Mitchiner memorial lecture. Wellington, Napoleon and the medical services.

The first time I sounded off in this lecture theatre was on the Great Highland Bagpipe, when I played 'The Lament for the Children' to the Scottish naturalist Seton Gordon, but have no fear I'm past all that now accordingly, at my age, I felt particularly flattered by the honour of being invited to give this Memorial Lecture. I know that I am not qualified, like my predecessors, to speak of Phi lip Mitchiner's place as a surgeon, a teacher and administrator, but I soon overcame the feeling of unworthiness when I reflected that I am one of the few who can remember our famous Territorial medical Major General as a mere Lieutenant Colonel, commanding the London University OTC. * When we camped alongside them in 1923 the Edinburgh Medical Unit had just been put into the kilt an obviously inappropriate garb for stretcher drillinvolving as it did, what Queen Victoria might have called "fleeting glimpses of Highland scenery" but it certainly smartened us up, the kilt-wearer must at least keep his knees straight. The London cadets reacted to our Scottish smartness by deliberately making a fool of their drill; for example, on the command 'Stand Easy' they all dipped their knees in the maner of a stage policeman irresistably comic, but it did not amuse 'Mitch' who harangued them, saying that he would not have his unit outshone in drill or anything by "a bunch of barebottomed barbarians from the North". Well, for this barbarian 61 years later, apart from one close personal friend, my abiding memory is of that memorable figure, spectacles glinting and a bristly convict crop seeming to emphasise the roundness of a rather small head. It has been said that an outstanding appearance is an asset to a military leader and we all know that Philip Mitchiner became just that. In 'Who's Who' his only recreations were given as "University Training Corps and the TA". Last year Professor Cecil Gray spoke of "this devotion to things military in one who himself was so unmilitary".1 Today I want to suggest that perhaps Mitch's 'devotion' was really to that best of all patients, the British Soldier. Are any of us really devoted to 'The Army'?, I have often put that question to military audiences. Of course we love our Corps, our Regiment, our comrades; but 'The Army' embraces so much else. For example The War Office (as we used to call it in the gays when we were allowed to think of more than rrtere defence), them, in fact they, whose ideas so often did not seem to * Three old friends in our Corps marched in Mitchiner's Army Robert Spicer, Philip Wood and John Watts. agree with what we thought was best for us, our unit and our men. When the suspicion steals into the mind that 'The Army' may not be the most generous and warmhearted of employers, what then keeps us going? It is our love for the British Soldier the Jock, the Jawan when we were so blessed as to have our great Indian Army That's what keeps us going; and I do not think that a man can be a really good military leader who does not feel this deep affection. How do the two great generals of whom I am going to speak, measure up to this criterion? Well, an opinion poll in this country would probably illustrate a curious national trait satirised by W S Gilbert, when he put upon Ko-Ko's 'little list':