I am excited to report we have a wonderful new statue in Duthie Park. The gentleman featured is wearing rather a fine pair of brogues, don't you agree?
Oh, you want to see more than just his shoes? Well OK then.
Do you recognise him? It's John James Rickard Macleod.
No, me neither.
Why is he sitting here and what did he do?
Well the clue is in the words above the seat. It seem that this fine Aberdeen-educated gentleman played a key role in the discovery of insulin while working at the University of Toronto in the early 1920s. Along with Canadian physician Frederick Banting, he won a Nobel Prize in 1923 for this valuable research, but his contribution to the breakthrough was later disputed and only in more recent years has it again been properly recognised. You can read about JJR Macleod in more detail if you click here.
So anyway, a bunch of good people in Aberdeen decided, quite rightly in Gail's view and mine, that Mr Macleod deserved a memorial in a quiet corner of our favourite park, and it was finally unveiled last week.
And here he sits, looking out across to the bandstand.
And now, every morning when we visit the park, we will think of all those diabetes sufferers (humans and dogs) who have been able to live life to the full, in part due to the work of this brilliant scientist.
