The Henson Journals

[86]

Thursday, October 9th, 1930.

[symbol]

College of Medicine

A brilliant autumnal day, so brilliant that I deserted my study at noon, & sauntered in the Park. I tried to put together some material for a post–prandial speech

I went into Durham, & presided at a meeting of the Board of Training & Maintenance until 3.15 p.m. when, resigning the chair to my Suffragan, I proceeded to Newcastle. Picking up Sir Thomas Oliver & his daughter at their house. I went to the College of Medicine, & delivered the Inaugural Address on "The Genesis of the Physician's Ideal". The audience consisted of the academic chiefs & their ladies together with a crowd of rather noisy students. However, they listened fairly well, & cheered at the close. Then we had tea, & I was introduced to various persons, among them a pleasant looking girl, the daughter of the surgeon, Grey Turner, who is himself in Canada. After this I returned to Sir Thomas Oliver's house, and changed for dinner. The dinner was held in the Railway Hotel. I was the guest of the teaching staff of the College of Medicine. The company numbered about 35. Sir Thomas Oliver presided, & I sate on his right hand, having on my other side Sir William Morris, with whom I had much interesting conversation. The Chairman ^A pundit^ proposed my health in flatterous terms, & I replied in a short speech which seemed to please everybody! Then we sang "Auld Lang Syne", and "God save the King." Leng was ready for me, & I returned home arriving a few minutes after 11 p.m. So that is over, & I am left to the sad question, whether so considerable an expenditure of time & money was worth while. As Visitor of the University I can hardly disclaim some kind of responsibility for its conduct, & a refusal of the invitation to give this address might fairly have been resented. I became, perhaps, a little more intelligible to some of the dons, and passed for the first time within the range of the students' knowledge. So much is not altogether valueless: but the total result seems pitiably little for so large an effort. "Side–shows" implying, as from the nature of the case they cannot but imply, labour in preparation, are always very costly performances, & interfere woefully with one's true work.

---