(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Surgeon's Lives. I'm your host, John Monson. Today we go back to the UK to meet an old friend of mine, Professor Nick Stafford. Or Nick Stafford OBE as it happens since he received that award for his incredible efforts in the field of cancer charity. He's a co-founder of the Daisy Appeal, which under his leadership has raised over 25 million pounds, including the establishment of a unique pet scanning center in Hull. Apart from that, he's a big car enthusiast, having owned over 50 classic cars over many years, some not so lovely, some very lovely indeed, but all part of the great tapestry of life. As indeed was his experience buying a restaurant. It wasn't the greatest success. He didn't win a Michelin star, but it was certainly an interesting experience. Oh, and don't forget, please, please, like and subscribe to the channel and send us your comments. So without further ado, let's go over and talk to Nick Stafford and hear what he has to tell us about stuff that matters. I'm John Monson and this is Surgeon's Lives. How's that? - There you go, perfect. Good morning to you, how are you? - What's about you? - Good, thank you. We've got a special background for you as well. - Very good, very good. - So, well, thanks for taking some time to talk to me today. Just so you know what this is about. You know, there are plenty of podcasts and chat form where people talk to Surgeons about their amazing career and huge academic achievements, et cetera. And we'll touch on your career, of course, in this conversation. But what I've been doing is talking to a series of interesting Surgeons about other aspects of their lives, which sometimes are not really covered and are frankly more interesting than the daily grind or indeed the daily battles of politics or treating patients. So what I would like to do as a starter, which I do for everyone really, is just to get you to give us a brief introduction to Nick Stafford starting with the words I was born in. - Yeah, I was born in Beckenham in Kent, went down to Farnborough in Hampshire, where the air show is from about the age of five or six, primary school, 11 plus, grammar school at Farnborough, which was an old boy school. No buggery, I'm pleased to say. Applied to medical school, had long hair, so I wanted somewhere that didn't interview, so I applied to five non-London places and got offers from Manchester and Leeds. The who were just issued the who live at Leeds, so that seemed to me a good place to go, just in case of the medicine tanks and there'd be good opportunities for fun. Leeds from 72 to 77, house jobs in Leeds, anatomy, demonstrating in Leeds, and then down to London, Royal National Throw-Nose Near Hospital, took a punt on a local senior registrar, job at St Mary's for a year, got the job, and then five years Mary's in Marston, six months in Paris that was really not terribly useful, but interesting to see how the French do things. And then consultant job at St Mary's in 89, where I think you and I crossed paths, and then you went up to Hull, and I was a bit disillusioned with London and followed up to Hull in 95, where I've been since, retired in I think it was 2018. - Well, that's certainly a whirlwind tour of your career, summarized your entire career in a couple of minutes. So when did you, did you come from a medical background? - No, my mum was a medical secretary, dad was in the civil service, he was secretary for the planning committee for the Open University, that was his one claim to fame. Now I just guided the right A levels, because I just didn't want to do the arts, it didn't seem very much point, and I quite enjoyed the zoology side of it, so it just seemed a logical thing to, I wasn't a burning desire that some of these kids have these days, but having said that, it panned out well, 'cause I thoroughly enjoyed my 40 years in the NHS, I wouldn't say the NHS that I joined exists anymore, but it was a great career, I enjoyed it. I think I managed to do a few things that were good, and had a bit of fun along the way, but no, I don't know what I'd have done if I hadn't got into leads, I'd have probably done something like biological sciences or them, something along those lines, but I'm not sure that that would have really been my thing, I'm not a sort of white coat scientist, as you well know. - You know, we'll come back to your thoughts about the changes you've seen in your 40 years, et cetera, because there are many in varied, I think, as everyone, as everyone does in the span of a career, but throughout your career, I think, I know you've had some mentors that mattered to you. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that? - Yeah, there was a couple of people who was a registrar, there was a guy called Charles Croft, who was actually a lead surgeon, who was at the Royal National, then a guy called Henry Grant at the UCH, but I suppose the person who I learnt a great deal from, who you are familiar with was Gerald Walsh-Wearing, who was an extremely good teacher in the EU, who went to step back and you went to go to the club and leave you to it. Nick, let me know if there's any problems, men's, you know, you probably don't have a job if you do, let me know there are any problems, but get on with it. But he also taught me the politics and how to deal with people, which I now see many, I've seen many contemporaries, dare I say, bugger up much more than I have. I think as a politician, I'm not brilliant, but I learnt a lot from Gerald and know how to play people better than a lot. So Gerald was really, there was another guy at the milestone called Henry Shaw, who was sort of one of the leaders of head and neck in the UK. Henry was a very quiet, self-effacing, Italian. I just learnt to step back from things with him. You know, you can get, as I'm sure you do, it's attempting to get very involved with patients, and in fact, Henry's successor, who's recently died, Peter Reece Evans, used to go to patients' funerals. I always found that a really brand bizarre thing to do. I think you've got to keep a distance. And, you know, you're, either service. - Yeah, I mean, it's a good, it's a good, it's an interesting observation. I mean, I'm trying to agree with you. I do know people that do that. I've actually only ever been to one patient's funeral, who, when I was an intern, actually, and he was a sort of a legendary patient who I looked after for my entire intern span. And was a lot better, but yeah, I do know people who, and the other interesting thing nowadays is how people can start to interact with patients on social media. - Yeah, my Facebook friends and things like that. - As you know, John, your guy who initially got me onto mobile phones, and I have to say, IT has never been one of my strengths, and I'm quite proud of that. And no, I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on Instagram. I certainly wouldn't want to use that as a means of patient communication. I much prefer the old school of, you know, if you see them, you write in letters, occasional phone call, if it's something important. But I think it colors your judgment if you get too close to somebody. - Yeah, so why ENT had an neck? I mean, obviously the initial pathway, or correct me if I'm wrong, with the initial pathway is generally anti-training and then developing into head and neck. - Well, why that? - Well, Leeds, as you know, had a very strong surgical bent to it. And I saw people like Peter Lee, Bill Mayer, and others, senior registrars in their mid-30s working their butts off. And I thought, well, I want to do surgery, but I don't particularly want to give my entire career to it and burn out with it. You know, there were people when I got down to London who were in their 40s, still waiting for a consulting job. Also at the time, there was a guy, and I can't actually remember, was it Eastwood? There was a plastic surgeon at St. James's, it's called Eastwood, who did a lot of head and neck stuff. And I just kind of managed to slide in one or two times. And I thought, this looks fascinating. And it was certainly in the UK as opposed to the US, it was a sort of a minor specialty, if you like. And it interested me. And I realised that the ENT was the only way to do that. You can do it via plastics, but you don't want to get me going too much on plastic surgeons, as Gerald used to say, all they end up doing is bums and tits, which is quite... So I wanted to do something that was kind of a bit more positive than that. So the ENT thing was the way forward. And as I say, I was lucky with the senior registrar job, it was perfect for me. I don't think I'd have enjoyed doing a lot of ES surgery. I can do basic stuff, but it was the head and neck thing that fired me up. - You know, I always remember, as you say, I do remember Gerald saying that about plastic surgeons, but I particularly remember him saying to me one day when we had lost a plastic surgeon who had followed that pathway, my plastic surgery colleague here refers to it as TTC, which is Time to Cosmetics. And he, I remember Gerald saying, my dear boy, you don't get upset. He said, just go and get another one. And you will get, you know, six years, seven years from them. And then they will go and you will repeat the cycle, you know? You know, I mean, I think what you say about Gerald's political skills resonates with me, particularly as I, you know, get older and Gerald was the master of the light touch, I think. And, you know, I was most certainly not the master of the light touch, quite the opposite. And I think on balance, his model is better. You know, I think the driving model is challenging. Yeah, no, I think that he used to have this expression, Nick, you've catch more flies with honey. And he would never get in, you know, if the going got rough, he'd step back and he'd just let the dust settle. And because he was also a charming bloke and also people used to underestimate his intelligence. - Yes. - He usually got his way and he did it in a way that nobody went away thinking that blokes or so. And so they usually said, well, Gerald got his way and sort of acknowledged his success. - Oh no, I, you know, I don't know because I don't know, but my senses that he was more than competent had an ex-urgent. - He was like us all, he got a bit rusty towards the end, but he was very good. And he knew when to say no and when to say yes. And he was canny because he got a team around him. You might remember Dye Davis, he was blessed. He was one of the ones who did do well for six years and then did sort of it off, but Dye was good. So Gerald got a good team around him. And as I say, the Carlton Club at lunch time and Nick, you can manage this, can't you? And I knew that, I knew that I could, but I also knew that if I really got stuck, he'd come back. But he had two claims to fame in terms of on call. He only came in twice at the weekend in his whole career. Once was when the SHO on call had been found in the nurses home looking over a nurses shower cubicle with a laryngeal mirror. Gerald, he dined out on that for a long time. And I think the other one was quite one of his sort of society trends from the club. - The first of those two being much more entertaining. - Absolutely, absolutely. The bloke was fired of course, even to those days. - You raised an interesting point. One of my interviews was with a guy who I'm sure you don't know, but as a guy called Jeff Matthews, who's chair of surgery in University of Chicago, very well-known surgeon, very prestigious department. And he was advocating for surgeons from somewhere after 60, doing voluntary cognitive motor testing. With no punitive outcome from him, but just as a sort of a self-awareness thing, is that something that you would advocate? Because I'm gonna come on, obviously, and ask you, how you navigated your retirement thoughts, which are slightly different in the UK than they are in the US, but do you think surgeons should be tested? - Yeah, I do. I think going back to Gerald Lindow Wing doing a private parangeal pouch and it became like the sort of top of a butcher's block and he was making a right mess of it. And he could see that and I was there and he said, "Oh, I think I'm getting in a bit of a sticky mess with this." And I said, "Do you want me to take over?" And he said, "Oh, yes, please." And I thought it was, it showed humility on his part, not to kind of bodge it and carry on. And I think it was shortly after that that he decided that he'd hand it all on and sort of step back. And yeah, I think it's a good idea. And it isn't even just in your surgical skills. It's a bit about, have you still got the real interest in it? Have you still got the determination to see it through? Or are you tired and bored with it all? - Yeah. - There is an element. It didn't hit me so much because I went a bit early. But I've seen people who've gone too long. There's a no-tologist who you will know who's in a pile who's still going. And I'm not sure that's right. - Yeah, I mean, nowadays, I think the, you know, the bored and tired concept is sometimes referred to as burnout and I think to something, I mean, sometimes I think it is get bored and tired, but I do think there's a burnout issue. Is that something that resonated with you or not? - No, I didn't feel, I was disappointed to give up, but I thought it was the right time and I gave up mainly because I was getting fed up, going back to the IT, spending 15 minutes ordering an MRI scan on the hospital's computer system, which was a bull's up and very, you know, it was beyond me where we could have filled in a form two months beforehand and done it in 30 seconds. But all that kind of, all the courses that I had to go on, how to, what fire extinguisher to use when the department caught fire? Well, you know, the department never did catch it. Did you dial line that, you know, ridiculous things? So that was... - You know, wherever I worked in the world, I pointed out to people that it's the only business I know when the fire alarm goes off in hospitals. People say, "What's that noise?" And you say, "It's the fire alarm." And everybody goes, "Oh, okay." And that's usually ignored. But I never take any notes of it. When I was an intern in Dublin, I worked very briefly as one did with attachments with an ENT surgeon who used to write on the X-ray request form where it said, for a female patient where it said, "LMP," he would write Y-A-H. And I watched him do this, you know, like for a week and eventually sent an, excuse me, Mr. Wilson, what is that? And he went, "What?" I said, "What Y-A-H?" And he said, "Oh, you ask her." (laughs) Yeah, it was his approach to that, you know. - That's the whole thing. You probably went around that time, John, but things changed dramatically in the way that a department was run. You were told what patients needed to come in. You had to have these, you know, we had some schizophrenic woman in who had a parotid tumor. And we had to have these, I can't remember what the expression is, sort of, anyway, these meetings with social workers. - Yeah, yeah. - Everybody's saying, "Yeah, well, we should," you know, and it drove me nuts. And also, I wanted to care out before they screwed my pension, totally. - Yeah, so I mean, seeing it, let's get into that bit at the moment, why not? So, you know, one of the questions I write down for people on your side of the Atlantic is, you know, do you think the future of the NHS is rosy or not? I mean, that's a question that people have asked since the inception of the NHS. But, you know, what's your spin at the moment and, you know, the issues? - I don't think it's ever been this bad. Just in terms of getting in, you know, for emergency care, four-hour cues outside the A&E and an ambulance. I have to say the A&E problem I blame on the Royal College of Surgeons, who should have made casualty jobs compulsory for anybody doing training in surgery. Now you get doctors who are just doing it to fill in. So, A&E's are shambles, but I think the NHS, the only solution to it is to take it out of governmental control and how I would say a five to 10 years strategy as to how it could take it forward. And it is unaffordable as it is. It needs to have the balls to say, right, we're only gonna do cardiac cancer, chronic diseases. We're not doing any of the other stuff. ENT will suffer dramatically. You won't do nasal symptoms. You won't do polyps. You won't do grommets or not. All that kind of stuff has to go. How you manage those cases, I don't know. I've always been, I don't know what it's like with you, John, but when I went to university, my parents were means related. So, my grant from the local authority was based on what Dad earned now. I think people should have that kind of thing with the NHS. You have five grand a year to spend, but if you go over that, you have to do it yourself. So, you prioritize your own health. - Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think, I've always felt that, you know, healthcare is a right, but it doesn't mean that you, you know, should be able to get a cosmetic blepharoplasty as a right. - Absolutely. - You know, I think if you have a heart attack or a colon cancer or a thyroid tumor, there needs to be a safety net for people. And, you know, above a certain point. I mean, it, but, you know, as you know, that any suggestion of deviating from universal healthcare free at the point of delivery, regardless of the ability to pay, is political death. Even though, you know, politicians of both colors have known that this is not viable for, you know, as long as I've ever worked in the NHS, it does seem to me that the other issue that it changed. I mean, you know, when you and I were training in the NHS and starting, you worked very hard under difficult circumstances with limited and sometimes insufficient resources. But everybody worked together as a team. And there was an appreciation for it. Nobody was being blamed for what happened in the short films. You know, what happened, what gradually started was, you know, it became a blaming culture. You know, the patients began to blame you, the administrators blamed you. And so the doctors responded by saying, "Listen, hey, I'm not gonna work like this." And I was recounting to somebody, I do remember the man who introduced a blanking on his name, who introduced the human resources guy and the NHS introduced the contract and the early notice that resulted in this drop increase in pay for people, but a dramatic reduction in productivity because you had to document where you wear every minute of the day. Huge error of judgment in human behavior. You know, not recognizing that people already worked above and beyond, but the most part. I mean, of course, there's people that abuse the system as there is in every system. - Yeah, no, it doesn't look good to me. The other thing is, and I can see this and we might come onto it a bit later with this Daisy thing I'm doing with the PET-CT. But, you know, some of the new radio tracers cost 2,000 quiddo shots. So the scams gone across 3,000. You know, the price of getting a good diagnosis, the aeronostics on that horizon, it's gonna be more and more expensive to treat people. Now, it's just, they never balanced that. The whole, I read a book about it. And when they started out, the ethos was, well, we'll put the money into the NHS in, what was it, 1947. Off of the first couple of years, people will have better health and will have to put less money into it. You know, how naive can you get? But there's still kind of a bit like that. They certainly don't put up to date with technology, which is expensive. - Yeah, no, no, for sure. Yeah, and indeed, that was Nye Bevan, who convinced the cabinet that after five years, they could cut the budget by 20%. Now, apart from his naive, you see the extraordinary naivety of a cabinet to accept that. And, you know, so the recipe for ongoing struggles was established on day one. - And it kind of focused on, you're right, and the whole cabinet, but when was the last time anybody with any medical house was in charge of the health service? Gerard Vaughn was a minister, but he hadn't practiced for years since then or before him. I can't remember anybody as Minister of Health. It's criminal. - Well, I think it's always been a legendary poison chalice. And, you know, it was almost a punishment to be given, to become the health minister, because it was all for every minister it ends and tears. - Yeah, but you just wouldn't hear that, you know, you don't put a pharmacist in charge of a garage, or do you don't put a technician in charge of a chemist? - Yeah, I mean, although I think it probably applies right across government and has done, I mean, it's not. - No, that's why another reason why it should be taken out of political, like a five-year cycle of, let's starve it for the first three years and then up comes the election and let's give them loads of money so it'll be in one of those. - Yeah, no, that's true, yeah. So as long as I've known you, you've always had a little edge about you in the sense of little quirky. So there were little things that I used to notice. So, you know, you're constantly reading strange paperback novels at various times. And you always had a slightly interesting fashion style, et cetera, and I, you know, I'm intrigued by that because it, as you said, from the beginning, you just, you did intentionally choose a specialty that would allow you to have other thoughts in your life, not just, and you've certainly, you know, I can, you know, obviously that what I've mentioned, you know, you have an interest in reading one thing or another. You've had your interest in classic cars, you've dabbled in bits of property and you were even the minor host, briefly at a restaurant for a while, which we won't spend a huge amount of time talking about your, your sadly tragic and no doubt, unjustified lack of a Michelin star. But you, I do remember that you, your classic car, the first classic car thing I knew you to have been very pleased about was buying a dreadful Maserati and making an extraordinary amount of money on it. - Yeah, well, that, that, you're right. I was, I wasn't pleased with the car. I thought it would, just to run back. I bought, my first car was an Alfa Romeo Camtales by that. And I got, through that, I got in touch with a mutual acquaintance of ours, Richard Banks, and agreed on the restoration of the Maserati. For 16,000 pounds, which was quite a lot in the 80s, but Richard did do the restoration, got the car, drove like a tractor, absolutely useless and sold it. And I just, and that was good because it got Heather interested and she was important once she saw there was money to be made. In fact, we had a holiday in Florida on the basis of that. And then, but it wasn't a good car. And I must say all the heavy cars I've had, I've been disappointed with the DB5, was a heavy car, the Mark II Bank was a heavy car. So, the car after that was the one that you and I took on the RAC thing, which was the Fiatino, which I did like actually. The left hand drive made a great noise and that was another Richard car. But yeah, it's, it's, as I think I said in my little, email to you, it's almost a disease with me, I'm afraid. I can't resist the temptation. I'm hoping that I'm running out of steam, traveling around the country, kicking cars and looking underneath cars. I've actually got, as you know too now, and I'm, I'm quite content with them. - Which of course is a temporary state of mind. Which I appreciate, but the, so one of the very first interviews I did and when these come out on them, when these come out on YouTube and the podcast, I do hope you watch some of them. But I interviewed an extraordinary ENT surgeon, and I'm not having a general private practice ENT surgeon called Bobby Mucamala, and he lives in Michigan. And he's a thoroughly charming individual who, like you, has dedicated a lot of time towards charity in his own town. And he's very active in the AMA, and he spends a lot of time looking after what is currently his 83 cars, which he has collected in a way that obviously it requires quite a place to keep them all. And I look at his collection and I think, you know, I wouldn't take a present of at least 50% of them. And, you know, I said to him, you know, why don't you have 10 really good ones? And he said, he, and I quote, he said, I view myself as a bottom feeder. He said, I like, I like getting, so he has like a dozen Mercedes saloons, and intermittently scattered in there. He has like a Ferrari, Tesserosa, and a couple of e-types, but a lot of very mundane things, et cetera, and that's what he likes. But the difference between him and you and I is that he's clearly a collector. I mean, he buys, but he doesn't sell. He did sell one or two cars at the beginning, but since then he hasn't sold any. And part of it is, of course, that he is willing to take the step of purchasing a facility to keep them in. But he uses them for charity and stuff like that, but you're a trader, as in, you always, you know, if one comes in, one goes out. - Pretty much, yes, you're right. And Heather says it's part of the chase for me going to look at the church, getting it home, and then she says you'll be bored with that in three months. Occasionally, she's been wrong. I might have got rid of it for other reasons. There's a couple of cars I can think of that I got rid of just because I'm too tall, the Alpin, you remember? - Yeah. - Which was a really nice car. - Yeah. - The drag it like that, because I couldn't stop right. But on the whole, it's the chase, but as I say, I am getting a bit old for that. And also, the list that I've had is probably 50 or 60 cars. - Yeah. - There are not many now that I could A, afford and B, you really want to have. - Well, I was going, one of my questions, I was going to ask you, do you have a bucket list of one or two that you still would like? - Depends, are we talking budget-free? Or are we talking- - Well, no, that's a different question. I mean, but seeing as you ask, I mean, if you had an open checkbook, what would it be? - I'd always fancy, is it the, what's the BMW Roaster, the new one? Is it the 1X or the- - The very new one or the Z8? - This is Z8, that's the one. Yeah, because they're always fancy that. I've always fancied a pre-war car. Not the Anglo that goes with it, but I nearly looked at, well, I looked at an HRG, which looked very nice. But also something like a 50s Italian, you know, is it Cisotelia, something like that? - Yeah, it's a big budget, yes. - It is, not ludicrously big, but it's big, it's beyond. And one of the things that I have found and noted in the car market is that as prices get so exorbitant for some cars, they're not taken out anymore. You don't see them on the road, which is a game. And one of the other things I would never do, one of the, what I said was I do like to drive the car. So I wouldn't want to buy something that was so expensive that I couldn't risk taking it out on the road, and cars are getting like that, right? - No, they aren't, and I drive my cars. And, you know, I have a car mentor in England who curates a very large, you know, hundreds of millions worth of cars in several locations for a lucky owner. And so he's extremely dispassionate about cars. And his governor is equals and, you know, has cars that go back from pre-war Bentley's up to La Ferrari. So, you know, it's a very attractive case. But, you know, his career, his job depends on it, and his boss's gov likes the cars to work. So, I've often said to him, you know, I fancy a pre-war car, you know, 'cause they are lovely looking and he goes, and he's always saying to me, now just calm down because, you know, they have no power, they have no brakes, they're not reliable, they're extraordinary and comfortable. And, you know, they are sort of 30-minute cars, you know, you've done the 30 minutes, and then you don't drive it for another two months. - You get out of the oil like we were shooting. - Yeah, and so, but the other thing that his, which I do now, when I have done it for quite some time, is, you know, I don't like the full classic car experience of, you know, standing on the side of the road with a vague smell of fuel. So, you know, all of my cars have been, have had, you know, modern little elements to them upgraded so that you can drive them. So, you know, in that, you know, at the moment, I'm sort of jaggery-ish. So, you know, the brakes are better, the gearbox is better. Sometimes the original box, but, you know, built properly with a different final drive, and the cooling is better, and, you know, it's an electronic ignition. You can't tell by looking, but it doesn't break down, you know. - Absolutely. So, yeah. - So, nothing, so the two you have at the moment are, what, a Mini Cooper? - I've got a Mini Cooper about two, and the 356 Super 90. - Yeah, yeah. - Which is, both of which are, you know, on the edge, in terms of your height. - Well, they are, they don't, they don't, I'm not sure where a helmet in either of them, but otherwise, they don't be in trouble. - Yeah, I mean, the Mini Cooper requires you to sit in any person, regardless of if I have to sit in that strange upright armchair position. - I would never go touring in that, in the Mini Cooper's just for a bit of a laugh, really, isn't it? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Fun, and that's why I got it. And also, I just think they're sort of, so quintessentially 60s, which is-- - Oh, yeah, yeah. - Over a decade, so they're lovely cars, and they did a lot for British motoring, really. - Oh, sure, yeah. Still do. So you and I were both in at the, at the beginning of the Daisy Foundation, something that you came to be, so, you know, identified with, I should say, you made it your own, if you like, in terms of the amount of time and passion you put into it. - Acknowledged by the late Her Majesty, I think with a no-vee, I recall. - Correct, yep. - Congratulations on that. So, you know, 10, 15 years later, can you remember why you did that? - Yeah, yeah. Well, and you'll, I think, appreciate it. You probably agree to that entirely, you know, we, you came a bit earlier to Hull than I did, but it was quickly evident that the university was pretty hopeless in terms of knowing what it needed to provide for medical research. And I immediately got fed up with hearing, "Oh, well, I'll go to Leeds and Sheffield will get that," and York might get that, and Hull was suffering. And I thought, well, there's a sort of an old expression, isn't there in Yorkshire, where there's muck, there's a brass, as we know, there's quite a lot of brass in East Yorkshire. So I put it together and it's been very successful. You know, we're about 22 million now. I won't do anything after this Pepsi tea thing, which is still carrying on, because I think it's taken me 10 years, and I don't want to get involved with another new project. I think we've rattled tin so much that the local public will get fed up with it, but I think what I feel proud about isn't the OBE, but it's actually having a PET-CT set up that's better than anything else in Yorkshire, and probably better than anything else in the north of England. We've been asked by the MRC to bid for a whole body scanner that's going to be three in the UK, and I've gathered, we're in the top five of the choices. Obviously, one will go to London, one will probably go to Edinburgh, but it will be either us or Manchester, but I think in many respects, in fact, you might be interested to know, I've got it, I've been in touch on an ongoing basis with that price. Yeah. You think we have a very strong chance of winning? So we'll see, but that would be great news. That would be a thing, that would be a sort of one of those to Leeds, I think, which I would enjoy immensely. To coin a phrase, it's beneath you, but you're not below doing it, you know. That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. So it's, I mean, I think it's an incredible achievement, and all, you know, the stamina that's required to, you know, to do it and sustain it over, you know, coming up towards 20 years, et cetera, et cetera, is remarkable and, you know, all credit to you. I sit and I listen though, and, you know, our big challenge here, on the other side of the Atlantic is to stop people doing PET scans, PET CT scans. And, you know, almost every patient who has cancer ends up getting a PET CT scan, because local oncologist books it. And that's the one thing that, and we're trying to stop people doing it because there are total waste of time, you know, for the majority routine sort of things. But the ubiquitous availability of them on, you know, obviously not every street corner, but, you know, I mean, there is zero difficulty getting a PET CT scan. It means that, you know, people use them. Whereas, you know, you spent X years trying to raise money to actually get one, and neither is right. Neither set of circumstances is right. And it's just an observation that it's hard to reconcile. - It's a very fair observation, and I think that if one was just stuck with FDG, it would be a very fair observation. What we've done the scan in the sense of the Jack Bregmal saying I was pleased to know that after Jack, who I think you had a high opinion on. What I'm really pleased about is what we call the Merck, the Molecular Imaging Research Center, with its own cyclotron where we will be able to, 'cause there are a number of radio traces out there. I don't know what the supply is like in America, but over here, the FDG actually comes over from Preston. Well, I can, of course, there are a lot of new radio traces that have a lot of applications, not just in cancer, but in cardiac and neuro. And so what I would like to be able to be in a position to do is to say, right, cyclotron will be changed today. We'll start producing carbon 11 radio traces for this, for people who are personally. So that was, that's what's kept me going with it. I don't want to get an FDG machine. - No, as you say, just a commercial scanner, where you put the coin in and do the scan is, I mean, it's the other elements that make it unique and successful success. Yeah, as you say, you know, the MRC are looking at that saying, "Hey, wait a minute, these people are committed to this." It's actually. So it's been a great achievement. Are you gonna, who's your, who do you hand the bat on to? - So I think I have decided that I am not doing those E3. Once this is done, I would think by the end of next year, we will have, we'll have it in a sort of a box. It'll be self-contained. We won't be actively fundraising, but there isn't going to be another fundraising for another project, not from me. It's two, it is tiring. And as I say, this is taken 10 years. I'll be 78 then. I will certainly be too dodgy to hold a bloody can and say put money into it. Probably. - Well, so you say, I mean, we're debating in the US as to whether Joe Biden should stand for president again, you know, and he would be 82 at the time of the election. So telling me that 10 years from now you might be past it is, is not great. So we have to, we have to touch on the restaurant experience. And I'm not, I'm not asking you about the restaurant because spoiler alert for the viewers. It didn't quite go as planned, but I'm interested in it more as a concept. I remember if I recall correctly, it came about as you made that jump from retirement, you got your lump sum and decided to do something. I mean, the concept of doing something totally different when you retire, was that what you were thinking? - It was partly that. And it was a way of Holly and Leah got in a, they were in a house in Beverly and they were having, let me say, financial difficulties. So I thought it would be a solution to that. They, the kids, all vanilla and Holly, both said, "Oh, we'd love to do that." We all went in with eyes wide shut, you know, we didn't know how much hard work was involved in running a pub. It was a very nice pub. I don't know whether you remember it, John. - No, do. - By the duck pond, it was idyllic, but it was difficult to run. We wanted to do things to the pub, the locals who are a middle class bunch of architects, lawyers, and that sort of thing didn't want us to do. We put in planning permission for some changes and they just objected on just objected. They would object if you wanted to change the colour by one hue. - So I could see you developing, I could see you developing a great degree of sympathy and empathy for Jeremy Clarkson and his diddly squad. - I think Jeremy Clarkson, if I had Jeremy on the side, we'd have made a go of it. But now it was an experience. We lost about 100,000 pounds on it. But as you say, I've had some good results with other properties. So it was, I could look back on it and think, I'll never do that again. And if somebody came to me and they said, "Why wouldn't you do it again?" I would be able to tell them from the heart. I think also we got out of just the right time because interestingly the pub has been bought by Old Mill Brewery. They've put 1.2 million pounds into doing it up. Then it's already on their third landlord having reopened last July. COVID over here has been a killer on country pubs. And so I'm just pleased we got out. It was, I think, would I do it again? Well, I obviously wouldn't want to lose that money. But it was, we met some interesting people. It was interesting. - Yeah. And, you know, as you say, you went into it eyes wide closed, which is, you know, clearly not the way to do something. But, you know, it's an expensive way of learning the lesson that perhaps you could have learned in a different way. But, you know, it's one of those different things. You know, one of my guests on this and sold his house and has spent the last two years on a catamaran with his wife. And when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, he said, "Let's do it before I go through the Panama Canal and we cross the Pacific." And I said to him, "Yes, let's indeed do that before you cross the Pacific, just in case." And so he's, he proposes to spend the next decade, literally the next decade, just sailing around the world. And it's, now he did not go into it eyes wide closed. He spent two years before he bought the boat and he was well experienced as a sailor. But, you know, that's a brave, you know, we all talk about, "Oh, I'd love to go and do something." You know, but, you know, and you put more than a toe in the water doing something totally different. You know, you, when I did it and credit to you for doing that. But he's, you know, really done it, you know. Well, you know, at least you did. I mean, you tried. I mean, most people don't have the guts to do something like that. - He's been brave because he's actually putting his life at risk, I would say, whereas I was putting my wallet at risk, so... But no, it was... (laughing) - Yeah. - It was good fun, you know, and you think about, you know, about my cars and stuff. I could have bought a really nice Porsche with that, but actually I bought Porsches, so why not buy a Porsches, see what happens. - You know, for sure, for sure, for sure. So if you were, if I'm a young, fresh-faced, and wide-eyed surgical trainee, or somebody with an interest to graduate from medical school and knocked on the door of old professor Stafford and said, "Could I come and ask you "for some career guidance and advice? "You were a famous head and neck surgeon. "You know, should I do it, or what do you think? "What's your guidance and advice?" - I would want to check them out to make sure that they were round pegs in round holes, and I say that because I don't know whether it's the same with you, but there are so many kids going into medicine over here who have been pushed into it by my mum and dad, who either want them to be a doctor or a lawyer, and some of them are totally and utterly unsuited to a career in medicine. They haven't got a clue, and they never will have a clue. So that would be the first bit, and then I would say, if you're getting at the head and neck thing, I would say, "Well, why do you want to do it? "What interests you about it? "Do you understand the career structure?" And so, yes, if it's something that you want to do, you should go for it and give them a few ideas about how to get it done, because it's after Kalman and things, you need to think a bit more laterally as to how you shape your career. Kalman does not produce head and neck surgeons anymore. - No, and there's, right now, according to social media, anyway, there appears to be another upsurge in the emigration of doctors, a lot to Australia, New Zealand, I see, et cetera. Would you tell them, "Go West, young man," or would you say, "The NHS is gonna be solid, "don't worry about it, it's a minor blip." - I don't think the NHS in terms of cancer surgery is suck. I think that the population of any first world country, which I hope England still is, but I think the population of any first world country is still savvy enough, knows about the internet, knows what they can expect from treatment, there will always be treatment available for cancer. So, what I might suggest is that they go West, and it's ironic, isn't it, but go to Australia for a year or two's training, when I was at the Marston, we had a guy called Chris Perry over from Brisbane, and they were all coming over here. - Yeah, it's yellow, but that's the way it goes. So, I would certainly say, spread your wings a bit, go out and see what it's like in different countries, but I wouldn't necessarily say emigrate. I cannot believe that this country will allow the health service, in terms of cancer care, to become too much of MS. - Yeah, no, I think, I mean, I do think it goes through life cycles, for sure. - Yep. - And it does that. So, let me finish by asking you a series of very quick questions. And you're not allowed any time to think about these. And there are no correct answers, other than the fact that I can assure you, I know what the correct answer is. - Of course. - Okay, are you ready? - I am. - Okay, beetles are stones. - Stones. - Coke or Pepsi? - Coke. - Cats are dogs. - Dogs. - Manchester United or Liverpool. - Liverpool. - Beer or wine? - Beer. - Humor abroad. - Abroad. - Liverpool are cricket. - Cricket. - Here you go. All done. (laughing) - Very good. - Okay. - It forms part of the profiling, you understand. - Well, Nick, we've come to the end of our time, and I really appreciate it. It's been great catching up and great listening to your story of your life, which I do think is a little bit like some of the things that do matter. They're different than just a standard passage through surgery, et cetera. So it's been a pleasure to talk to you, and I hope we catch up soon. - Yeah, it's been good to see you. And yeah, I'm sure we will. We still need to think about a rally. One last bust, look forward to it. James John. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
