Proud to be a Strangeling!

Today was one of those perfect days that come along once in a while.........

I did a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Kent at Canterbury between 1989 and 1992. My PhD supervisor was Dr Philip Strange and since then he moved to the University of Reading and was Chair of Pharmacology.

Philip retired recently and a small party was organised at Reading. Many of his PhD students were invited along and most of the group I did my PhD with were there. I hadn't seen some of them for at least 15 years! But we fell back into our friendships and banter as if we had been together last week!! I just spent the day laughing!

I hadn't actually appreciated what a huge influence Philip has had on my working life. He was a tough supervisor in some ways but I believe that did us all good. We had weekly meetings and heated debates about our work. He made us rewrite and rewrite any written work until it was perfect. He used to write 'Re-read and re-write' on our work in red pen! But I realised that that is what I now do with any written work I do. I check, double check and triple check it to make sure it's right!

He also let us run our projects ourselves with him guiding us along the way. So he instilled a sense of autonomy and responsibility in all of us. But we had to justify what we were doing and so those heated debates were useful in making us think about what we were doing!

All of us Strangelings, as were were called, have gone on to become successful in our work. Many are still in research but those of us who have branched out have become successful in our new ventures too.

I am immensely proud to be a Strangeling and I wish Philip all the best in his retirement. I feel sure us Strangelings will meet again now and again and reminise with pleasure about our time together in the labs of UKC.......