Book Description
Sex on the Rates is a memoir of how Dr Libby Wilson became a pioneer of family planning services in London and most notably in Sheffield. She later arrived in Glasgow to take up her first job in Sexually Transmitted Diseases (the VD clinic). With a sensitive touch and not without a huge helping of humour, she has written a very readable and touching account of how a generation ago Britain dealt with sex and its outcome.
She recounts how she approached the city council for support in taking family planning to the housing schemes. The reaction and the consequent setting up of those services in the 1960s are, to say the least, interesting and illustrative of attitudes still prevalent today.
For example, when the Sheffield clinic was opened, the Sheffield Telegraph headline splashed across the front page read 'Bishop condemns sex clinic.'
Much unsolicited mail was received, mostly vituperative. The address on one of these items of mail simply read 'The Den of Iniquity, Ecclesall Road'.
The early part of the book gives a fascinating insight into the young Libby and her journey towards becoming a doctor.
From the Author
The book is dedicated to
'All those whose foresight, compassion and persistence established the family planning services that women are free to use today. They worked hard for little or no pay, no status and frequently faced opprobrium from society. Recognition by their patients more than compensated for the lack of it by their peers.
Only a few are mentioned by name in this book but hundreds of doctors, nurses and lay people founded, through the Family Planning Association, the professional and ethical standards that form the bedrock of present-day practice in reproductive health care. I am proud to be among them.
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