I am now 81 and long retired. I went to Cambridge and on to Barts Hospital and the London Hospital to complete my specialist training as a dermatologist. My special interest was, and is, psoriasis, a chronic and often horrible disease. It remains incurable to this day, though we now have several effective biological agents for psoriasis and the associated arthritis.

In the 1970s there was a new iteration of an ancient practice called PUVA, combining Ultraviolet A (UVA) with photosensitising psoralens taken orally or applied directly to the skin. This treatment, and the associated machines, were being developed in the United States where skin disease was perhaps taken more seriously, and also in Europe. The UVA devices were developed in Germany and the United States.

My Fellowship was in the theme of inventors or developers of medical devices or machinery. I was enabled to travel to the four main US centres and later to Munich. With the knowledge I had gained, and the help of my colleagues at the London Hospital, we designed a British PUVA machine to be made by a small division of the Rank Organisation. We installed a number of these at home and abroad.

Amazingly, PUVA is still in use today.