Another of the elderly teachers was Professor Hugh Begg who taught parasitology. He was a well-liked man, full of good advice to the students, but he was hard of hearing and so was only dimly aware of the tumult that characterised his lectures. He would raise his head, peer around him and say, ‘Wha’ … what’s that noise?’ One would need to be totally deaf not to hear the response from the assembled students. Hugh Begg did, however, have a piece of advice one day that Alf never forgot. He was a wise old man, with many years of experience behind him, and he was talking about the kind of life that awaited the veterinary surgeons of the future. On this occasion he had the ears of the class, and his theme – a vitally important one – was that they would learn by their mistakes.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said solemnly, ‘ye’ll never make veterinary surgeons until every last one o’ ye has filled a forty-acre field full o’ carcasses!’ Prophetic words.
When I talk to some of the young graduates in our practice in Thirsk, hearing of the pressure they were under at University, I cannot help casting my mind back to my father’s stories of his student years. The card games in the common-room, the time spent sitting happily in the cinemas rather than in lessons, and the riotous scenes in the lecture theatres when they did attend, paint a very different picture of veterinary education from that of today. However, despite the rather unorthodox lectures, the material given to the students was sound and, providing they worked and read the text books, they had every chance of qualifying within a reasonable time.
My father, well aware that the cost of his education was being borne largely by his parents, was determined to do well. He bought the necessary text books such as Sisson’s Anatomyand Animal Husbandryby Miller and Robertson, and spent many hours studying in the huge Mitchell Library which was near the college. He obviously found the atmosphere in the big library somewhat daunting and wrote in his diary: ‘That place depresses me. You can almost hear the brains throbbing.’
He was taught Animal Husbandry, Chemistry and Biology in the first year, and made a steady start. He passed his Chemistry and Biology, although he only just scraped through in Biology, attaining a mark of 46%. This led to a conversation with a fellow student that he repeated to me many times.
‘What’s the pass mark?’
‘45%.’
‘What did you get?’
‘46%.’
‘You’ve been working too hard!’
Another of his friends used a different approach in following this rather risky attitude to study. He was being examined in Anatomy and was presented with a large bone. ‘What is this?’ asked the examiner.
‘A femur,’ replied the student.
‘Correct,’ continued the examiner, ‘a femur of what species? Is it the femur of a cow or a horse?’
‘It’s all right,’ said the student dismissively, ‘you can forget that one. I’m not looking for honours!’
During that first year, Alf’s teachers seemed quite pleased with him. His chemistry teacher, Professor Duncan, wrote in his report: ‘Is quite a fair average, not likely to be brilliant but I expect him to be steady.’
In his next year, 1934–5, he started to slip back. He failed his Physiology and Histology examinations, together with Animal Husbandry. Very poor marks of 36%, 25% and 37% respectively were attained and his teachers were not pleased. Remarks such as ‘not in attendance’ and ‘does not work; very poor’ are evident in his report.
This is rather surprising. Alf was a responsible and ambitious young man. He wanted to get out into the world, earn his living, and cease to be a burden upon his parents. In addition, he was not one of the band of students who played cards in the common-room all day with the intention of extending their carefree college life well beyond the allotted five years. After a few sessions round the card table in his first year when he lost heavily, the appeal of that enjoyable but expensive pastime died very quickly. In his report of Autumn Term 1935, Dr Whitehouse wrote that he was ‘not in attendance’ for his Anatomy classes. This seems strange behaviour for a well-adjusted young man. While Alf was never a brilliant student, carrying off little in the way of distinctions during his time at the college, this does not fully explain his poor showing.
There was, however, a serious reason. In his last year at Hillhead School, he had experienced severe pain in his rectum that developed into a discharging anal fistula. He recovered from the initial attack but this debilitating condition, which resurfaced in his second year at the college, would be one that would dog him intermittently for the rest of his life. He was so ill in the summer of 1937 that he was admitted to hospital where he underwent a minor operation to clean up the affected area. It was a failure and he was back in the Western Infirmary in 1939 for another attempt at resolving this persistent complaint but, as before, it was not successful.
This acutely painful affliction, inevitably, affected his ability to concentrate fully on his studies. Without the help of antibiotics in those days, it was not only the pain of the condition that weakened him, he had to endure bouts of severe septicaemia brought about by multiple fulminating abscesses. The only treatment was to go to bed, often with a raging temperature, and bathe the area with hot water in an attempt to keep the infection under control.
Alf was very philosophical about this blot on his otherwise good state of health and always managed to put a humorous slant into any discussions about it. ‘I may not be an expert on many things,’ he was to say years later, ‘but I consider myself to be an authority on the subject of “Arsology!” ’ He spoke from bitter experience, going on to say, ‘I’ve had several operations on the old posterior, all of them agony, but I’ve had enough! No one else is going to have a go at remodelling my backside. This lot is going into the “box” with me!’
By the summer of 1936 at the end of his third year, he had passed his Physiology and Histology exams, but failed yet again in Animal Husbandry. He sat that examination for the fourth time in the December of that year. This time, he received a little help. One of the assistant lecturers in the department was Alex (Sandy) Thompson – a man who also taught me twenty-six years later. He was a pipe smoker who, during the examination, was seated behind the examiner, in full view of Alf, contentedly puffing on his pipe.
‘How many orifices are there in the teat of a cow?’ the examiner asked.
Alf hesitated, then noticed that one forefinger, accompanied by a puff of blue smoke, was pointing into the air behind the examiner’s back.
‘One,’ he replied.
‘Correct. How many in the teat of a mare?’
Two smoke-enshrouded fingers appeared, still caressing the pipe.
‘Two,’ Alf responded. The rest was easy.
In 1937, Alf did much better and in July, he passed his Anatomy, Pharmacology and Hygiene exams although his marks were modest; he achieved 45% in Anatomy, which was just enough.
Anatomy was taught by the principal himself, Dr Whitehouse. Alf found the subject interesting but, at the same time, it was a hard, grinding slog. With so many facts to assimilate, he felt at times that his brain was reaching saturation point. The students had to learn the detailed structure of several different domestic animals and the subject was not only hard work, it could also be very boring. Alf enjoyed Dr Whitehouse’s practical sessions in the anatomy labs where the students worked in groups dissecting an assortment of dead animals, mainly horses and cows, but the Anatomy lectures were a different proposition. These were much quieter than the riotous sessions under the elderly teachers. Instead of the wild shrieks and paper missiles that characterised Professor Begg’s lectures, a different sound predominated – the rhythmic and contented drone of sleeping students.