I am mourning the loss

of my old statistics lecturer.

I had a card from another of my old lecturers this week telling me of his death. He was 90 so it was "not unexpected" but, damn it, it was. I had not seen him for years but I remember him as a much younger man.

I also remember him as a kind man. He was indeed very kind to me, even this time last year he wrote an email to me reminding me of something in our shared past, something forty years back. He remembered me as a student but took an interest in what I had done as an "adult".

I am no mathematician. I loathed statistics. I still loathe statistics. Where possible I avoid using them. I distrust them. J.... could never teach me to love them. 

My distrust of statistics stems not from my dislike of maths but from a conversation I overheard in the basement canteen of the university. The then Professor of Statistics was sitting there in earnest conversation with the Senior Lecturer in Statistics from the department (Psychology and Child Development). I heard one of them say to the other, "But if we use this test rather than that one we can get a positive result."  I heard no more than that. They must have realised they could be overheard by not just me but anyone else with even just ordinary hearing. They lowered their voices and went on scratching out figures on scraps of paper. (This was in the days before phones which do everything.)

I had to study statistics the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was something we all needed to know - forwards, backwards, up, down, around, in and out. I used it. I dutifully put statistics into my thesis with the help of yet another statistician. I worked with another one to set up a cataloguing system for the collection of psychological test material.

But none of them were like J... who took us slowly, carefully and steadily through the basics. He answered questions and patiently explained again when I was confused as to why that "sum of squares" was so important at that point in the equation. I managed to get through the course. We smiled at one another in relief and went on to more important things like his organ playing and his love of classical music, especially opera. 

When I returned to university to do yet another degree in an entirely different field I tutored in order to support myself. I found myself tutoring students in basic statistics. There was an entire group of them. They were another generation altogether. They had grown up with fancy calculators and they were being taught in an entirely different way. Yes, they could go through the processes required but they did not have the understanding we needed to have because their calculators would do it all for them. All they needed to do was put the figures in.

I also discovered that there were lecturers in the law school who had no idea about statistics. There was the occasion on which something came up in a case we were discussing in a group tutorial and the tutor asked me something afterwards. I found myself drawing a Bell curve on the blackboard (yes, it was that long ago!) and explaining how they were used. It is likely the tutor found it more interesting than I did because I had to repeat the explanation to two more tutors in the same subject the following day. 

But statistics are something I avoid if I can. I occasionally need to use a simple "Chi-square" or "ANOVA" but that is about the limit of my abilities now. 

J... remained amused rather than bemused by my dislike of statistics. He was of the opinion that I would "get there anyway" - and I have. What I did not do was "get there" to see him one last time. Too many people have gone from that part of my life. There are two left - and I want to see them before it is too late.