Biographical

I was born in London in 1948. My parents were both doctors. My mother was a gynecologist at a time when women doctors in the U.K. were relatively uncommon; she was a German-born Jew, who had left Germany in 1933 just after Hitler came to power. My father was an epidemiologist of some distinction whose particular interest was TB. He also was one of the key players in the 1948 Streptomycin trial, which put randomized control trials on the map. He came from a long-standing Anglo-Jewish family. We lived in comfortable but by no means luxurious middle class circumstances in the Hampstead area. I was an only child. My parents had had a son about a year before who died a few hours after being born, and so my arrival was particularly welcome. Perhaps because of this my parents were quite protective of me. Since my mother worked, a caregiver, called Mrs. Shealey, helped out during my childhood. My father was 48 when I was born – very old for a father at the time – but he lived to 106. My mother died at 93. I had a close and loving relationship with both of them.