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Unlike the rest of Scotland, where most of our DNA samples came from blood-transfusion
donor sessions, there are none of these in Orkney or Shetland so we had to arrange other methods
of getting our samples. Jayne Nicholson discovered that the Shetland Science Festival was being
held in May, so she arranged for us to have a stand at the Festival and also organized a series of
visits to schools for the same week. This worked extremely well: while two people manned the
booth at the Festival, the others went to schools around the islands. The Festival itself was held in
a smart new sports hall on the outskirts of Lerwick, one of many around the islands. The same is
true of schools, all of which have brand-new buildings. Shetland Council spends a lot of the
revenue it gets from the Sullom Voe oil terminal on upgrading the island infrastructure. The roads
are excellent, the inter-island ferries are well equipped and run on schedule. I saw neither poverty
nor extravagant wealth on Shetland.
The Science Festival was a jolly affair. Groups from all over Scotland, including a strong
contingent from the University of Aberdeen, put on displays of such varied nature as an artificial
tornado generator, a giant bubble machine and a practical course in making plaster casts of fossils.
Although the Festival was aimed primarily at schoolchildren, there was a healthy flow of adults
coming to our stand and we had no difficulty enrolling volunteers in the Genetic Atlas Project. We
were not taking blood, only cheek swabs, and I am sure that helped. For this we use a small brush
like a miniature bottle-brush, 1 inch long at the end of a 5-inch plastic handle. The bristles on the
brush collect cells from the inner cheek as they are rubbed gently over the surface. There is plenty
of DNA in these cells and the brushes can be stored for weeks, or posted, without the DNA
suffering. It is one of those seemingly unimportant practical changes that actually make all the
difference. Now, instead of collecting blood samples, we can send brushes to anywhere in the
world and receive DNA back through the post. These brushes can hold DNA safely under even the
most extreme conditions. I have equipped a number of university expeditions with DNA brushes
and nearly all of them are returned with the DNA intact, even when they have been carried for
weeks in a rucksack through deserts and across mountains.
When we began to use the brushes to collect DNA, we would often help the volunteers by
doing it for them. However, we have now had to stop this, and volunteers must do it themselves.
This is not for fear of breaking new Health and Safety regulations but for a far more delicate
reason. False teeth. It was at the Shetland Science Festival that I learned this painful lesson. An
elderly lady, eager to join in the project, opened her mouth to allow me to rub the inside of her
cheek with the brush. No sooner had I begun to guide the brush across her cheek than it suddenly
stopped moving. I let go. I looked at her. She blushed and turned away. After regaining her
composure, she returned with the brush and the explanation. I had inadvertently dislodged the top
set of her dentures, which had dropped down and clamped the handle of the brush to the lower set.
After this, we let people do their own brushing.
The Science Festival was also the scene of another humiliation. One of my obligations in
exchange for the display space was to give a public lecture during the Festival, to which I was
happy to agree. As usual I spent the previous evening preparing my talk and organizing my slides.
With five minutes to go before my talk, I went over to the screened-off section of the hall that had
been set aside for public lectures. There was no one there. I checked the time on the Festival
programme. This was definitely the right time, and the right place. I waited, but still nobody came,
so I thought there must have been some sort of rescheduling that I had not got to hear about. As I