In 1969 I was the first British student to go on exchange to the University of the West Indies, and had a three-month attachment with sickle-cell disease researchers Graham Serjeant and his wife, Beryl, in Jamaica. Graham immediately told me that the textbooks describing what many patients called “sick-as-hell disease” were all wrong.
He and Beryl had quickly realised that with proper care, support and attention to detail, these patients could live far better and longer lives than had been thought possible. Doing clinics with Graham all across Jamaica in a battered VW van was such an education - likewise dancing the night away to ska and blue beat under the starry Jamaican skies.
