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John and Mary Farmer eMail: #1: aaa288@HOME.CAM.NET.UK #2: john.farmer@virgin.net Map: Cambridge, UK |
I was born on 5th December 1933, the youngest of three children. My father was a theologian, and my mother came from a large family in which only the girls survived, so I have had quite an army of aunts as I grew up.
I spent my first year in Hertford, USA, where my father was lecturing, and when we returned home we came to live in Cambridge.
I had meningitis when I was 13, was very lucky to survive, but lost a lot of schooling. However, I did well enough to get to medical school, qualified in 1958, and after 12 months house jobs (compulsory hospital appointments for full registration and permission to practice unsupervised) and a further 6 months obstetrics I could avoid National Service no longer.
By chance, I had heard that it was possible to do National Service in Commonwealth armed services and I elected to join the Australian Navy. This had a profound influence on my life subsequently, not so much because of the Navy (I am not tempermentally suited to the armed forces although I am very glad I have spent time in them), but because I discovered St Stephen's Church in Sydney. There I made many friends whom I have retained and it is now a great satisfaction that our children and theirs have become good friends and in some cases quite close ones.
On returning to UK in 1962 I decided to make a career in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and took an appointment in Birkenhead - entirely because my sister was living there at the time. I met Mary over a labour ward bed, and after my year I took further appointments in O & G in Bristol and Plymouth. We were married in 1967, and I obtained the MRCOG (the higher qualification in Obstetrics and Gynaecology) a few weeks later.
Then came a major event. Changes in the teaching unit in Bristol meant that I was unable to return there after my year in Plymouth and we went to Northern Ireland, arriving almost on the day when the present troubles started.
Clare was 1 year old at the time, and shortly afterwards we had three children under the age of three.
My work involved Consultant relief all over Northern Ireland and I had to spend quite long periods away from home, which was sometimes worrying. One day, after I had arrived home from one of these trips, Mary said to me quite bluntly that I was going to have to choose between my family and my career. It was a brave thing to say as I was not far from getting a full time appointment in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, but she had good reasons and I knew what she meant.
The upshot was that I gave up Obstetrics and Gynaecology and retrained in Radiology at Cardiff, and was appointed Consultant radiologist to the Wolverhampton Hospitals in 1978. There I spent 16 happy years and retired in 1994.
I worked for 2 years after that before retiring absolutely and moving back to Cambridge, from which I don't intend to move again! However, I have just had a call asking me to work again in a hospital not far from here. I just might do it.