Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Preface
- 1 Early life and training
- 2 London 1946—54
- 3 Appointment to the Glasgow Chair
- 4 Glasgow obstetrics in the Fifties
- 4 Sharing Enthusiasm: A textbook – and a teacher – with a difference
- 5 The Western Infirmary Wards G9 and 10
- 6 The cutting edge – in the operating theatre
- 7 The Queen Mother's Hospital
- 8 Science and Serendipity: Ultrasound takes off
- 9 Home life and hobbies
- 10 “Naught for your comfort”: social reform and medical ethics in a changing world
- 11 “At the receiving end”: courage and faith
- 12 “The evening cometh”: international fame, continued battle with illness and home happiness in retirement
- Sources
- Index
- Plate section
1 - Early life and training
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Preface
- 1 Early life and training
- 2 London 1946—54
- 3 Appointment to the Glasgow Chair
- 4 Glasgow obstetrics in the Fifties
- 4 Sharing Enthusiasm: A textbook – and a teacher – with a difference
- 5 The Western Infirmary Wards G9 and 10
- 6 The cutting edge – in the operating theatre
- 7 The Queen Mother's Hospital
- 8 Science and Serendipity: Ultrasound takes off
- 9 Home life and hobbies
- 10 “Naught for your comfort”: social reform and medical ethics in a changing world
- 11 “At the receiving end”: courage and faith
- 12 “The evening cometh”: international fame, continued battle with illness and home happiness in retirement
- Sources
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Ian Donald was born on 27th December 1910 in Liskeard, Cornwall, the eldest in the family of two sons and two daughters of John Donald, medical practitioner, and his wife, Helen Barron Wilson, concert pianist. John Donald came from a Paisley medical family and his brother Hugh was surgeon to the Royal Alexandra Infirmary. John led rather a peripatetic life, practising in London, Lichfield, Penang, Liskeard and Leicester. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the 1914–18 War.
Helen Barron Wilson met her future husband in Penang, while she was on a concert tour of the Far East.
Ian's early education was at Warriston School, Moffat, and then at Fettes College, Edinburgh, a public school which now has a prime minister among its former pupils. He conceived a lasting dislike of Fettes and later he quoted with approval the remark of a schoolfellow who had survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp and saying “It was just like being at Fettes”.
The family then went to live in South Africa, for health reasons. Ian's father had tuberculosis, and was never able to practise in Cape Town. The disease progressed and he died when Ian was only 16 years old. His mother died in the same year. Ian's sister, Dame Alison Munro, records “Ian's character and his powerful influence on his family and those around him emerged at the age of 16.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ian DonaldA Memoir, pp. 1 - 2Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004