The ‘why’ is easy. Wouldn't it be good if I could say that it was all part of a careful plan, but it wasn't. It was simply luck and being in the right place at the right time, as are so many of the good things in life. ‘How’ was more complicated.

My first contact with neurology was as a medical student at University College Hospital in London, on William Goody's firm. My memory is of being driven by him, in his Bentley, to the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, to admire Harrison's chronometers and to consider the philosophy of time, something that Dr Goody was keen on, along with ceramics.

After I qualified as a doctor and had begun to consider a physician's career, I went to work as a senior house officer (SHO) at St Stephen's Hospital, in the Fulham Road. I was responsible for a couple of neurology beds that belonged to Ted Reynolds who visited the hospital once a week from King's College Hospital. He was interested in the management of epilepsy, and folate and B12 deficiency. He had obtained some funds from Parke Davis (an American Pharmaceutical Company, that was) to support a research registrar. After advertising …