Previous work experience
August 10th to November 8th, 2006:
Director of the financially dormant, non-trading but active company Science, People and Politics Ltd. Publisher, freelance
journalist and editor and author.
September 2005:
I founded Science, People & Politics in September 2005. The title is hosted by
www.gavaghancommunications.com.
May 2005:
I founded, designed, built and developed www.gavaghancommunications.com. I am the site manager, designer and builder.
1996 to 2005:
(EXCLUDING 10 MONTHS, DURING WHICH TIME I WAS THE EDITOR OF A WEEKLY PUBLICATION, CLINICA, WITH A DAILY ON-LINE NEWS OUTPUT, AND EXCLUDING OTHER BRIEF IN-HOUSE PERIODS PROVIDING MATERNITY COVER).
Freelance, based in the UK.
In the first half of 1996 I moved back to the UK after five years working freelance in Washington DC. I completed the last
couple of chapters of my first book, Something New Under the Sun, Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age. The text of
this book, published by Copernicus, New York, a trade imprint of Springer Verlag, is accessible on line, and I provide a link
from the url of my sole tradership at:
http://www.gavaghancommunications.com/gcsoletrader.html. This book published only in hardback was well reviewed in New
Scientist and Nature, and this year, 2010, its sales earned outs its advance. The book was researched and written with a
grant of $100, 000 plus $25,000 to draw on for expenses, awarded in mid 1991 by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York. I
undertook the research and writing between 1992 and early 1996, completed the bibliography in 1997 and it was published in
1998.
In the summer of 1996 I was appointed the editor of Clinica, a weekly business-to-business publication serving
the international medical devices and diagnostics market. Tasks: editorial reorganisation to enable shift from cut and paste
editorial methods, developing forward plan for editorial budget, liaison with marketing and advertising, recruitment,
expansion to appoint a part time US Editor, initiated round table consultations with staff and management on training needs
and editorial directions, bringing myself up to speed on changing production methods. I resigned because I was unclear in
which direction the owner wanted to take his highly successful and very profitable company and I was exhausted from having to
second guess him and from being unable to be clear on this issue with the staff.
During the rest of this nine year period I wrote the bibliography for my first book, and wrote news, features, opinion pieces
and book reviews or provided consultancy. I researched and wrote my second book as history consultant to Eumetsat, and I
contributed to an encyclopaedia (see http://www.gavaghancommunications.com/gcsoletrader.html). I had periods as acting book
review editor for Nature and acting news editor for BiomedCentral/ The Scientist. I contributed to
the pre-launch ENVISAT web pages for The European Space Agency.
I won the EUMETSAT contract by submitting a proposal in response to an invite to participate in a competitive bid. My
qualification for participating being, among other things, the meteorology section of the book written with a grant from the
Sloan Foundation.
From roughly 2000 to 2005 I tried unsuccessfully to raise interest in a book about the IGY and Antarctica, one which would
mix people, politics, science and technology.
The publications I worked for with varying degrees of frequency include Nature, Science,
New Scientist, Nature Biotechnology (Only once), Nature Medicine (Only once in the
UK. Most of my work for Nature Medicine was when I was based in the US, and I wrote lead news stories for a
number of their opening issues), European Biotechnology News, a newsletter which became defunct,
BioMedCentral/The Scientist, Biofutur (French, writing in English and working with the
English-speaking editor on the French translation - their translation), and one-offs or occasional pieces for The
Economist, New Statesman and Society (two pieces), a UNESCO publication (once - remote sensing).
1991-1996 :
Freelance based in the US. I worked on retainer for Nature as Nature's biomedical research policy Washington
correspondent. I wrote a number of the early news articles for Nature Medicine. For a period I was the
Washington Correspondent for Le Journale Internationale de Medecin, I contributed news and dispatches to the BBC
World Service, wrote for New Scientist and one off pieces for the British national papers and other outlets. My
main job, though, was researching my book, and academic historian, Alex Rowland, was kind enough to note in his review in
Nature the new primary source material I brought to the field.
January 1984 - January 1991:
I held a number of jobs at New Scientist. These included being the technology news editor, feature writer and
commissioner in my capacity as a senior correspondent. We called them, with reason, free roving reporters in those days, news
writer (occasional acting news editor) and Washington correspondent.
September 1981 to January 1983:
On the staff of trade and tech. titles as writer, journalist or with different kinds of editing responsibility. Titles
include: Building Services and Environmental Engineer, Electrical Times, and Electrical
Review and Electrical Review International. I was a technical writer in The Netherlands
briefly.
EDUCATION for professional and career goals.
From 2002 to 2004 I had made substantial and happy progress with my thesis research and dissertation development and in
conceptualising both a dissertation (part time in transition from M.Phil to Ph.D) and, in parallel, a book at the Centre for
the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester. That work was interrupted for unexpected
reasons that are still not clear to me. And it was at no stage my choice not to complete the research and degree. They were undertaken after careful research of my options and optimum path to career development.
1980: BSc (hons) Biophysics, The University of Leeds. As taught at Leeds, biophysics was a four year academic course that
applied physics and maths to understanding the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules and to exploring
their structure function relationships. Subsidiaries: physics, maths (intro to pure, applied, stats, numerical analysis and
then some fairly serious applied maths), chemistry (physical, organic and inorganic) and a semester of physiology. This deep
foundation in science and its significant exploratory tool, maths, is wholly applicable still today and has served me on a contueing basis throughout my career, enabling me to make sense of the ongoing exposure I have professionally to the latest in the scientific literature.
1981 (Professional/trade training). Basic journalism training, following NCTJ training with my first editor and on secondment at the London College of Printing. I do not have shorthand but am willing to learn.
Secondary School, St. Joseph's College, Bradford: 10 O levels (Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Latin, French, History,
Scripture, Eng. Lang., Eng. Lit.); 4 A levels (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and General Studies, language option, French),
plus one year's study toward Maths A level (pure and applied maths), which in today's language might well be the equivelent of an AS because I did not fail the lower sixth exams. I began taking elocution and then speech and drama
lessons when I was 9 or 10. Grades 1 to VIII of speech and drama from The Royal School of Music (distinction at grade six),
grade 8 drama test piece Lorca, a member then of the poetry society with a certificate for verse speaking, plus one year's
private tuition toward an LRAM teaching speech and drama (during my first year at University), chess captain at school,
elected deputy head girl of school as a whole and head girl of the convent boarding school, member of the choir. We performed
work such as Bruckner's mass in F minor. Member of the film club. Member of The Troubadors, an adult choral speaking group
organised by my teacher. Led an antismoking campaign in upper sixth.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
2009: Continuing professional development certificate from Peninsular for attending and participating in one of their half day events about health and safety and employment law.
2008: passed CLAIT diploma level 1. Calderdale College. Units completed: file management and word processing (Microsoft
word), spreadsheets (excel), databases (Access), computer art (publisher) and presentation graphics (powerpoint). I have
also worked with Corel WordPerfect.
Other courses I have taken for entertainment, interest or work/career research/information are below. In two cases - the next two - I did not
complete the course because I was not anticipating that I would need, as I am doing now, to draw professionally on the skills they were teaching: researching business information (Bradford University) - half of the course completed; simple webpage design
(Calderdale College - first half of the course completed). I withdrew from these courses because I could not justify the
expenditure once I understood what they were about and given that I was not then planning to need business or webdesign as a
significant part of my professional life.
Course for fun and entertainment: art History and literature courses in the UK and
US (University of Leeds/Workers Education Authority and the Smithsonian Institution); master classes in voice with the voice
coach of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC.
VOLUNTEER WORK
As a Samaritan (3 and a half years); With teenagers, as a mentor for two years in the school system in Calderdale. Visiting
the elderly (when at University, via the RC Chaplaincy); Volunteer science teacher in Washington DC, working with students on
the science unit of a GED (organised by nuns via the RC Cathedral). Currently I am one of a hundred plus volunteering for
things like teas, coffee, ushering and bar work at the Square Chapel for the Arts in Halifax. I was a member of the St John's
Ambulance brigade when young but have no current skills. I have raised funds for autism and The Samaritans.
In my first term at the University of Leeds I was in the Officers' Training Corps, but an introduction to communications
training concentrated my mind in a way that even being issued with combat kit and shown how to use a very large gun had
failed to do. I lost enthusiasm, and after discussion with my commanding officer I left and decided I would instead visit the
elderly via the RC chaplaincy. The parting of the ways was, to my recollection, wholly respectfully mutual and, on my part, slightly regretful. I am not a pacifist, but I respect the courage that goes with that view. And I hold the
political (and human) opinion now that no British citizen under the age of 21 ought ever as a member of the Armed Forces to be deployed in anyway in
circumstances that might remotely lead to them being sent into combat or to finding themselves in combat.
ELECTED POSTS
Secretary and then President of the Leeds University Student Union Biophysics Society.
Mother of Chapel in the mid 1980s in one of several IPC Chapels.
INVITED TALKS/ other public events.
1. After dinner speech to the annual dinner of the Leeds University Student Union Biophysics Society.
2. Lunchtime talk about my work in Washington DC to Halifax Rotary.
3 and 4. Talks to sixth form (2) when on staff at New Scientist
5. 2010 Substituted as chair, at the request in her absence of barrister, Jane Lambert, head of chambers for
NIPCLaw
at the Leeds Inventors' Club, which holds open public meetings at Leeds City Library.
6. June 2010. Short talk to an international conference of scientists, surgeons, physicians, ethicists and patient groups in
Toronto, speaking as a UK journalist re policy and ethics of stem cell research in the UK. My theme: the importance for an
international audience seeking to co-operate with the UK of looking to the recent parliamentary record, the existence of
select committees and reports, and the place among economic goals of bioengineering and the recent hot debate in the UK about
the relationship of science advisors to UK government.
Referred to in my twitter at http://www.twitter.com/HelenGavaghan, and accessible in one stream from the home page of my
website: www.gavaghancommunications.com
SELECTION OF NOTABLE INTERVIEWEES SINCE 1980
Dr Tilman Mohr, first director general of EUMETSAT, for Science, People @ Politics - 2010.
Mrs Alice Mahon, a vc of CND and former MP for Halifax, UK - 2007 for Science, People & Politics.
Dr Ian Gibson MP, for BiomedCentral - 2007.
correction, for BMC in 2003 and for SP&P in 2007.
Martin Rees (Lord Rees), PRS and Astronomer Royal, for Astronomy Now and for Science, People & Politics - 2005.
Robert May (Lord May), PRS, for BiomedCentral - 2003.
Professor David Southwood, head of science, ESA - many times.
Professor Andre Lebeau, president, Centre Nationale d'Espace.
Mr Roy Gibson, many times for New Scientist - founding director general of the European Space Agency and then of the British National Space Centre.
Mr Clive Stafford-Smith, US Lawyer, for a story in Le Journale Internationale de Medecine (Le Jim).
Dr Bernadine Healey, first woman to head the multi-billion dollar National Institutes of Health - for Le Jim.
Mr John Morgan, founding director of EUMETSAT - 1999.
Lord Sainsbury, science minister in Tony Blair's government. For Nature.
Sir Geoffrey Pattie MP, for New Scientist.
Mr Roger Lyons, before he headed the TUC, for Electrical Review or Electrical Times.
Professor Ian Fells, nuclear power expert - included in many stories over the years but first for Electrical Times in 82/83.
Like many of us who qualified for full grants to go to University in the 1970s and had no other income I worked from age 16
when I could: in a factory (Wireform in Hebden Bridge), packing eggs at Thornbers, packing dog food and dog biscuits, in my
parents' shop on Crown Street in Hebden Bridge - it is now Oasis, but then we served maggots as bait from half pint pots into
paper bags. I worked for five years in among from age 17 in pubs behind bars - The Top Shoulder and The Ridge, as a
chambermaid in Wales, as a kitchen maid, as a waitress, in the tax office, as an activity leader for Calderdale (seasonal
holiday work devising things to do with teenagers, such as walks up to Jack Bridge to swim and picnic), as a cook and
housekeeper for a bed and breakfast that is now a care home in Eastwood. I did some terrible things by accident to tropical
fish, but was quite deedy with grouse in whiskey (I learned how to shoot shot guns - clay pigeons - when I was 14 or so and
air pistols when I was even younger - and would go to shoots to pick up the spent cartridges and broken clays) some weeks
after 12th August, and I can make a mean moussaka.
On 8th November 2007 I was discharged from bankruptcy without restriction orders or undertakings against me. My total debt being just over £30,000 and having nothing to do with the financial crisis of 2008, but wholly and totally attributable to the arrogance, condescension and incompetnce of the medical profession whom I was treating with total courtesy and respect.
In early 2008 I was wrongly convicted of harassment without violence of a secretary of West Yorkshire Police and was then cleared on appeal later that year by the Crown Court. The charges had been brought at the end of 2006. The intervening year was a nightmare of misery and wasted life because of the legal process and the medical profession. The trial was a farce of prejudice and incompetence which by its nature brought the Court and myself into disrepute. As the three years previously had been years of exclusion and derision and astonishing medical incompetence, building a house of cards on ignorance and obfuscation and deliberate refusal to hear what needed to be heard.
My recovery from bankruptcy was hampered by the events of 2007, police incompetence and derision from April 2004 and by a psychiatric report by David Hargreaves of such incompetence that he ought to be struck of the medical register or prosecuted for contempt of Court. Either he was misled by the prejudice and belittlement of others in Halifax and the Calder Valley from 2004 (I am referring to the medical profession, starting with Dr M Balraj) or he was covering for incompetent and prejudiced doctors locally. Or there are psychiatric methods employed which belong in the middle ages.
Prior to my encounter with the UK Mental Act it had never crossed my mind that as a journalist I would ever need to make a tape recording by subterfuge. Even then it took me a while to gain a head of steam. In the case of David Burley and David Hargreaves I did. I never want to do so again. For a journalist in the UK it ought not to be necessary. In both cases I did so having no intention of them not knowing what I did. Where once I had huge respect for the learning and intent of the medical profession and tolerance of human error (which was not gross negligence) that respect has been badly damaged. In the case of the psychiatric profession they were one and all arrogant, condescending incompetent, negligent, nasty and stupid. They have the mindset of rapists. Let me be clear: they have the mindset of nasty little rapists. Anyone who thinks ever they have the right to force into the body of another what that person has said no to is no better than a rapists. It is that practise and the justified fear individuals have of that practice which is psychiatrists are so often wrong, that and relying on second hand reports and their assumption their patients are liars. Try asking the patient for proof of what they are saying that you think is a delusion and when you don't believe them try asking yourself why you do not. What grounds have you for thinking they are lying?
Their arrogance is so overwhelming that they close down any opportunity to learn how they were making an error.
In the case of David Hargeaves I took a tape recorder approx 2.5 X 4 inches and a mini tape. I went into the ladies before keeping my appointment with him. I checked the recorder was working and that the spool was not sticking. I checked that the record button was not impeded. I had new batteries. Before going in to see him I made sure that the recorder in my pocket was switched to record. There were two psychiatrists in the room. I said I would speak only if I was speaking to one. One psychiatrist left. I did not mind which one I spoke with. David Hargeaves made the decision as to which one I spoke with. I told David Hargreaves he was breaking his hippocratic oath (I meant by preparing a report for a Judge). During the Court case and appeals it ought to have emerged whether medical issues, either psychiatric or not, diminished the individuals burden of guilt and culpability.
I answered all of David Hargreaves questions courteously and respectfully. I watched him writing, giving him time to write his answers down in full. Where he left space in his questions, responses and writing I gave him information that it seemed to me he might professionally want and need to know but might not realise needed asking. Even then I had hope. At the end of the hour I was rude to him. Because he made clear his derision of me. I assumed his competence and professionalism would rise above that. Never in a million years did I expect the bilge he came up with. Not once have I told him or anyone that I think I am a secret agent. I have never thought I was. Why they hell would I? When I interview a scientist I do not think I am one. I have spent a life time telling people no I am not a scientist. It is as though from my professional life I have fallen into some truly abysmal Twilight Zone of others ignorance and projection and dimwitted protectionism.
I could leave this story unwritten. I might find it easier to get a job. If I did not write here what I am writing -- and it would seem my rudeness at the very end to David Hargeaves was wholly justified -- I would be exposing other people to the danger of his incomptence and rote, lazy thinking. It was not his alone. In addition I was told yesterday (13.7.10) that my solicitor does not have the tape that I entrusted others to give to him on my behalf (my mother and stepfather), having made a clear and explict explanation of the importance of the tape, where I thought it was and which tapes not to take. They told me the task had been carried out. I trusted them and I trusted them not to listen to the tape. It was one of several things I asked them to give to my then solicitor. It would seem there is now some doubt about this issue. Though the memory is again being changed and I do not want to know and will make no effort to influence that memory. But the tape exists. The existence of that tape with anyone other than me or my solicitor of the time does damage to the Court not to me. Since he is not now my solicitor the tape belongs with me so that I can send it to him or the prosecution. Given the trauma of the circumstances I was experiencing when I requested the tape be taken to my solicitor I am at this distance in time prepared wholly to believe my memory of where I had put the tape was at fault. And I still am. Given the distress of my mother at what I was going through I am prepared to believe her memory is genuinely muddled on this issue.
Sadly for me this is a matter of significant public interest which it would be profoundly professionally irresponsible of me not to report.
Helen Gavaghan
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Currently Spring/Summer 2010: Member of the National Union of Journalists. I have resigned form the Association of British Science Writers because they are prepared to accept prizes from pharmaceutical companies which might benefit from the facsist provisions of the mental health Act in the UK. I do not oppose the pharmaceutical industry.
Photograph to be updated.
Formerly a member of the Medical Journalists' Association and of the Society of Authors. I have temporarily suspended my
membership of these organisations for financial reasons, and have every intention of rejoining as soon as possible. I have
resigned (29.1.10), I hope temporarily, from the Association of British Science Writers in protest wholly and totally at what
I consider to be a woeful lack of knowledge of matters north of the Watford Gap.
Top of the page.Base of the page
|
