Against the Grain: An Autobiography of William J. Nicol, Doctor, Surgeon, Minister and Pilgrim with Avril

School days in Guiana, Glasgow and Fife, two years in the Army and six years studying Medicine turned the boy into a doctor. Dreaming dreams with Avril, their marriage, their family and their affinity for common spiritual and material values set them on a pilgrimage of repeated challenges. Three years in a mission hospital in apartheid South Africa, conflicting interests of specialization and family responsibilities didn't deter the writer from returning to South Africa to develop the Orthopaedic Service for the Transkei before settling in Halifax, West Yorkshire. In time another phase of life beckoned. Ordained to the ministry in the United Reformed Church, churches in Newcastle, Ashington, the Borders, Pietermaritzburg, have all heard the sermon on the Hip Joint. Changing attitudes in Medicine and the Church, as in society worldwide are described from a personal, family, often humorous perspective as the journey Against the Grain unfolds.