(John Nelson Norman (1932 – 2022) was a surgeon who
specialized in the delivery of healthcare, often remotely, in hostile
environments, such as the North Sea oil industry and Antarctica. Shortly before he died, he wrote a personal
account of his struggles to create a laboratory to support this work on the
summit plateau of Morrone, a mountain near Braemar in the Grampian mountains of
Scotland. Editorial notes, in italics,
have been added to help the reader to understand the context of the events
described by Nelson Norman).
“I
thought one day that a research laboratory on a Scottish mountain top would be
a good idea. It was. Most people would have dismissed it as impossible. I
happen, however, to have been born under the zodiac sign of Taurus and am a
typical Taurean. Thus, impossibility is a challenge rather than a fact,
persistence part of the personality mix and intractable stubbornness when my
mind is set on a course was established by my creator.
Was
there a structure which would withstand the wild gales of winter available, how
much would it cost, how would it be built, who would man it, etc. my sensible
colleagues asked. They agreed that it was a good idea but dismissed it as
impossible. We were a small self-funding university department researching
hypothermia and means of its medical management,
together with protection of those exposed to environmental extreme cold in a
wide area of places - offshore oil rigs, hill walkers, people living in under
heated housing,
etc. We had no funds apart from those available from research grants or
charity. We were, however, very active, highly intelligent, innovative and
highly productive.
Taurus
continued to dream,
and the thought recurred during a visit from Eric Salmon, who was in charge of
personnel selection and training for the field stations of the British
Antarctic Survey and the department of surgery at Aberdeen University. This
was where my research group was based, held a contract for medical management
and training of the doctors together with providing them with a research
project before sending them South and also supervising their report writing
during the year allowed on their return. This research in fact was the source
of many of the more academic aspects of our output.
During
this visit Eric happened to mention that the Survey had just successfully
completed tests on a small field laboratory with laboratory and living
accommodation. The slumbering Taurus opened an eye and asked how much it cost.
£10,000 replied Eric and the thrawn and persistent Taurus came fully awake and
started to think. We were next told by the University Principal (Sir Edward
Maitland Wright was principal of Aberdeen University between 1962 and 1976)
to meet the Rev. Stanley Pritchard (a religious broadcaster credited with
having raised over £40m for charities) at the station and bring him to his
office. I did so. Stanley was the Chairman of the board of a Charity called
Action for Disaster which provided immediate help for those in financial
difficulty following a disaster, such as that at the Ibrox football ground (Crush
which occurred when the crowd was leaving the Ibrox football ground in Glasgow
on 2 January 1971, causing 66 deaths and over 200 injuries), before
standard authorities could react. Whatever happened in the principal’s office
that day Stanley emerged with full university backing and support and
immediately established a branch of Action for Disaster in Aberdeen in support
of deep-sea fishermen.
We
became good friends because he stayed with us when he visited Aberdeen and was
good company. One evening he asked me whether his charity could support an
offshore university project of mine and I agreed to think about it.
Eric
Salmon of the British Antarctic Survey also visited regularly since I was
Medical Director of the Survey’s Medical Unit. We had been discussing the field
trials of a new experimental Antarctic hut with living and laboratory space and
he reported that it had now stood up well to trials in the fierce Antarctic
winter blizzards. I asked how much it cost. He said about £10,000 and that it
could be delivered in pieces ready to be put together on site.
To complete our growing university research laboratories, I
felt we needed a field station possibly on the summit of a Scottish mountain.
This seemed to fit the bill, so I put it to Stanley Pritchard who agreed to
take it to his trustees. They agreed but stated that £10,000 was their limit
and any further cost of delivery and construction would need to be met by us. (This was made before May 1974, when
Action for Disaster made an additional grant of £3,500). I also put it to
my university management who supported the concept but offered no financial
support.
I enjoy hill walking and have climbed a couple of mountains
with a group but for a project like this I needed professional advice. I first
asked Graeme Nicol (a well-known mountaineer of the Cairngorms) for
advice. He was a good friend and a famous mountaineer and knew the Scottish
hills intimately. He advised an initial approach to the Police Mountain Rescue Group
at Braemar. I knew John Nicol, Assistant Chief Constable in connection with
offshore medical emergency commitments since Grampian Police were responsible
for all offshore problems and was duly invited to meet him at Police HQ with
Graeme.
John
Nicol was a serious and profound Chairman, and
we were shown into an impressive board room and introduced to Inspector John
Duff among others. I was invited to state the problem and the nature of my request,
which I did. John then asked John Duff if he had any comments. John then
launched into a long appraisal of Scottish mountains and found problems with
all. Finally, he said that in his opinion the most suitable for us was Morrone
near Braemar. It was a real mountain with no dangerous cliffs in bad weather or
poor visibility. It was also good for safety since if you proceeded downhill in
any direction you came to a road. There was a plateau at the top suitable for a
building. Already there was a communications unit associated with the security
of Balmoral and there was a path all the way up and a telephone wire which we
could possibly share. It sounded excellent and Graeme and I were thrilled. John
Nicol gave official police approval and John Duff invited us for a site visit.
Our first major problem seemed to have been solved but when we arrived for the visit
the supremely fit Duff mercilessly romped us around the mountain till I thought
my lungs would collapse or my ribs fracture!
We
next discovered that Scottish mountains are part of estates and Morrone was
part of the Invercauld estate, so we needed permission from the owner to
build on his land. I spoke to Stanley Pritchard who told us that Captain
Tennant of Innes in Moray was a trustee of Action for Disaster, and
he asked him to approach Captain Farquharson of Invercauld for us since he knew
they had both served in the Household Cavalry at the same time. Captain Tennant
readily agreed,
and we next received an invitation from the factor of Invercauld to meet him at
the estate office. During the meeting the Laird himself appeared. Captain
Farquharson was charming, welcoming and interested. He readily gave us
permission and offered help from his estate if we needed it. Second major
problem solved.
We next had to consider where to unload the components of the
structure when they were delivered by road and how to get them to the top of a
mountain. This was a time when I needed many contacts and good friends in
influential positions. Thus, John Nicol arranged for delivery to be at the golf
course in Braemar. Senior policemen can be persuasive. I next approached my
good friend, Colin Jones, the Medical Director of BP who had worked closely
with me in establishing (in 1975) the Institute of Environmental and
Offshore Medicine about the possibility of BP providing a helicopter. BP
used Bristows and he approached Mr Bristow saying that it would be good for
publicity. (Bristow Helicopters was
established by Alan Bristow in 1955.
During the 1970s the firm was a dominant force in North Sea helicopter
operations, based at Aberdeen airport.) Mr Bristow said that his firm did
not need publicity, but he agreed to do the job as a training flight on a
Saturday morning. Great, third major problem solved. The spread of people and
offices involved is interesting for it was almost becoming more of an Aberdeen
community concern than a university project.
Three big problems solved, but there were others to be faced
such as insurance which was arranged, and the cost somehow absorbed within the
complex financial system of Aberdeen University! The other was who would unload
the truck when it arrived at the golf course and the helicopter at the
mountaintop. Without asking, this was done by the Braemar mountain rescue team,
presumably courtesy of John Nicol or John Duff (then leader of the Braemar
mountain rescue team). Equally, you cannot land a helicopter on a golf
course without Air-traffic control arrangements and the presence of the
ambulance and fire brigade services. John Nicol organised this and turned up to
control the site of traffic and personnel. What a marvellous man and
friend he was!
The big day finally arrived and Morag (Nelson’s wife),
Sarah-Jane (Nelson’s daughter) and we found ourselves on a helicopter
heading for the top of the mountain with a load of kit. The view over the
surrounding hills was spectacular. There were no accidents and the whole
exercise ran smoothly under John Nicol’s management. We were thus left with a
load of components with every nut and bolt required present, as in Antarctic
contracts, for if something is missing there is no handy B&Q.
Over
the next few weeks,
a firm base was established, and the laboratory firmly built as if by magic
without any further effort from me. This was the police mountain rescue team in
Braemar in their spare time plus some locals and estate workers. It was a
perfect job, and we now had a well found, firmly anchored Antarctic living hut
and physiological laboratory on top of a Scottish mountain. A university
concept but a wide Aberdeen community project involving the police, the oil
industry and the landowners and many other individuals. It had cost the
university nothing!
The research work now had to be designed. The Institute of
Environmental and Offshore Medicine was about the difficult problems facing
remote offshore personnel in the 1970s and was largely focused on deep diving
and hypothermia. I was well aware of the mental and physiological problems of
work in cold climates from my research in the Antarctic, the Medical Research Council
and the combination of hypothermia and increased atmospheric pressure, in
Glasgow and Aberdeen.
The Institute of Environmental and Offshore Medicine was a self-funding
department of the University. The oil industry was grateful for our
establishment and development of a system for managing offshore medical and
disaster events and paid well for the services of the team we set up when
called. It was not, however, prepared to fund the necessary research to improve
things. This we did by setting up a clinic to determine fitness to work
offshore since evacuation by helicopter was very expensive and the companies
were happy to pay well for this. Diving fitness was less easy since none of the
local doctors knew about diving medicine. Again, the Institute of Naval
Medicine came to our rescue and Ronnie Houston of Shell organised funding for
our doctors to attend the introductory course in diving Medicine in Portsmouth.
We also established a training course in emergency remote Medicine since
medical communications was the second priority of our system. The University of
Aberdeen now established a lectureship to help the Institute get going and
Colonel James Adam was appointed. He was an Environmental physiologist, with
Antarctic experience, who had been seconded to the MRC human physiological
research division at the National Institute of Medical Research at Hampstead to
help Prof Otto Edholm with the
division’s field work and was an expert in both heat and cold injuries. His
military background rapidly allowed him to set up first class courses for both
laymen, doctors and nurses in emergency medicine since first aid was not a
university skill at that time and the industry paid very well. He worked hard
and was soon offering industry courses every week and had built up a first-class
group of excellent trainers, much to the horror of the Principal of
Foresterhill School of Nursing from where they came!
We
were thus financially sound and ready to plan research development for Morrone,
but it was so difficult to run things in the smooth way that oil companies did
because we had to work through the rules of the university finance office which
was still in the Middle Ages! I eventually asked Colin Jones if the Institute
could not become more like a company. He took me to the New Ventures unit of BP
in London, and
I explained the problem to Roger Newton for a full day. The result was that in
a very short time the first university company with a pure profit motive was
established in Aberdeen University with directors from both the industry and
the university. It was called Offshore Medical Support and the Chairman was
Matt Linning, General manager of BP Petroleum Development.
It was designed to make a profit which was to fund the
research of the Institute with a small proportion for the university. I was
apparently too junior for the board (I was only a university reader!). That was
a mistake. I had no authority or influence in the development of my own
concept. David Webster, an oil company administrator and businessman was
appointed as general manager. Fortunately, David Webster was a good and
ruthless businessman and Offshore Medical Support became a very successful
company with a huge profit. The board was delighted as was the University, but
it was all spent on building up the excellent resources, equipment and staff of
the company and none came to its intended area, the research of the Institute.
I could do nothing.
Nevertheless,
we were now in a position to plan the Morrone activity and funding. It was for
field studies to test the new research approach on accidental hypothermia from
the lab to the field. The main area was offshore work sites but also included
were mountain rescue problems and urban hypothermia, which
all required attention at that time. The Morrone facility was absolutely
excellent for this,
and we were excited to be so lucky to have such a facility so available to us.
There was some envy from other universities working in the same area, such
as Dundee and Glasgow.
My main problem was time since I was still a full-time surgeon
with a full clinical, training and university research commitment so there was
little time left for the development of Institute research. Charles Auld was
one of my Department of Surgery research fellows. He was brilliant and worked
on, and showed the essential difference between, controlled surgical
hypothermia and accidental hypothermia. I decided that this would be the first
field project and Charles, the Colonel and I set out for Morrone.
It
took all day, for it was a steep climb. The road was naturally only for the
mountain rescue team and estate workers who established and maintained it. We
noted that though the weather was calm at the bottom of the hill the wind speed
was so high at the summit that we had to cling to each other to make progress
and to
see. That confirmed John Duff’s statement on the suitability of Morrone for our
purpose and gave rise to my thoughts about a second project. If we measured the
climate around the laboratory and had access to the telephone, we could not only
transmit the results to the mountain rescue team in Braemar to help planning
mountain rescue but also to a shop window in Braemar to alert hillwalkers to conditions
above and prevent accidents.
Charles
went off to plan the field research with his colleagues at the University while
Colonel Adam got in touch with his pals in Otto Edholm’s MRC unit at Hampstead who
were designing an automatic weather station for unmanned Antarctic stations
during winter. These worked well eventually and have continued to provide
uninterrupted daily data to the UK Met office from the Antarctic to this day.
The
funds we were accumulating from the clinic for divers were managed by the
University finance office based in our hyperbaric unit in the department of
Surgery. It was moved to the superior facilities of Offshore Medical Support
where together with its finances came under the management of David Webster and
that source of possible research income was lost. Fortunately, Col Adam’s
growing income from his courses was in the Department of Surgery research funds
which I controlled,
so we now had sufficient funds to establish a PhD student of our own. Iain
Light from London was appointed, and I set him to work with Charles Auld on
laboratory and field studies on accidental hypothermia. They made a great team
and collaborated well on complex laboratory research. Iain’s main PhD project
was on survival equipment in extreme environments. He was asked to look after
an unfortunate student from London who chose Aberdeen for his elective project.
He met him at the railway station, took him straight up Morrone, stuck a
thermometer up his bottom, put him in a plastic bag and buried him in snow outside
the lab! This showed that a plastic bag costing nine pence offered as much
thermal protection as the most elaborate survival bag, which cost £40! A good
start for the Institute’s Environmental research programme and for the field
station on Morrone.
We next decided to hold an Action for Disaster conference,
funded by Stanley Pritchard, on all aspects of hypothermia. It was so popular
that the only lecture theatre large enough in the University was in the new
Physics building on the Old Aberdeen University campus. The head of the
department, Reginald Jones, had agreed to allow us to use it and it was an
outstanding success - indeed Colonel Adam published the papers read in a book
with full Action for Disaster credits entitled ‘Hypothermia Ashore and Afloat’.
The head of the Army Personnel Research
Committee (APRC) approached me at the conference dinner and said he was most
impressed with the possibilities of the mountain laboratory on Morrone and
asked if we would accept a major Army contract on enabling a clandestine force
to penetrate hostile, foreign territory to do a job and return safely. This was
a huge opportunity which should have been offered to a major environmental
research department, such as Otto Edholm’s at Hampstead, but though Otto had
world famous facilities he did not have a field station on a Scottish mountain,
nor, how it was key to what the Army was keen to discover. I was gob-smacked,
and we started negotiations immediately with the APRC at the War Office in
Whitehall, which ended with a very well funded contract for a pilot study.
This was a huge new area for us, and it required research
expertise in nutrition, human performance, both physical and mental,
micro-environmental measurement and light-weight survival equipment. On
reflection, however, I remembered that my surgical speciality was in the care
of the critically ill surgical patient and that involved close collaboration
with Aberdeen’s fine nutritional scientists. My MD thesis with the MRC was all
about human micro-environmental measurement. Iain Light had just had his PhD on
survival equipment in cold climates sustained. Finally, we had the supremely
fit John Duff and the mountain rescue team as partners. What more could we
need? I felt much better, and we started
to work planning the initial study. It took much planning because in addition
to the science so many people were needed at the same time to make
measurements, ensure safety, act as stewards, correlate the measurements and man
the laboratory in case of an accident or collapse. We chose a route on Morrone
with John Duff much like the one he had nearly killed me on during his site
visit only very much more severe. It was based on the laboratory on the
mountain top and circled the mountain beneath with stewards and medics at
intervals checking for safety and making physical measurements - pulse,
temperature etc. The mountain side, usually deserted, was like Glasgow Central
Station on the first day of the fair!
Surprisingly, the event went smoothly and without a hitch and
the army observers were delighted. I was relieved but also delighted. It took a
month or so to analyse the complex data, discuss them with colleagues, write
the report and submit it to the APRC. We then had to go to London to discuss
the next step, for this was only a pilot project. The upshot was a proposal to
Aberdeen University for a huge Army contract for a full project. This would
take years and would provide equipment and facilities in Aberdeen, matching those
in Otto Edholm’s MRC unit in Hampstead. Since Otto was about to retire and his
MRC unit would close, in Aberdeen we could become a leading international
centre of environmental physiology, if we got it right.
At about this time Captain Tennant of Innes phoned to suggest
that a Royal visit could progress things and offered to determine whether a
visit from one of the Royal family might be possible during their summer
holiday in Balmoral. I jumped at this with enthusiasm, and I then heard from
Buckingham Palace that HRH the Duke of Edinburgh was interested in paying an
informal visit to the mountain laboratory during a visit to Balmoral. Sir
Maitland Mackie, the local Lord Lieutenant said he would not attend since the
visit was informal but was happy about security since the Grampian Police Mountain
Rescue Group would be present, and he was aware of the Duke’s extreme dislike
of external presence or security on private, informal visits. We planned what
aspects we would show and the teams to demonstrate their work, informed the
press, the University and Action for Disaster, together with the landowners and
anyone else who had helped with the project once the palace provided the date.
It was July 1st 1978. This
was also the date of the General Council of the University and the date when
Stanley Pritchard had been invited to preach in St Giles in Edinburgh. Thus, neither
the University Principal (by then Sir Fraser Noble) nor
the Chairman of Action for Disaster could be present. Both were very displeased, and it
was all my fault! I was certainly not about to ask the Duke to select another
date!
A few
days before the great day we all trouped up the hill to make sure everything
was in order and to be sure we had the procedure worked out and the plaque
fixed,
which we would ask the Duke to unveil. There was some argument since the
Colonel felt we should whitewash the rocks on the road up the hill! In the
midst of this the telephone rang and was answered by the Colonel with the
expression “Chinese laundry here”! He then handed the phone to our very
flustered and embarrassed Assistant Chief Constable and told him it was
Buckingham Palace for Mr Nicol! After much spluttering and hurried explanation,
he handed the phone to me. Thank God it was not the Duke himself but an equerry
who asked me what the Duke should wear for the visit. Thrown a bit also I said,
“Anything old and worn since it is an informal visit”. What a stupid remark!
On the
day, the Duke drove himself up the hill track twice as fast as anyone had ever
done before. Captain Tennant had suggested that Sarah-Jane should open the door
but when she stepped forward, she found the door had no handle! I told him
briefly what we hoped to achieve and introduced him to the first demonstration
group. His knowledge of the scientific background of each project was profound
and awesome. He questioned the chaps in great detail and eventually came up
with a really tough question and I had to step in and bail them out - that
included the Colonel’s group. Iain was
showing his work on survival equipment and during the discussion the duke noted
that he was demonstrating a resusciani. While on a visit elsewhere the Duke had been
shown a resusciandi and asked about the difference. (They were names for resuscitation mannequins) Quick as a flash, Iain replied, “Sir, ours
has boobs!”
He then chatted to the various Mountain Rescue Groups who had
assembled and was particularly pleased to see the Gordonstoun Mountain Rescue
Group, with which he spent some time in animated discussion. Turning the corner,
he finally met the Grampian Police Mountain Rescue Group. They were lined up at
attention like a group of military. He frowned and looked displeased since he
had successfully avoided his security and police escort on his furious drive
from Balmoral right to the top of the mountain and felt that this military-looking
group might be policemen, or some such security organisation. He demanded of
the lead man,
“What
are these, they are not policemen are they?”
“Oh no
sir,” he replied, “they are from all sections of the local community.”
“Is
that so, then what are you?” he asked, pointing at the first man in the line.
“A
policeman,” he replied.
Then
he pointed out the second who said, “a policeman” and so on down the line for
all of them were policemen until he came to the last who said he was a meat
operative. Thoroughly irritated by this time the Duke said,
“You
mean you are a bloody butcher!”
The
flustered man then said in mitigation,
“Yes,
but we provide beef for Balmoral!”
A further chat with the Gordonstoun boys, however, restored
the Duke’s humour and he wandered off talking to the visitors and chatted to
people like Matt Linning and John Nicol. Presumably, John Nicol described
himself as associated with mountain rescue and not as Assistant Chief
Constable! The Duke finally wandered
back to the laboratory and unveiled the plaque which commemorated his visit,
carefully checking on the wording which fortunately was correct. Fortunately, the Union Jack, with which I had
hardly had time to deal, was not upside down!
He then returned to his vehicle and Sarah-Jane was able to step forward
and close the door. He drove off at the same furious speed that he had ascended,
and we all retired to the local hotel for a drink and a well-earned lunch.
Following
the Duke’s visit and the publicity which it provided we had a number of small
contracts for equipment testing and advice, all of which could have been used
to build up research funding. Most of our time was spent planning the big army
contract but we still used the laboratory for further PhD projects and for
training and planning research for British Antarctic Survey doctors before they
departed south. It was a hectic period and there were times, as I
struggled up the last bit of the hill hanging onto colleagues for support in
the high winds,
that I wondered why on earth I had conceived this project! The Principal and
Stanley Pritchard were also pleased that the visit was successful and
eventually forgave me for the date!
The Morrone Mountain laboratory went on to carry out both
research and training work and achieved its outstanding zenith and fame at that
time (1978 - 1981).
University politics and jealousies then started the Morrone
laboratory’s sad decline towards ultimate disaster and destruction. This was
triggered by Maggie Thatcher’s decision to impose massive cuts in university
funding. Aberdeen‘s excellent Principal,
then Sir Fraser Noble, also resigned to make way for a successor who would
require to live with the very difficult decisions he would need to take. Few wanted such a post under these
conditions. However, Professor McNicol,
a haematologist and Dean of Medicine at Leeds persuaded his former mentor,
Stuart Douglas, also a haematologist but now Professor of Medicine in Aberdeen,
to canvas support for him in Aberdeen and McNicol became principal of Aberdeen
University.
Professor McNicol started off by closing the university’s
large number of inherited properties, which was reasonable, but then closed the
departments of physics and music. One of his successors remarked that “A university
without a department of music is a university without a soul and a university
without a department of physics is a university without a brain.”
I wrote to the new principal and told him that I would wait
till he settled in before visiting him but included our last annual report to
the management committee and, as a self-funding University department, how we
were sustaining our impressive research effort by the lucrative training
courses we provided for the oil industry, both in Aberdeen and overseas. That
was a mistake because David Webster got to him first and persuaded him that he
would manage the Institute much better than me if it came under his commercial
management in OMS. I had, of course, known that he had been keen to get his
hands on our very lucrative training business for some time and would have
welcomed his help, if he had asked. When I saw the principal, he told me that
he intended to advise the University Court to close the Institute of
Environmental and Offshore Medicine down. He instructed me to prepare a report
for him on the actions needed to close the Institute.
My birth sign is Taurus. I am a nice, pleasant bull but a
true Taurean when roused. I went home to write my letter of resignation, for I
could not remain on the University staff after flagrantly disobeying the Vice Chancellor!
That was my intention. Morag was furious and enquired how we would survive
since we had no money! I said we could go to Millport and hire out rowing boats
and drive tourists round the island in a horse-drawn chariot! She was not
amused and said if that was the extent of my ambition I would be going to
Millport on my own! And so ended a
perfect day.
When I returned to the Principal‘s office he ordered me to
dispose of the fine premises Matt Linning had acquired for us in Rubislaw
Terrace, Aberdeen, at minimal rent and then move my research group into
Professor Douglas’ department, except the training department which should go
to David Webster in OMS! I resigned on the spot and went home in a towering
rage - and had no job!
That moment was the lowest point in my professional
life. Morag, Sarah-Jane and I then took
off for Newfoundland, Canada, for I was still visiting Professor of Community
Medicine at Memorial University. We had a lovely week with Max House and Moses
Morgan, the Principal, who were both outstanding academics. The research
facilities were outstanding, and I was offered the Chair of Surgery, which was
about to become vacant. I could have been happy with these great colleagues,
but Morag was not impressed with the concept of island life on the Grand Banks,
so I declined, reluctantly. We called on the British Antarctic Survey on the
way home and I was pleased and surprised that the Director, Dick Laws, said he
was delighted with what I had achieved and hoped I would remain as a BAS
consultant. Returning to Aberdeen there was a message for me to visit Peter
Clark, Principal of the Robert Gordon Institute of Technology. After a long
chat with this far-sighted and great man, he agreed that I could set up a self-funding
department in his Institute on the same terms as with Aberdeen University, but
I was not allowed to practise medicine, since that was the province of Aberdeen
University, and its representative chaired the Governing Council of RGIT. He gave me a boathouse on the river Dee and
the support and advice of himself and his very able Secretary, Chris Anderson.
He also gave me £1,000 as start-up finance. Their advice and direction were
worth a great deal more than £1,000. Things were taking a sudden turn for the
better. I accepted Peter Clark’s kind offer and joined the staff of RGIT. We
settled down to consider the proposal for the army contract.
The governing body of RGIT was pleased that I had joined its
Institute and said so. The hierarchy of Aberdeen University was, however,
displeased for some reason. I was then informed that the Army contract had been
negotiated while I was still a member of the University staff, and it was thus
University property. Not wishing to foment disagreement at this stage, I agreed
and invited the University to take over further discussions with the War Office.
It was hardly surprising that progress was difficult, since
my research team and all those community members associated with the field
station work on Morrone had joined me in RGIT. The next angry step was to
inform me that my research facilities and equipment at Foresterhill (the
site of the hospital and medical school) were no longer available to me.
That included the pressure chamber, the environmental chamber and all the
equipment I had acquired over the years from the Department of Surgery, together
with the mountain laboratory on Morrone. It was a real blow to lose control of
the mountain laboratory which had been at the centre of my professional life
for so many years. I never saw it again, but I heard that failing to find a use
for it the University had it dismantled and removed all trace of the building from
Morrone.
A sad fall for Morrone, following a spectacular rise with
Royal endorsement and a great possible future for Aberdeen and its University,
which could readily have succeeded the world-famous MRC Environmental Research Unit
of Otto Edholm, who had just announced his retirement which, in MRC terms,
meant the closure of his department.
The
reason for recording this short history of the field research station on
mountain hypothermia on Morrone is not because of its successful establishment, or because of the internationally
recognised centre for environmental medicine in Aberdeen University I had in
mind. In that it failed and there is no reason to boast about failure.
The reason was to record the quite remarkable achievement of
the wide Aberdeen and surrounding area’s organisations and individuals in
achieving the mountain structure. It is typical of the personality of the
people of Scotland in the past, and reminiscent of the spirit of the Londoners
during the blitz. There is a lesson somewhere in there worth recording. Chief
among the organisations involved were the Grampian Police and its mountain rescue
team, the oil industry, mainly BP and Shell, the local landowners, the charities,
Action for Disaster and Tenovus, the helicopter companies and MRC
Hampstead. There was also a very large
number of individuals - too great to record by name. Special mention must,
however, be recorded of certain outstanding people who made the enterprise
possible. These were John Nicol and John Duff of Grampian Police, Dr Colin
Jones of BP, Dr Ronnie Houston of Shell, Mr Alan Bristow, Captain Farquharson
of Invercauld, Captain Tennant of Innes, Colonel James Adam, Professor Otto
Gustavus Edholm, Vice-Admiral Sir John Rawlings, Commander David Elliott, Sir
Edward Wright, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and
Stammers, the wee shop in Braemar, where the Morrone weather information was
displayed.
Acknowledgements.
I owe
everything I have achieved in my career to the constant support, guidance and
advice of my wife, Morag. Also, this article
would not have been written without the excellent
technical help and advice of my devoted and much-loved daughter, Sarah-Jane Mackie.
Nelson
Norman
Any
correspondence relating to this article can be addressed to me.
Don
Fox
donaldpfox@gmail.com
