There were a number of occasions when I forgot to tell the students who I was. I don’t remember many of my lecturers (in the late 1970s/early 1980s) ever giving their name, let alone contact details. I remember an intrepid student putting her hand up at an opportune moment about 10-15 minutes after I’d started and asking, “Excuse me, who are you?” The message is more important than the messenger.
If students on that course wanted names, I thought I’d try something on them. The first time I met another group of students on that course, I said that my name was ‘Doctor Love’. This I pronounced with an exaggerated American drawl so that it sounded like ‘Lurve’. Surely I could not be taken seriously. There had been records with the title 'Dr Love' out about that time. Would anybody write this fictitious name down? A few did. I'm glad to say that most were not.
Again, there was a moral: don’t take what I say at face value. My name – fictitious or otherwise – was not important. We can play about with that; no harm would be done. But there was a need to read and find things out for oneself. It was important not to rely on just what I might say. My words might always be misunderstood.
I remember a colleague who confided in me that what he had been teaching that morning was all rubbish. Somehow he had just got into some sort of a ramble, making up plausible nonsense as he went along. When first pointed out to me, this colleague was described as one of the top men in Europe in his field. If this can happen to the likes of him – usually an excellent lecturer – it can happen to any of us.
