In Conversation With…

in conversation with… …Professor Louise Scheuer Peter Falk chats to Louise about the loves of her life – anatomy, music and family Louise moved to the Suburb soon Snowdon area and getting With the arrival of children, and Human Identification at worthwhile. Her Dad would be book on the development of after she got married and has lived home late at night. Robert and Edward, Louise took Dundee University. proud. She can no longer play the juvenile skeleton and has here for over 50 years. She has She developed an interest in time off work to start raising In 1999 the Foreign Office the piano, but instead gets also produced a textbook, and been an academic all her working anatomy while specialising in the family. The boys went to invited her to join a multi- pleasure from the chamber a laboratory and field manual. life and is still working on her series science at her girls grammar Brookland School and in 1971 disciplinary team as a forensic music concerts at Wigmore Hall. She moved to Willifield Way of reference books on Juvenile school in Birmingham and in the family moved to Northway anthropologist to identify the Although retired, Louise in 2007 and is in regular contact Osteology (the study of the bones 1952, after Higher School backing onto Big Wood, where bodies of Muslim Albanians never stopped working. with her sons Robert, in London of young people and children). Certificate, she went straight to they lived for 36 years. shot in Kosovo, then part of Together with her colleague with his partner, and Edward, in Bedford College, the first Louise returned to work and Serbia. The aim was to Sue Black, she is working on a San Francisco with his American he was born Louise Withington women’s HE college, to study eventually moved to the investigate possible war crimes second edition of a reference wife and three daughters Sin Macclesfield in 1933 of Zoology & Physiology. Department of Anatomy at St and return the identified bodies English and Scottish ancestry. Opportunity knocked Thomas’ Hospital. In those days to their families. The results She had two younger sisters, when she met the Professor when bones were discovered, went to the International one of whom died very young, of Anatomy at the Royal Free they were taken to an anatomy Criminal Court. and the other born just before Hospital School of Medicine department. The team worked in terrible the war. Her father’s work who was looking for a research A particular find was a conditions and had to provide meant they soon moved to a assistant and Louise jumped at group of Romano-British bones their own generator and water village near Stoke on Trent. the chance. She worked on the near Peterborough, which bowser. They lived in one Her formative years, she nerve supply of the larynx and included baby, child and adult house and, as the only woman, says, were during WWII. Her obtained her PhD in 1959. bones. This was Louise’s Louise slept separately in the father, a surveyor, was away Maybe music is the food ‘breakthrough’ as there was kitchen. They were always much of the week inspecting of love as she met her husband, little data on juvenile bones. In guarded by UN troops. bomb-damaged buildings. Peter Scheuer, at the music 1980 she co-authored a much- As the boys grew older, Neither of her parents was society performing in a concert quoted paper on ageing in Louise returned to the activities practical and Louise got in the hospital, with Louise juvenile bones. of her youth. She got up early involved in practical matters, playing the piano and Peter, A few years later she most mornings for a swim but for example fixing taps. Food the cello. With a Professor of initiated a study of a collection was back for breakfast. She shortages and rationing during Chemistry keen on the clarinet of documented bones took up running after seeing her childhood have, she said, they searched the repertoire for (i.e. of known sex and age) at Edward competing in the Hyde “marked me for life,” and she is a trio involving piano, cello and St Brides Church, Fleet Street. Park fun runs, and ran in the St. horrified by the modern habit clarinet and found Beethoven’s She and Sue Black, who had Thomas’ student team in 5K of wasting food. opus 11. It was an excuse to joined the department, cross-country races. Louise’s interest in music spend time together and they obtained a grant from the After her husband Peter died and walking lies in her married in March 1960 in Leverhulme Trust to reorganise in 2006, she got involved in the childhood; her father was a St Pancras Town Hall. and conserve these skeletons. running of HGS Fellowship and good pianist and she too took Peter, from a musical They built a lab in the crypt, was Acting Chairman during it up. She was brought up on a Viennese-Jewish family, was a collecting a mass of data for an the challenging time rebuilding classical repertoire and leisure lecturer at the school and his historical research project. the property in Willifield Way, at home often involved academic career led him to They left the department and she remains on the listening to Dad, who also New York a year later. Louise following the merger with management team. Louise is a performed in the mornings in found work at the Natural Guy’s Hospital, and Louise member of the RA Conservation his dressing gown. Louise was History Museum studying ‘the returned part-time to the Royal and Amenities Committee, and keen, soon progressed and sexual behaviour of the male Free. After retirement, she sits on the Grants and Amenities reached Grade 8. cat’ using a nerve-staining continued to teach and to Committee of the HGS Trust. Dad was also a fanatical technique as used on the larynx. appear as an expert witness She also joined a team of fell walker and frogmarched They toured the USA in late in court, and was appointed ladies who go on regular his children on training walks; 1963, returning and settling in an Honorary Professor at the walking holidays, making the going on day treks to the the Suburb in Holyoake Walk. Department of Anatomy training in Snowdonia Become a Member of the Trust Company The Trust strives to conserve and maintain the unique architecture and planning of the Suburb which makes it “that most nearly perfect example of the unique English invention and speciality, the garden suburb,” according to eminent architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner. Trust Members should include all residents who believe that conservation of the Suburb is worthwhile. Benefits of Full Membership: • Receipt of the Annual Report and Accounts of the Company • Participation in Suburb management through the Annual General Meeting • Voting rights in Trust Council elections and at Annual General Meetings • Invitations to exclusive Members events, including lectures and walking tours The requirement for Full Membership is that you are an adult who has lived on the Suburb for 3 years or longer. Residents who have lived on the Suburb for less than 3 years can become Associate Members. 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