The complete newspaper series · 1962

Twenty-one
weeks in a
brother’s words.

Robert J. Fleming’s memoir of “Alec”, from Lochfield Farm to penicillin and worldwide fame.

Using the archive

The original
cuttings,
in order.

The memoir was published weekly in the Kilmarnock Standardfrom 3 February to 23 June 1962. Each instalment below contains the surviving headline and article sections.

Open an instalment to read it. Select any clipping to view the full-sized scan. Dates follow the published sequence even where the old working folder names differ.

106scanned sections preserved

3 February 1962

The family story begins

Robert explains why he began writing only months after his brother’s death, and starts with the Fleming family.

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10 February 1962

Life at Lochfield

Two brothers, 800 acres of hill country, burns, trout, birds and the independence of farm children.

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17 February 1962

From shipping office to medicine

The move to London, school, work in a shipping office and the inheritance that made medical study possible.

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24 February 1962

Loudoun Moor School

The tiny moorland school, its young teachers and the unorthodox education that put its pupils ahead.

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3 March 1962

Darvel memories

Schooldays, local characters and glimpses of Darvel and the Irvine Valley around the turn of the century.

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10 March 1962

The farm and the valley

Work, weather, family life and the wider Loudoun landscape in which the Fleming children grew up.

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17 March 1962

A bacteriologist’s path begins

A temporary post with Almroth Wright becomes the beginning of Alexander Fleming’s life’s work.

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24 March 1962

Work before penicillin

Private life, laboratory work and the experiments later overshadowed by Fleming’s greatest discovery.

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31 March 1962

Observation and the stray mould

The habit of recording the unexpected brings Fleming to the threshold of penicillin.

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7 April 1962

Moorland memories

Robert returns to the games, materials and small inventions of childhood at Lochfield.

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14 April 1962

The new wonder drug

Robert describes the moment penicillin’s medical power became startlingly clear to him.

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21 April 1962

Recognition begins

Election to the Royal Society, a knighthood and the honours that followed the discovery.

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28 April 1962

Honours and the Freedom of Darvel

Foreign travel, the Nobel Prize and a homecoming honour that mattered deeply to Fleming.

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5 May 1962

Rector of Edinburgh University

Fleming’s rectorial address considers success through Burns, Pasteur and his own experience.

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12 May 1962

The Rectorial Address

Fleming continues on chance, preparation and the decisions that shape a working life.

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19 May 1962

Penicillin in Fleming’s own words

The discovery is retold through the words Fleming used in his Edinburgh address.

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26 May 1962

The penalty of fame

The quiet scientist describes the public engagements and expectations that followed success.

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2 June 1962

Greece and Amalia

A visit to Greece, further reflections on research and Fleming’s marriage to Dr Amalia Coutsouris.

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9 June 1962

The last phase

The final years, Fleming’s sudden death and the family’s loss in March 1955.

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16 June 1962

A scientist remembered

Friends and colleagues pay tribute as Fleming’s ashes are laid in St Paul’s Cathedral.

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23 June 1962

Epilogue

Robert looks back across the changes between the brothers’ Lochfield childhood and the modern world.

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Stewardship

Preserved,
then shared.

Frank and Ruby Donnelly preserved the original cuttings and made them available to DART for digitisation. The originals remain in their care.

This online archive keeps the full series together while the accompanying heritage page provides a shorter route into Robert’s account.

Twenty-oneweeks in abrother’s words.

The originalcuttings,in order.