Barry Blackwell on Sir David Goldberg

September 13, 2024

Dearest Emma,

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful invitation to attend the memorial service for your father Sir David Goldberg.

Alas, life and its unkind ministrations blocks our acceptance.  I feel compelled but unable to attend.  I celebrated my 90^th birthday this July 5^th and am awaiting surgery for torsion of my colon: an uncommon and late life disability that along with other handicaps restricts my mobility.

Your father and I were both comrades and fierce rivals from the time we met at the Maudsley under the eagle eye of Sir Aubrey Lewis. We continued to meet during David’ s occasional visits to America where I had relocated.

The strongest link in our bond was shaped after we graduated from the Maudsley and worked on the rating scale that made him famous (The General Health Questionnaire) that records the symptoms of affective disorders in primary care patients and their response to the first antidepressants.

When we entertained David on his visits to America he met and came to know my wife, Kathie Eilers.  Because I share David’s issues with technology it is best to send communication to her email, especially the link for live streaming the funeral which we will do.  That email is: Kathie_eilers@msn.com.

There is one joint contribution that David and I collaborated on during our later years that may be worth the interest and time it takes to share.  After my retirement from clinical work Tom Ban recruited me to be an author and editor for the INHN website (INHN.com) devoted to the history of Neuropsychopharmacology. 

During David’s visit to America, we worked together on a synopsis of Sir Aubrey Lewis’ lifetime accomplishments including his early training and life in Australia, followed by his commission by the Rockefeller foundation to undertake a tour of European psychiatry.  He spent six months visiting 13 countries, 45 cities and 234 individual clinicians, interviewing research workers in a wide variety of settings.  He produced a tour de force, 90 pages long that framed the critical analysis for his foundation of the Maudsley.  All this material is contained in my last publication, Treating the Brain: An Odyssey, available on Amazon.  It is the last work David and I spent time on and may be the most valuable available.  It casts light on the data and principles that shaped Aubrey’s agenda for the Maudsley and the educational principles that shaped both our careers. And must have influenced David’s own time as Aubrey Lewis’ successor at the Maudsley, as he was also knighted by the Queen, a recognition well deserved.

He was a dear friend and will be missed.

Fondly,

Barry Blackwell