"They need sight and we need vision"

Abstract

I feel honoured to give this presidential lecture, and both myself and our family have very affectionate memories of five eventful years lived here in the 1960s and 70s. A quotation from the Danish 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is a good starting point to reflect on my life since that formative time in Nigeria. “You must live life looking forward, but you can only understand life looking backward”. I have spent the last 60 years both teaching and practising ophthalmology in the UK, Nigeria and several other developing countries. As I reflect on these years, I hope I can offer some suggestions to a much younger audience with their work and career in front of them.