Dr MacDonald

I AM always very interested in the daily photograph showing “the way we were”.

The 1935 Austin looks very “vintage” compared with the 1948 Austin 16 my parents bought in England and had it transported to New Zealand when they arrived there in January 1949 with two small boys, myself being the older one.

What particularly took my interest was the “Buggy days link” below relating to Dr Alexander MacDonald, prior to World War I practising in Laidley, enlisting in the Medical Corps and serving in Gallipoli and France.

After that, his war record states, “I wish to spend at least 12 months from date on education. I am now doing a course on the eye, ear, nose and throat and am not sufficiently advanced to start a practice.

I will return to Australia in 1920. I have no dependants in Australia, wife and child now present in England and I am able to support myself and family.”

On completion of his training he commenced specialist practice in Wickham Terrace. Two of his daughters graduated in medicine.

I have found a considerable amount about Alexander, the father, but have not found any details of the medical careers of his two daughters.

They would have graduated about the same year my mother did, 1942. I would be very interested in information about them.

My grandfather, Dr Kenneth Ross, was in general practice in Dunedin, New Zealand, before enlisting in the New Zealand Medical Corps and serving on the hospital ship “Maheno” throughout World War I, transporting wounded Australian and New Zealand soldiers to England and back to their respective countries.

He then trained as an eye, ear nose and throat specialist before returning to New Zealand.

The specialties were usually combined in those days (EENT specialists).

He had four children, one of whom my mother, and one brother, were sent to Aberdeen to do medicine, his alma mater.

On graduation my mother married Dr Henry Glennie, in 1940, with connections back to Archdeacon Benjamin Glennie, whose family had moved from Aberdeen to London and subsequently, as is well known in Toowoomba, he and three of his brothers came out to Australia.

My father served in France as a Major with the RAMC.

He, three of his brothers and his sister, all graduated in medicine from Aberdeen University.

It is interesting how children of doctors often pursue the same vocation. I never wanted to do anything else. I used to sit in the car while my parents were doing home visits, always thinking, “that will be me one day”.

Keep up the good work with these reflections on the past.

HENRY GLENNIE, Rangeview