Publisher's Synopsis
Dr Joe McCall, a retired geologist, aged 91, published in 2011 a biography of his great-great-grandfather, George Pilkington, 'The Pilkington Gene'. The central figures here are his maternal grandfather, Dr Joseph Kidd and himself. He recounts Dr Kidd's life, from birth as the 17th and last surviving child of a family of 20, in Limerick in the early 19th century. Joseph tended the Irish Potato Famine and then became a consultant physician in London, with Disraeli among his patients: he married twice and had 15 children. Joe's father's work at the Ballantyne Press (and Vale Press) is mentioned. He covers his happy early life at the tail of a family of seven, in Suffolk and Sussex, his school years under gathering was clouds in the 1930s, and his abortive start at Imperial College, before being called up to army service in 1940.
