N. G. Fowler
in tribute to Norman George Fowler (VA*. January 30, 2010, vol 166, p 150), SIT; BV J. RAW and J MB write: Nonnan Fowler was bom in Mood Green, north London, in 1923. His father worked, for the London & North Eastern Railway as company clerk, resulting m the family being well travelled in the UK at no cost to themselves. He was educated at the Central Foundation Boys’ School - a school for ‘the sons of middle class merchants w here disci was exercised by the uniformed and cane- wielcing ‘Sergeant;, who needed little excuse to deal with miscreants slow to respond t< the bugle at asi embk ‘fall in’ Perhaps this part of his education stood him well in what was to follow. At rhe outbreak of the Second World War and on leaving school, his first job was wnh Unilever, near Black! n its Bridge in London. In 1941. aged 13, he j;>ined -be navy it; professed preference to the • ther services - Ao avoid the mud and bayonets in die army and the chance of being shot down in the air force’. At least in the naw. 
so h>s logic went, ‘life was mostly dean and civilised’ and. if the worst came l ■ the worst, ‘you could always swan for it!’. Over the next rive years, he was to pack in as much experience of life and death as might take others decades. I It- entered the naw as an office! cadet, going for his initiation to shore-based HMS Collingwood in Fareham, and then joined his first ship. TIMS Marne, an M-class destroyer ar Scapa Flow. Action immediately followed in the battle of the Atlantic against the U-boat menace Atlantic. duty included the escort of North American convoys and those to northern Russia. Murmansk and Archangel on l’Q15 and PQ16. Malta convoys followed, along with engagements against the Italian naw in support of rhe north African landings, and then down the west African coast escorting depot repair ships. While rhe Marne was involved in picking tip hundreds of survivors of sinkings off that coast, she was toipedoed, with the result that the stern of the ship was blown off while Norman wa< only feet away. The aft gun magazine was penetrated, but by great good tortune did not explode. Unsurprisingly, he only saw England again 
after a year’s lapse, in 19-i2. in 1943, he passed out as midshipman and joined his second ship, HMS Fal, a Rivet-class frigate, which saw its escort war service again in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and on the west African coast before a refit in Bermuda. From his diary Norman obviously made good use of iris two months in the company of the very hospitable Bermudans. On completion of his war service at Greenwich Naval College, he passed out as sub-lieutenant, R.NVR. Norman qualified with honours from the Royal Veterinary College in 1951. Driven by his enthusiasm for almost everything scientific, he started work in the pathology department of the college ■under Professor Reggie Lovell, gaining a diploma in bacteriology. As an aside, he was always one to grasp an opportunity this being a time of rationing, and in the face of a modest salary of £425 a year, large quantities of manufactured meat products submitted to his department for bacreriological screening which were found to be negative for anything serious subsequently found their way on to the Fowler (and others’) dining table.