HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL SURVEY OF SEXUAL ATTITUDES AND LIFESTYLES The transcript of a Witness Seminar held by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, London, on 14 December 2009 Edited by C Overy, L A Reynolds and E M Tansey Volume 41 2011 ©The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, 2011 First published by Queen Mary, University of London, 2011 The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group is funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is a registered charity, no. 210183. ISBN 978 090223 874 9 All volumes are freely available online at www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/modbiomed/ wellcome_witnesses/ Please cite as: Overy C, Reynolds L A, Tansey E M. (eds) (2011) History of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles. Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 41. London: Queen Mary, University of London. CONTENTS Illustrations and credits v Abbreviations vii Witness Seminars: Meetings and publications; Acknowledgements E M Tansey, L A Reynolds and C Overy ix Introduction Clive Seale xxi Transcript Edited by C Overy, L A Reynolds and E M Tansey 1 Appendix 1 ‘Thatcher halts survey on sex’ By Michael Durham and David Hughes, The Sunday Times, 10 September 1989 61 Appendix 2 Timeline of events leading up to Wellcome Trust support for NATSAL 64 Appendix 3 Comment by Dr Peter Williams 66 References 69 Biographical notes 75 Index 85 ILLUSTRATIONS AND CREDITS Figure 1 Summary of predictions of numbers of new cases of AIDS diagnosed in England and Wales, reproduced from Department of Health and the Welsh Office (1988), figure 3.6, page 29. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ open-government-licence/ 9 Figure 2 First pilot study for NATSAL-1, published in AIDS (1989), 3: 135–41. 10 Figure 3 Front cover of Johnson et al. (1994). Reproduced by permission of Wiley-Blackwell. 16 Figure 4 Sexual lifestyles under scrutiny, Nature (1990): 276. 17 Figure 5 Mike Durham displays his framed copy of the front page of The Sunday Times, taken at the Witness Seminar, 14 December 2009. Reproduced by permission of The Sunday Times and the Wellcome Library, London. Headline of Mike Durham’s article, ©The Sunday Times, London, 10 September 1989. 21 Figure 6 Julia Field, Jane Wadsworth, Kaye Wellings and Anne Johnson pictured in the Wellcome Building, Sunday Telegraph, 30 January 1994. Reproduced by permission of photographer, Mr Julian Simmonds. 33 Figure 7 Kipper Williams’ cartoon, The Sunday Times, (February 1994). Reproduced by permission of The Sunday Times and Mr Kipper Williams, ©The Sunday Times. 39 Figure 8 The NATSAL-2 team in October 2002. Provided by and reproduced with permission of Mrs Julia Field. 50 v Figure 9 Dr Peter Williams. Reproduced by permission of the Wellcome Library, London. 67 Table 1 Outline programme for ‘History of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles’ Witness Seminar. 4 vi Abbreviations AIDS acquired immune deficiency syndrome CAPE Committee on AIDS Public Education CAPI computer-assisted personal interviewing CASI computer-assisted self interview CESA Committee on Epidemiological Studies of AIDS DHSS Department of Health and Social Security (DoH after 1988) DoH Department of Health ESRC Economic and Social Research Council HEA Health Education Authority HIV human immunodeficiency virus HPV human papillomavirus MRC Medical Research Council NatCen National Centre for Social Research NATSAL National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles ONS Office for ationalN Statistics OPCS Office for opulation,P Censuses and Surveys SCPR Social and Community Planning Research SIGMA Socio-sexual Investigations of Gay Men and Aids STI sexually transmitted infection vii WITNESS SEMINARS: MEETINGS AND PUBLICATIONS 1 In 1990 the Wellcome Trust created a History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group, associated with the Academic Unit of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, to bring together clinicians, scientists, historians and others interested in contemporary medical history. Among a number of other initiatives the format of Witness Seminars, used by the Institute of Contemporary British History to address issues of recent political history, was adopted, to promote interaction between these different groups, to emphasize the potential benefits of working jointly, and to encourage the creation and deposit of archival sources for present and future use. In June 1999 the Governors of the Wellcome Trust decided that it would be appropriate for the Academic Unit to enjoy a more formal academic affiliation and turned the Unit into the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL from 1 October 2000 to 30 September 2010. The History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group has been part of the School of History, Queen Mary, University of London, since October 2010, as the History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group, which the Wellcome Trust continues to fund. The Witness Seminar is a particularly specialized form of oral history, where several people associated with a particular set of circumstances or events are invited to come together to discuss, debate, and agree or disagree about their memories. To date, the History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group has held nearly 50 such meetings, most of which have been published, as listed on pages xiii–xvii. Subjects are usually proposed by, or through, members of the Programme Committee of the Group, which includes professional historians of medicine, practising scientists and clinicians, and, once an appropriate topic has been agreed, suitable participants are identified and invited. This inevitably leads to further contacts, and more suggestions of people to invite. As the organization of the meeting progresses, a flexible outline plan for the meeting is devised, usually with assistance from the meeting’s chairman, and some participants are invited to ‘set the ball rolling’ on particular themes, by speaking for a short period to initiate and stimulate further discussion. 1 The following text also appears in the ‘Introduction’ to recent volumes of Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine as listed on pages xiii–xvii. ix Each meeting is fully recorded, the tapes are transcribed and the unedited transcript is immediately sent to every participant. Each is asked to check his or her own contributions and to provide brief biographical details. The editors turn the transcript into readable text, and participants’ minor corrections and comments are incorporated into that text, while biographical and bibliographical details are added as footnotes, as are more substantial comments and additional material provided by participants. The final scripts are then sent to every contributor, accompanied by forms assigning copyright to the Wellcome Trust. Copies of all additional correspondence received during the editorial process are deposited with the records of each meeting in archives and manuscripts, Wellcome Library, London. As with all our meetings, we hope that even if the precise details of some of the technical sections are not clear to the non-specialist, the sense and significance of the events will be understandable. Our aim is for the volumes that emerge from these meetings to inform those with a general interest in the history of modern medicine and medical science; to provide historians with new insights, fresh material for study, and further themes for research; and to emphasize to the participants that events of the recent past, of their own working lives, are of proper and necessary concern to historians. Members of the Programme Committee of the History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group, 2010–11 Professor Tilli Tansey – professor of the history of modern medical sciences, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) and chair Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya – reader in the history of medicine, University of York Sir Christopher Booth – former director, Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, London Dr John Ford – retired general practitioner, Tonbridge Professor Richard Himsworth – former director of the Institute of Health, University of Cambridge Professor Mark Jackson – professor of the history of medicine and director, Centre for Medical History, Exeter Professor John Pickstone – Wellcome research professor, University of Manchester Mrs Lois Reynolds – senior research assistant, QMUL, and organizing secretary Professor Lawrence Weaver – professor of child health, University of Glasgow, and consultant paediatrician in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow x ACknowledgements ‘The History of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles’ was suggested as a suitable topic for a Witness Seminar separately by Professor David Gordon, Professor Anne Johnson and Sir Mark Walport. We are very grateful to Professor Johnson for her assistance in planning the meeting, and we thank Professor Michael Adler for his input and his excellent chairing of the occasion. We are particularly grateful to Professor Clive Seale for writing such a useful introduction to these published proceedings, and to Sir Nicholas Partridge, who was unable to attend the meeting but read through a draft of the transcript and offered helpful comments and advice. Our additional thanks go to Mr Bob McLean, information governance manager, and Ms Lindsay Ince, project archivist, at the Wellcome Trust for providing information from the Trust records. We thank Professor Johnson and Mrs Julia Field for help with illustrations. For