Robert McAllister
Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks was a teenage pioneer in radio transmission, a noted researcher and expert in nutrition (knighted for his work), and a tour de force in nutrition and catering for the Australian force during the Second World War. He was born in 1892 in the Mosgiel nursing home of his grandmother, Adelaide Hicks, and lived with his parents in Ravensbourne, a suburb of Dunedin. His father was a photographer and journalist for the Otago Witness. The young Stanton Hick’s junior education was at a Ravensbourne school, from where he earned a scholarship for secondary schooling at Otago Boys High School (government funded secondary education didn’t come in until 1913).
In his mid-teens, at a time when shore-to-shore wireless had yet to come to New Zealand, he and two friends developed an interest in wireless transmission. They read up about it at the Atheneum, gleaned the necessary materials from around Dunedin, and each built a transmitter and receiver. One was at Ravensbourne, one at Andersons Bay, and one at Caversham. News leaked out, and in 1908 they were asked to demonstrate to the mayors of Dunedin and Ravensbourne, the shipping companies, the harbourmaster and others. The demonstration was a great success, and they transmitted a message for parliament. This was relayed on by telegraph and they received congratulations from the prime minister. A 4,560 word article in the press reported the achievement.
When my baby was born I was astonished that nothing in the world had told me that birth is a miracle. Out of my body came this entirely new being: it seemed incredible, yet more real than anything, and entirely personal. And then I couldn’t believe how hard it was to take a baby into town, how so little in the culture supported mothering, how devalued its status. I could not reconcile my experience with the fact that all the billions of people who walk or ever walked the earth are only alive through the same miracle of the mother’s body, her fecundity and succour and work. I thought about the magnificence, vulnerability and ferocity of mothers, of how bodily and messy it all is. How it’s a result of sex but not very sexy. I thought about the hunger for the breast, about yearning and weaning, about how we all drink milk.
As a nutrition student, I have developed an immense appreciation for food and have become infinitely grateful for the role that nutrients play in keeping us alive and healthy. So I was very surprised when my younger sister fell ill with anorexia nervosa. She had watched a set of emotive health documentaries and had read numerous articles that slam key dietary components such as sugar, while promoting healthy eating and weight loss. This prompted her to follow a so-called “healthy diet” with the aim of losing weight. This shocked me because my sister already had a slim figure and had never been one to care about her health.