John Hales: Harry McIntosh comes to mind.[109] He became totally committed to making beer in his bath. He attracted a certain amount of notoriety with this particular talent. I think it’s good if your Demonstrator has a personality and comes to your social occasions.

John Harcourt: Harry once decided to put a can of soup in one of the furnaces. He forgot that liquids expand and we smelled burnt soup for weeks.

Henry Atkinson: There was Alan Grant who went on to become a Professor at Manchester. His contribution to fame was that when we were leaving the Spring St. building, there was a very important ceremony attended by Sir William [Anderson] and Sir Arthur Amies. Now Alan had arranged with some of his friends to dress up as undertakers and had hired the correct outfit and they had a coffin, on the side of which was written in large letters, ‘Australian College of Dentistry’. Just as the proceedings were ending, Alan and his friends walked very slowly to a toll of a bell down the Conservative Clinic at the old school. He’ll always be remembered for that.

Mike Morgan: There was the time, too, when the Duke of York went on a wild goose chase.

Figure 15 HRH Albert, Duke of York, 1927 - courtesy H.F. Atkinson Dental Museum.

Figure 16 Typed copy of letter from Duke of York's Secretary, P.K. Hodgson, to President of the MDSS, Mr Cecil Hearman, 1927 - courtesy H.F. Atkinson Dental Museum.

John Harcourt: That was 1927; a group of dental students kidnapped him.

Henry Atkinson: He came to Wilson Hall for an honorary degree. When he came out the students had a carriage waiting for him. They whipped him away to the Dental School, and introduced him to the Dental Students Society.

In the Museum, Louise has a letter from the Duke and a photograph of the Duke[110] because the President, Cecil Hearman, wrote to him about this escapade and suggested that he become President.

If you look at the history of this, you’ll find that the medical students take the credit for this. We stick to our story.

Gerry Dalitz: I tried to let tear gas off in the Dental Hospital once. It’s not a good idea.

John Harcourt: Alan Grant and Harry Gill[111] were responsible for letting hydrogen sulphide off in a fume cupboard that was right next to the air conditioning.

Maurice White: I’m a graduate of the School. I have an engineering works as well and we made a special drill to extract the Yellow Peril sculpture and then used a crane to transport it.

Peter Reade: I’d like to record the support that Hec gave me, and Bryan Radden who was with me pretty well all the time I was there, as well as John Campbell.[112] The students liked them because they were kind and attentive.

We had a wonderful laboratory manager called Bill Charles.[113] The lab people were very supportive. And without them the system wouldn’t have worked.

When I came to the Department there were four secretaries and one technician, who worked with Wilf Fleming[114], a doubly qualified ENT surgeon, who did the histopathology. One of my first jobs was to convert the four secretaries into one secretary and three technicians, and that gave us the basis for our laboratory support.

Ann Westmore: I think we had best wind up at this point. Thank you all for your frank contributions and willingness to provide your viewpoints. It has been a fascinating day.

Figure 17 Profs H. Down, H. Adamson, A. Amies, H.F. Atkinson on Victorian Parliament House steps, c.1954 - courtesy The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine