ART and Prejudice

Thank you Professor Adgey for your kind words of introduction. For many years I have sat in this audience thinking this must be one of the most stressful presentations of an Orator’s life I was absolutely right. Such was my anguish when you invited me to be this year’s Orator that my first reaction was to say to myself ‘how on earth can I get out of this?’ While considering my response I turned to Professor Richard Clarke’s excellent “History of The Royal Victoria Hospital”. Running my eye down the rather daunting list of previous Orators, I spotted the name of your late, distinguished, if somewhat eccentric colleague Professor JF Pantridge, The entry for the year 1971 reads ‘no oration given’ Prof JF Pantridge declined to give the Oration. The only other similar entry was in 1910 when Sir William Whitla also declined to give the oration. As a simple GU Medicine physician I could not have aspired to join such an exclusive club!