Laurence Smaje
Beaconsfield has been my home twice! I first moved here in 1965 with my young family, and my children went to Holtspur School. Although my work soon took me to live elsewhere, when I retired ten years ago I happily returned to the town, and looked for ways to become involved in the local community.
Born and brought up in north London, I trained as a doctor and decided to focus on medical research, spending 25 years in university research before joining the world’s largest medical research charity, the Wellcome Trust. There, I was offered the exciting opportunity to create and run a new division, Medicine, Society and History, whose function was to study and fund research and activities exploring the role of medicine in society, past, present and future. (One of its exciting offspring is the new Wellcome Collection at 183 Euston Road, well worth a visit to its excellent, and free, exhibitions.)
Why Independence matters to me
Throughout my career I have been aware of the need for independence of mind – of thinking things through for myself rather than uncritically accepting authority – and the wider need for this became even clearer to me in my role at the Wellcome Trust. Engaging with the public on the many difficult ethical and social issues arising from advances in medicine, we wanted to foster independent thinking and decision making based on access to good, accurate information. I believe the same is needed across the democratic process, to restore its ailing health.
Returning to Beaconsfield, I was delighted, therefore, to find that the town still had a healthy Independent voice. It was after attending a BIEA AGM, addressed by Martin Bell, that I joined the Association. Since then, I have become increasingly involved with its activities, and have been its Hon. Secretary for nearly four years now.