Leslie Scarth

As I approach my eightieth year, it seems a good time to remember my Durham days (at the Medical School in Newcastle!).

Coming as a 17 year old Sunderland lad who had done Classics at school, I was somewhat daunted by First Year Medicine (Physics & Biology) after our mixing, I never did trust Agrics or Dentists!

Once we got into the main course. The dissecting room on one side of Queen Victoria Road & lectures at the RVI. Time passed quickly in the new world & we were definitely a coherent group & because of residential placements separate from other undergrads.

I qualified in 1964. One of my house jobs was in Sunderland (a little payback to my home town).

Back to Newcastle for an SHO in Psychiatry ,first step on my eventual career. The days of Martin Roth & David Kay, & Ken Davison. I never worked at St Nicholas (unusual in those days). Chose Child Psychiatry as my speciality & worked for one of its greats, Prof
Israel Kolvin, a lovely loyal man.

As no consultant jobs were coming up in the North East & we had a young family ,we ventured into Birmingham for 6 years from 1974. However, the spirit of drew us North but we overshot& landed up in Edinburgh where I worked at Royal Hospital for Sick Children for the next 15years. Because of the strong tradition of close contacts with Paediatricians in Newcastle, I felt at home in a children's hospital.

I retired early but found a new world by teaching in Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Iraqi Kurdistan (pre-ISIS) & latterly, in Palestine. My world had widen & I still have many friends in these places.

My daughter could not train at Kings as there is a new University called Newcastle so she qualified there & trained in Paediatrics.

It has been an interesting life but I am proud to have a Durham degree before it became Newcastle because you can never take the Makar out of a Sunderland boy!!!