Very special thanks to the following: Professor Eric Thomas, who gave up female hormones to be a fabulous Vice Chancellor and Professor Clive Coen, a fabulous neuroendrocrinologist, who each read my manuscript and offered much helpful comment; Professor Steve Franks, reproductive endocrinologist, for lending me several huge volumes from his hormone library, as well as for his thoughtful advice and support; Professor David Purdie, master of HRT and the spoken word for his comments on the menopause chapter, Dr Jo Marsden for her help with breast cancer; and physiologist Professor Michael Rennie, who made sense of insulin and growth hormone for me and who, when I apologized for making him read his subject transcribed for toddlers, came back with the words I want engraved on my tombstone: ‘Your demotic is sufficiently racy not to be insulting.’ Only a scientist eh?
A special thank you to Tom Parkhill and the Society for Endocrinology who were unfailingly helpful in offering their contacts and knowledge and who made it possible for me to attend the International Congress of Endrocrinology 2004 in Lisbon. They also read the manuscript with good grace, despite being surrounded by hormones.
Many doctors and scientists were incredibly generous with their time: the sperm men, Professor Chris Barratt and Dr Allan Pacey, lactation specialist Professor Peter Howie, the ever patient Dr Alan Johnson of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Professor Roger Gosden, Professor Shlomo Melmed, the sveltest obesity expert I know, Professor Steve Bloom, Professor Howard Jacobs, Blakemores, père et fille (Professor Colin and Dr Sarah), Professor Sir Iain Chalmers, Dr Margaret Rees, Sir Dr Chris Flowers, Dr John Gilbody of Wyeth, Dr John Ashby of Syngenta, Dr Mark Lythgoe, Prof Neil Gittoes and Professor John Russell, come to mind in particular but there were many more that I bored to death with a constant stream of questions. To all of you, thank you. And what would I have done without the support, contacts and gossip from staff at the Science Media Centre, MRC, Nature News Service and the Environment Agency? I was also indulged by many of the science correspondents, including Tim Radford, Nigel Hawkes and Mark Henderson as I expounded my wilder hormone theories over a glass or three; and cosseted by John Adams, a professor of geography, who runs a course on statistics for the mathematically challenged. His attempt to instil understanding of standard deviation was largely successful.
When I last wrote a book, a decade ago, I swore I wouldn’t do another one. The combination of Toby Mundy of Atlantic Books – as inspirational, enthusiastic and talented a publisher as you could hope to find – and my agent Pat Kavanagh, changed my mind. Dr Louisa Joyner edited this book and was a joy to work with, as were all the staff at Atlantic, including Jane Robertson, the copy editor whose family probably all got socks as presents because I drove Jane witless in the week before Christmas. I feel very lucky to have found them.
I owe a great deal to my family who endured me locking myself away for too long and for my patient and loving friends whom I neglected horribly while I wrote this, and for whom the excuse ‘It’s my hormones’ wore a little thin. Finally, this book is for my father. Had they known more about hormones thirty years ago, he might have been alive today, hopefully to be proud.
Vivienne Parry
Muswell Hill 2005
