughes was just coming back from his ward round at the Cabrini Hospital". Bill Hughes brought with him a 'pool' of some 2,000 colorectal cancer patients he had operated on since the 1950's. Initially the surgical specimens stood out because of their smell, but I soon realised that they were the real research asset. We had a fruitful collaboration over many years. I became the liason academic with the surgeons, and togehter we wrote numerous sicentific papers in referred journals. My own chief and Chairman of Pathology and Immunology in those days was Richard Nairn, who was successful in obtaining numerous research grants, mainly from the Anti Cancer Council of Victoria. I have a slightly uneasy feeling that they contributed more to us than we to them. Anyhow, our research was honest, aimed at finally discharging "the magic bullet" against large bowel cancer. We did not succeed, and this type of cancer is still as feared as in those days.. It is outside the scope of this serial to dwell on these matters.
Chapter 15. Texas, Here I Come
One of the major inducements to stay in academia was the generous employment scheme at Monash, called the "sabbatical". This could be taken at any research institution in the world, for a whole year, after six years of service. During an international conference in immunology in Brighton, UK in 1974, I met with two very active and at that time promising tumour immunology researchers from Houston, Texas, Giora Mavligit and Jordan Gutterman. Having fond memories from my stay in the USA eight years earlier, I contacted them and was accepted to do further research at their institution of Developmental Therapeutics", headed by Professor Freireich, at the MD Anderson Hospital, University of Texas System, in Houston. It was with great excitement I headed there in July 1976, landing at the International airport in the middle of the night - no one met. I found a taxi and asked to be taken to the cancer hospital. "Which one, we have 23 here?" My family found their lifestyle rather confined and went back to the country of Oz after six months, but I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there. Everything was done on a grand scale in Texas. However, it became obvious after a short time that their laboratory research had an occasional shortcoming - I saw the chief of one of the laboratories actually visiting the laboratory once in six months. The medical reasearchers spent virtually all their time in clinical work, and applying for grants.My stay resulted in two scientific papers, one on melanoma, the other on colorectal cancer. One memorable quote from those days was by Frederic Becker, Chairman of Pathology, who commented on a visiting pathology researcher as having "a sophisticated air of unreliability".
Chapter 16. Visiting Professor at the UCLA
My chief Richy Nairn personally knew a Scotsman Alistair Cochran, author of various texts on melanoma, and at the time working in Donald Morton's Department of Surgical Oncology at the John Wayne Cancer Institute, located in the Max Factor Building at the UCLA, Westfield, Los Angeles. We had three and a half months of very rewarding melanoma research together, resulting in two scientific papers. Alistair is a kindly, hard working man, who eventually became Chairman of Pathology at the UCLA. He used to drive a SAAB, and he and his wife made me feel like at home, when visiting their home in Santa Monica. This was a period of warm human relationships, across country boundaries. Los Angeles and surrounding suburbs had some 13 million inhabitants. I used to travel in and around the city on a $20/month bus pass. One Sunday, I left Westfield at 8.00 am and had travelled around the city back to Westfield at 4.00 pm the same day. I also had the opportunity to travel by car to San Diego, with a friend of mine, David Hoon and his wife. David was one of 17 postgraduate Ph.D. research workers. We attended a cancer conference and also had the opportunity to visit the most impressive San Diego Zoo. I was most attracted to relocate to the U.S.A., but an appointment to Clinical Associate Professor at Monash overrode this.
Chapter 17. Go West Not So Young Man
Richy Nairn was about to retire at the end of 1984. I was shortlisted for the Chairmanship of Pathology and Immunology at Monash. However, I was unscuccessful, and a mouse immunologist without pathology experience, or teaching,or any clinico-pathological work was appointed. I could have no respect for the Monash University Faculty of Medicine, or the Department of Pathology and Immunology thereafter. At the same time my old friend, Sir Edward Hughes was soon to retire, i.e. a 'sea change' was inevitable, made easy also by a feeling of knowing more and more about less and less. I would have been left at the only lecturer with clinico-pathological experience. I applied for and was appointed Regional Pathologist at Hamilton Base Hospital, some 300 km southwest of Melbourne. My nearest colleague was 105 km away - a far from ideal situation. Single pathologist practices are an abomination, no one to discuss with, and with little opportunity to keep abreast of professional developments, inevitably taking place at the big city research institutions.. I was abruptly brought back into clinical medicine and coronial postmortem duties - the latter outside the scope of this serial. After an indecently short time in Hamilton, I was "headhunted" to Warrnambool, a substantially larger hospital with a much more extroverted approach to medicine. The workload was substantially greater, which appealed to me. We were in competition with a private pathology deliverer, and I was offered a substantial inducement to work also for them - fees for pathology services can only be raised in the name of a pathologist. I am not a religious man but firmly believe in the biblical edict "thou shalt not serve two masters." The result became obvious when one day, the private pathology delivery cars had been put up on blocks, and the tyres were gone. Our services expanded, and a regional agreement led to a loose merger with the pathology departments at the Hamilton Base, and the Portland hospitals. The chief pathologist was formally in charge of and responsible for all services, a somewhat difficult task, at distances of some 105 km from base. In the early 1990's greed, moral decay, and their gospel of economic rationalism became insitutionalised, panoptic. Unscrupulous politicians and their hirelings started selling off the people's i.e. the taxpayers' assets. Venerable institutions such as pathology departments, which had built up expertise over several generations were shortly sold off to entrepreneurs, trucking companies, and multinationals. I have discussed this elsewhere and will not dwell further on it here. Time had come to retire at the age of 59. My first retirement lasted one month. Tony Roberts rang me up from Ballarat Base Hospital, offered me a halftime locum appointment. They eventually found their workload onerous and employed a fulltimer some six months later. In the meantime, the private entrepreneurial pathology service at Traralgon had folded, and the Dandenong Hospital Path. Dept. promised to run the services. I excitedly told my wife Ruth:"I am going to help public hospital pathology survive in Gippsland." Eventually travel became rather onerous, and they managed to recruit a fulltime pathologist. Both the Dandenong and Traralgon Public Hospital pathology services were "privatised" shortly thereafter. The expertise built up over many generations was suddenly considered worthless by "our" politicians.
Chapter 18. In the Service of St. John of God
St. John of God Private Hospital in Warrnambool had built a new hospital and realised that they needed a pathology department of their own. My second retirement lasted one month. I had refused to work for any of the entrepreneurial, commercial pathology services. In my opinion, the entrepreneurs, trucking companies, and the multinationals have no place in our hospitals. In December 1994 Joe Bagnara, CEO at St. John of God Pathology in Ballarat offered me the position in Warrnambool. One of my best employments started on 1 February 1995. St. John of God Healthcare was founded by their order of Irish nuns. I had already had some contacts with St. John of God Hospital (SJOGH) in Warrnambool, and performed medical procedures there. Sister Helena was one of the major energizers. While I was still Director of Regional Pathology at the Base Hospital, Sister Helena was asked what my department would do in terms of pathology services if SJOG were to build a new, larger hospital. I replied: "The Pathology Department will go, where pathology goes". St. John of God are highly ethical; their objective is to help the sick, and to promote their mission. They have integrated their five principles of compassion, excellence, hospitality, justice, with their day to day actions. I am not a religious person, but one of the highlights came when I suggested to our local CEO, Sister Helena that they visit our Portland laboratory, which had just 'come on line'. A small service was held in the Portland Laboratory, and I had to read verses out of St. Matthews. No one has ever asked me about my religious affilitation (non-existent), and no one has ever tried to influence me!
St. John of God Pathology expanded rapidly. We started to operate the public hospital pathology laboratory at the major public Taranake Health Services hospital in New Plymouth, New Zealand early in 1999, where I was seconded for two weeks in March, 1999. I had gradually learnt (in my own words) that the personalities are the same wherever you go, only the names and the faces differ. This applied in New Zealand as well. After 2-3d I felt like at home, only the accents were slightly different. The Kiwis have a peculiar way of pronouncing the letter 'e'. We old Swedes are generally thought of as being pre-occupied with sex, so I had to suppress my smile, when it became obvious to me that sex was the local pronounciation of the numeral six.
Being a single pathology practitioner is less than desirable; no one to consult, no one to express doubts to, no one to show "difficult" slides, major decisions needing to be taken within a very short time span. After five years, I decided to retire from the Warrnambool SJOG position as part-time pathologist. There was general mirth, when I told my colleagues, who knew about my two previous attempts: "Eric, you are doing a Lazarus again, aren't you?" I informed my by now old friend Graham McNeice, Director of Medical Services (DOMS) at the Portland & District Hospital about my decision. The astounding reply was:"So am I in July this year. Do you want a job?"
Going casual has so far resulted in my second secondment to our laboratory at the Calvary Hospital in Canberra. I gladly accepted my first secondment there, when the laboratory started in November, 1999. In my naivete, I conjured up a vision of a small, relaxed private hospital, far away from the major problems, doing some minor skin pathology and providing "bread and butter" services, only. A complete misunderstanding. It turned out to be a major, combined public and private hospital, with one pathologist, who often has to perform several major frozen section surgical pathology services during ongoing operations, occasionally up to four times a day.
Chapter 19. Research Information Technology
When at high school in 1955, I won a price for performance in the natural sciences, which entitled me to attend the Berzelius (pioneer Swedish chemist from the 1700's, of oxygen discovery fame) Days at the Stockholm University Faculty of Technology. The highlight was when we were ushered into a room, from memory approx. 6x6m, occupied by a primordial computer. The demonstrator exuded pride, when he flicked on a few switches, and the computer addressed us "Godday" (in Swedish; excuse the Australianism for "Hello").
My next encounter with computer technology came at about 1964, when I held a Lecturer position at Umea University. I seem to recall that the computers had gained much in speed, sophistication, shrunk considerably in size, and where now fed data from punch cards. It became my task to construct at scientific data retrieval system, based on incoming scientific papers. It worked well, being based on the principles of dismantling the individual paer into key words, which could then be re-assembled according to needs at any particular moment. Its only and rather substantial shortcoming was that it required a half time employe to run after I left Umea.
During my study leave at the MD Anderson Tumor Institute in Houston, it became obvious that the Americans were far ahead of us. They had a Department of Biomathematics, headed by Gehan, who had adapted the Wilcoxon test to conditional probability analysis of survival/treatment success patient data. Lo and behold, when fed patient data, their computer 'spat out' beatutiful survival curves with most desirable p-values, i.e. probability figures. A high state of bliss was reached when you were awarded with a p less than 0.05 figure. This meant that whatever correlation you had found had a probability of more than 95% to be meaningful. Exaltation was reached with p less than 0.01, and exultation at p less than 0.001. An old Swedish expatriate, Birger Jansson, gave me the whole program to take with me back to Australia, where it came in very handy in my joint research with Bill Hughes and his colleagues (Chapter 11).
Chapter 20. Clinical Reporting and Word Processing
During my years as Director of Pathology at the then Warrnambool Base Hospital, I was spoiled, having a secretary Lorraine Dakin, who was highly skilled in her job, and provided a screen, delegating matters that could be dealt with by others. What Lorraine did not know about data processing, was not worth knowing. In short, there was no need to learn computerised word processing. She was delighted when I found a sign saying: "Do you want to talk to the boss, or to the woman who knows everything?" A rude awakening followed during my locum work at the Ballarat Base Hospital in 1993. There were no secretaries to type pathology reports, including lengthy coronial postmortem reports. "Sink or swim"! I was familiar with the colloquialism to chuck it in from my student contacts at Monash. I felt just like that during the first week, often managing to end up in ultrasound radiology reporting, when I desperately tried to find the pathology format. I survived week one, felt a bit better during week two, and decided to "beat the system" during week three. I have done my own clinical reporting ever since - it is a consolation to know that there is only one person to blame, when mistakes sneak in - myself!
Chapter 21. In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is the King
Our first home computer, a 100MHz Pentium, with 16Mb RAM was offloaded by a truck onto our frozen lawn in July, 1996. The next step was trial and error, mostly the latter. It is with some amusement I remember my annoyance that one A drive "floppy" diskette was write protected. How dare they, I have paid for it! It is none of their business! A real triumph came about October 1996, when I managed to configure the Pentium to FAX; a message was sent to my daughter Susann in Hungary - minutes later her reply came up on the screen. Initially, progress in general was slow, but in January 1997, I subscribed to an Internet Service Provider, and went on line. Early in 1998 I constructed my own internet website, and in October that year, the next two went on line as well. It occurred to me that since there is an America On Line, naturally Penshurst, being a population centre of major importance (approx. 500 souls), needs its Penshurst On Line. This has now since October 1998 developed into a once to twice a week upgraded 3.3 Mb not for profit community website. It became somewhat of a sport to take digital camera photographs of Penshurst events, rush home, write the article, edit the images, and upload the lot to the Internet, all within about one hour.
Similarly, my wife Ruth and I had joined the Mount Rouse & District Historical Society. The meetings were initially experienced as boring, but it soon became obvious that there were quite a few pearls thrown on the ground in an abstract sense. Mt. Rouse & District Historical Society's Homepage was born, likewise in October, 1998. It is now an approx. 5Mb website. It gave a warm feeling, when we beat most of Western Victorian Historical Societies, including those of Warrnambool, and Hamilton to the Internet, when requests from all over the world started to come in, when Penshurst families became aware of long lost relatives and acquaintances, and when an American visitor to Halls Gap in the Grampians requested to be taken to Penshurst, which he had read about "on the Net", at home. New cyberspace friendships have developed. The above websites, which are strictly non-political, as well as our personal Rurik's Homepage, which is the opposite, have developed gradually, and now have a few "bells and whistles".
Initially, progress was slow, and there was little local interest. However, the tide is turning, and we often get invited to attend various functions, no doubt because of an attached element of publicity. A pioneer Womens Access Group initiated by my wife Ruth, had a 12 hour Computer Basics Module, the latter run by "Retrospectively Yours". It is my hope that others will soon come in and contribute to our local community websites. The community spirit is re-emerging in parallel with increasing damage to country folks inflicted by the global economy, economic rationalists, and their political henchmen.
Chapter 22. Director of Medical Services
Retrospectively Yours was appointed Director of Medical Services (DMS) at the Portland & District Hospital on 3rd July, 2000, at an age when most of my contemporaries have retired, or gone under ground. I am consequently ending the present version of this chapter, having unfinished business to do.
Cheers
Eric
Eric Pihl , 2/11/ 2000*
*Last chapter uploaded
Thursday, 14 December 2000