Millions like us

The subtitle of Millions like us, by Virginia Nicholson, is "Women's lives in war and peace 1939-1949." I was 12, about 3 weeks short of 13, when World War II began on September 3, 1939, and an 18-year old second year medical student when it ended in 1945. I grew up in Australia of course, far away from the air raids, blitzkrieg, invasions, occupations, Nazi oppression, subjugation, the Holocaust; it all came closer after December 7 1941 and the lightning fast advance of the Japanese as far as Papua-New Guinea, the bombing of Darwin, midget submarines in Sydney Harbour. I grew up among women because most of the men were in uniform fighting in war zones far away. Some of my cousins and other close female relations had experiences very like those described in this excellent book. It is social history of a high order, a beautifully constructed synthesis of Virginia Nicholson's own writing and excerpts and quotations from the diaries, letters, memoirs, jottings of large numbers of women in all walks of life, all classes of the conspicuously stratified British society, all of it evoking the dramatic dislocation of the lives of women and girls by the total war between the aggressive forces of the Nazis, fascists of Germany and Italy, later Japan too, and those opposing aggression, Poland, France and Britain to begin with, Britain alone for about 18 months from May 1940 until December 1941, when the reluctant US forces joined the fight, tipped the balance, and with the insane Nazi assault on the USSR bringing the Soviet Union into the war on our side, the tide slowly turned in favour of the Allied forces. No other history of that tumultuous period focuses on what happened to the millions of British women whose lives were turned upside down by the 1939-45 world war and its aftermath. I think this is an excellent book, first class social history, very readable, sufficiently scholarly to be taken seriously. I've read Virginia Nicholson's social history of the subset of people she calls Bohemians who lived on the margins of respectable society in France, Germany, Britain in the early 20th century. She has written another book of social history called Singled Out, which is about the 2 million British women left unmarried because of the slaughter of their husbands, sweethearts, potential husbands, in the suicidal war of 1914-1918. After Millions Like Us, this has moved up to second place on my list of books to read. If you haven't read Millions Like Us, add it immediately to your reading list. I recommend it without reservations.

Afterthoughts about Edinburgh and Epidemiology

Tangible reminders of my brief interlude in Edinburgh are a definite dip in my bank balance (I didn't stint on expenses, traveled in comfort); a 2012 calendar with fine photos of Edinburgh; firm handshakes, likely for the last time, with old friends from many countries; and a few stimulating and memorable talks. It's unfair to compare this IEA/WCE with any of the previous meetings because I was absent without leave from enough to count as a part-timer. On balance, I thought it was probably the best organized IEA congress I've ever attended, and a few plenary talks were outstanding. Passing judgement from Australia without having attended, Colin Butler criticized lack of vision about the future, but I think several talks I heard were all about future implications, notably the two opening plenary lectures by George Davey Smith on how we can cope with implacable limitations of epidemiological science and Raj Bhopal on the consequences of the ethnic transformations produced by the massive migrations of recent generations of humans. Very few epidemiologists seem even to be aware of this dramatic demographic, social, and economic phenomenon, but its reverberations are likely to shape the course of human affairs for many generations. I'd like to be beginning my career now rather than ending it: I can see limitless scope for research along frontiers of several disparate disciplines and branches of scholarly activity. I think it's fascinating, for instance, that so much of the greatest literature in English being written at present emanates from writers whose roots are in the Indian Subcontinent (although most are part of the diaspora). Why is this? I notice too that leading scientists, scholars, surgeons, engineers, have names that reveal their ethnic origin in that same region, or in SE or East Asia, although they may have grown up and been educated in UK, USA, Sweden or Germany. I'd like to be a population geneticist 100 years from now as the genes mix and mingle more, and try to trace genetic traits that have contributed to this flourishing of excellence. I'm sure it comes back to the fact that human progress, like the origin of species, thrives on diversity. There will be wonderful opportunities to observe and study this in the next 100 years. That's a grand prospect, some compensation for all the troubles facing humans and other living creatures in our over-populated and polluted planet. I hope the young comers were listening carefully, and heed what Raj Bhopal was saying at the Edinburgh World Congress of Epidemiology.

"I'll go no more a-roving..."

Well, not until next time anyway. This afternoon as I climbed out of the tiny ten-seater Saab airplane that brought me back from Waterloo, that tune popped into my head as I realized that for the first time I can remember in many years I have no future travel whatsoever in the file folder in my desk drawer that I reserve for travel plans. I should have: at first I accepted a wedding invitation to fly out to St Andrews-by-the-Sea in New Brunswick where my friends Pat Huston and Bob Clark will marry the day after tomorrow. Then Pat gave me an opportunity to back out when I told her it would be my third flight out of Ottawa in 2 weeks, so I gratefully made my excuses and won't fly to St John New Brunswick tomorrow. It would have been one trip too many. As it was, I flew to Waterloo yesterday afternoon, took grandson Peter Last and his lady friend Sylvie Spraakman out to a rather costly but excellent dinner last night, had a sleepless night because my jet lag finally caught up with me, spoke for almost 2 hours to the new intake of MPH students at Waterloo this morning, and flew back to Ottawa this afternoon. While I was in Waterloo last night, I had an email from Gilles Paradis, inviting me to perform for his class at McGill next month, but the dates he wants me coincide with the visit to Ottawa of my friends Jeff House and Fiona Stevens, so I turned Gilles down too. Everyone says my interactive chat to the new MPH intake this morning was a success, and I felt pretty good about it too, but I was glad when it was over. Now I can focus on the report Raj Bhopal asked me to write about the RCPE online collection of historically important works on epidemiology and public health, and on licking into final shape the chapters I must write for Public Health and Ecology, which is a lineal descendant of Public Health and Human Ecology, the book I am most pleased and proud about among all I've written and edited. Back to that MPH Class: It's worth the trip to Waterloo for my annual dose of optimism about people and the future. This year, like others in the past, the class of about 70-80 is predominantly female and predominantly made up of experienced public health workers aiming to upgrade their skills, perhaps to leap over a salary bar too. I made enough provocative remarks to stimulate a vigorous interactive discussion that led seamlessly into the theme for the second half of the morning, 'The future of public health' -- of which unfortunately I missed the first half because I was kidnapped by a TV interviewer, and asked among other things for my opinions about the future. I'd have preferred to listen to the views of others, especially the two very bright and capable women (both public health physicians) who conducted that session. I understand that my interview is to be posted on the Waterloo MPH website so I'll post the URL on this blog when I get it.

Greenland Ice-melt

My flight home to Canada had one worth-while bonus, making up for the problem that cut out the electronics of the in-flight movie system, which deprived us of the chance to watch any of the 120 or more movies on the menu. We flew over Greenland, well north of the southern tip of the island. The clouds had lifted so I had an unobstructed view from 10 Km above as our plane crossed the island. I have two views of Greenland in a deck of slides on "Human Health in our Changing World", a satellite image showing the extent of summer ice-melt in 1992 and 2002, and a photo from a passenger plane window in September 2005 of small islands off the southern tip, all just bare black rock with a few skiffs of snow on high tops of some of them. What I saw was even more dramatic evidence of global warming. There was much bare black rock where years ago I remember snow at this time of year. I saw many very large lakes of melt-water,which I know from articles I've read, are draining into the sea; and all along the coast were glaciers with their noses in the sea, which was flecked with innumerable icebergs scattering far to the south and west, all adding water to the sea from well above present sea levels. Greenland ice-melt is one of the main contributors to sea level rise which is happening at an increasing rate, will raise the sea level by at least a meter before 2100 (the most conservative estimate) and by a great deal more, 5-7 meters if worst-case scenarios occur. Those who deny climate change and global warming should be made to observe Greenland late in the summer. I was seeing it earlier than late summer. The evidence and the effects of melting ice will be more obvious in 6-10 weeks from now. And this hasn't even been a hot summer in Greenland.

The promise of youth

In an earlier post about my impressions of Edinburgh, I boasted about feeling like the Eiffel Tower because so many people wanted to have their photo taken with me. An extremely well known IEA member, a past president, said to me, rather enviously I thought, that no one at this meeting had asked to be photographed with him. I spoke to most of these photographers, asked them why they wanted my photo now that I'm so far over the hill, no longer the editor of the Dictionary of Epidemiology or of major textbooks of public health. Without exception, all I spoke to had used the Dictionary (or one of the 14 or 15 translations); several said it was their most essential educational tool, not only used by them, but one they urged their students to use too. Some of my editorial comments on definitions struck responsive chords too. Remarks like this make all the effort worth while. I hope all the collaborators and contributors to the Dictionary read this: they share in the praise: I could never have done this alone. My lasting impression of talking with all these photographers is of enthusiasm for epidemiology, and for public health sciences in general. This makes me feel very good. All the hard work, enjoyable for sure, has been worth it.
Somewhere, perhaps in the Royal Scottish Museum, I saw a print of that wartime poster, "Is your journey really necessary?" I think my journey was well worth while, even if strictly speaking, not necessary. Conversing with enthusiastic young comers and those of my old friends who had made it to the Congress was rewarding and enjoyable; seeing the little bits of Edinburgh that were all I could manage in my debilitated state made it worth while too. So did the visit to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and its library, and the little gathering there of people who love books, especially old books. Most of all, the worldwide collegiality, mingling for a few days with this gathering of like-minded people, made all the stresses and strains of the journey very well worth while. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts about the XIXth World Congress of Epidemiology, so don't be surprised if I post more on this experience.

Farewell to Edinburgh

Three iconic images head this final report on Edinburgh, written in the tranquility of my home office after I got back safely last night. They are in reverse order from top to bottom but no matter. I photographed the Castle and Grassmarket from the broad deck outside my room on a lovely warm sunny afternoon a few minutes after I checked in on Friday August 5, opportunistically snapped Greyfriars' Bobby between rain squalls on a morning stroll up the steep hill from Grassmarket a few days later. From then on it got too windy, wet and cold for me to take photos, and I got too busy fulfilling my promise to my host Raj Bhopal, to write a report on a project of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, "The People's Library of Epidemiology" which he wants to publish in a journal later this year. When we lived in Edinburgh in the 1960s, summers were always wet and windy, calm, warm sunny days were rare. But the wetness and coldness of these few days in August broke previous records. On Wednesday the maximum was 10 C, on Thursday it was 9 C, with drenching, monsoon-like - but cold - rain, driving incessantly down in squalls of unprecedented severity. Fortunately the World Congress of Epidemiology provided more than enough incentive to stay indoors and take part on some extremely stimulating scientific sessions. I think this may have been the best IEA meeting I have ever attended in the 50 years that I have belonged to and played a part in the affairs of this prestigious organization. I confess I played hookey and did a little walking about old favourite haunts instead of staying indoors all day every day -- protected from the elements by Wendy's splendid L L Bean plastic raincoat and hood, congratulating myself for my prescience in taking it instead of my shabby old raincoat. So each morning I climbed the steep, curly road from Grassmarket to George 1V Bridge, along Chambers Street to The Royal Scottish Museum, or past it to what used to be James thin & Co book shop, is now a branch of Blackwell's. But I saw, heard, even had my 2-cents' worth in discussions, at several outstanding scientific sessions. One of the highlights for me was undoubtedly Raj Bhopal's talk in the opening session, where
he stepped nobly into the breach to replace Michael Marmot who inconsiderately and I think arrogantly withdrew at very short notice. George Davey Smith gave a brilliant, exciting blend of sometimes obscure public health history and life course epidemiology, a very hard act to follow. But Raj Followed it brilliantly with a superb summary of some aspects of the turbulent movements of people about the world that may be the most important social, cultural, demographic, economic and political phenomena of the past century. Talking it over later, Raj and I agreed also that its effects on population genetics, which it is too soon to observe and measure, are more likely to be beneficial than adverse. The impact on health of migration was my first research interest when I was a family doctor in the 1950s and saw what was happening in my own practice, wrote about it, decided I wanted to study it more, and left general practice for epidemiology. I got side-tracked into other kinds of epidemiological research, but I've often wondered how things would have turned out if I'd stuck with that first interest. Certainly it's become a far more fruitful field of study now. (The riots and looting in English cities last week almost certainly had no direct connection to racial or ethnic tensions, but were a spontaneous upwelling of discontent and sheer wickedness rather than mere naughtiness, mainly by "have-not" kids who seized the opportunity of a peaceful protest to assault the better-off stores and little shops in their neighbourhoods, loot them and carry off whatever they could, burn and destroy what they couldn't carry, and otherwise wreak as much havoc as they could). There were many other interesting sessions, including one on the Supercourse, in which its founder and leader, Ron Laporte, insists I played a major role, though I can't see what role this could have been, unless what I'd written prophetically was what got him going. But now I'm beginning to ramble. Let's call this Part 1 of the final blog about Edinburgh and I'll carry on later with another installment.

I feel like the Eiffel Tower

At IEA meetings, more than any others, I feel like the Eiffel Tower: everybody wants to be photographed standing next to me. At coffee breaks I'm sometimes so dazzled by flashlights my eyes have permanent after-images. It's all good for my ego of course, but I wonder what I've done to deserve all this adulation. As so often, I'm very sad that Wendy isn't here to bask in reflected glory. Today is the second-last day of the Congress, which surely has been a resounding success. Typically for Edinburgh,there's a mix of sunny,windy days and very wet days, today being one of the latter. South of here in London and several provincial English cities there have been terrible riots, looting, burning, mob violence sparked it seems by social unrest arising from resentment among the "have-nots" at the material wealth of the well off majority among whom they are admixed in crowded cities where not even the well to do have very much breathing space.. Meantime in our ivory tower we debate philosophical arcana. As so often when I think about the human condition, these wide -- and widening -- gaps trouble me. I would not want a society of absolute uniformity, but I do find the absence of talk about this dramatic evidence of social inequality quite alarming. I hope today's drenching rain, which affects the entire British Isles, will help to cool the rage of the hot-heads. Selfishly, I also hope it doesn't disrupt my travel plans -- which, I discovered today, have been badly mismanaged by the incompetent travel agent at CAA.

Edinburgh -- why did we ever leave?

Every time I come back to this beautiful, craggy old city, I wonder why we ever left. Well, I know why of course: ambition and the recognition that there were fewer prospects for our children here than in an expanding "newer" nation such as Canada. This time my range is limited by my weakening muscles, but even within this range there is much to admire and love. Even such mundane matters as the superiority of Scottish bread and British TV (especially the BBC) are cause for delight; and the skillful blending of the new architecture with the old is very pleasing to behold. I won't be able to walk to the summit of Salisbury Crags or Arthur's seat this time but I saw both and much else, even I fancy our old home on Greenbank Crescent and Braidburn Park, as my plane came down on a sunny afternoon last Friday. The World Congress of Epidemiology got off to an excellent start last night with a mind expanding and provocative John Snow lecture by George Davey Smith. I'm about to take time off for more exploring of old haunts this Monday morning; I'll return to duty this afternoon. So I'm back after a splendid walk up from Grassmarket to Chambers Street, Blackwell's book shop (which was formerly James Thin &Co) and the Royal Scottish Museum. I wish I had taken my camera! It was one of those perfect photogenic days, with sunlight streaming into the galleries, all packed with people attracted into the warmth and enticed by free access. I saw that incredible mechanical clock with all its moving parts, 10 meters high, with bizarre cartoon figures that revolved to tinkling tintinabulating bells, performing monkeys and donkeys and goodness knows what all else, just as it began its 1 o'clock performance, I watching from the top level, perhaps 150 little children seated in orderly rows on the floor below. Now, back to work. This evening, after the IEA business meeting, there is a Civic Reception for VIP guests at the City Chambers on the High Street (I wonder how will it compare with the corresponding event in Florence in1999). More in my next post. The topmost photo is the gallery of the museum; the other three photos are attempts to capture a tiny fragment of the whimsical clock that is one of the most popular exhibits in the Royal Scottish Museum. (I went back with my camera next day to take these photos).

Revellers, drunken revellers:"Fall together by the ears!"

Edinburgh, Saturday August 6, 10.40 am. As I tap out this news update the sun is shining brightly on the castle battlements just across Grassmarket, but if the forecast is right (and they usually are here) it will soon begin to rain steadily for the next few days. So I shall be able to test Wendy's raincoat which is not as shabby and disreputable as my 35-year old one. Edinburgh is vibrating to the beat of hundreds of Fringe performances here below my deck and windows overlooking Grassmarket, and of course many more on the High Street and other segments of the Royal Mile. My jet lag or a full bladder or drunken revelers woke me at 3.30 am, and until I realized they might not understand an Elizabethan curse in a bleary Australian accent, I was tempted to open the door on to my deck, and shout "Fall together by the ears!" or a more full-blooded curse. But I'd have woken up other guests staying here and at the 2 or 3 other new hotels that have displaced the tenements that used to be here, along with some interesting old shops. I remember once getting an antique 16th century pair of globe maps of the world as presents for Peter and Jenny many years ago when we lived here, to take as house presents when we were going to stay with them in 1968. That old map shop has long gone... But gentrification has mostly been tastefully done in Edinburgh. The old buildings in the Old Town that were stained black as tar by centuries of coal smoke have almost all been sand-blasted clean, restoring the honey-blonde colour of Midlothian stone, and no black smoke emissions emerge from the rows of chimney pots on every roof top because now all are heated by North Sea gas. Only the Scott Monument on Princes Street remains black as pitch, to contrast with the pure white marble of Sir Walter Scott's statue. I've just come back from a 1 Km walk, along Grassmarket, up the steep winding West Bow to George IV Bridge, along to the small bronze statue of the faithful terrier, Greyfriars Bobby who sat beside his master's grave in Greyfriar's churchyard for 10 years after his master died. I took a photo of Greyfriar's Bobby, and will download and add it to this post later.

en route

So here I am in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Ottawa International Airport, heavily laden with a carry on bag and another bag holding my laptop, e-book, camera, headphones, and miscellaneous other stuff. I'm definitely getting too old for this capering about and hope all goes well. I discovered yesterday that the CAA agent who booked my flight didn't get medical insurance or trip-change/cancellation insurance so I'll have to just hope nothing goes wrong...Edinburgh, here I come. I hope.

To be continued ...