| Michael Carleton-Smith |
 Michael Carleton-Smith was born into an army family in 1931, but spent much of his childhood on the stud farm his father purchased
on retiring from the military. Schooled at Radleigh, Michael Carleton-Smith then followed his father into the army. This career
in the military took Michael Carleton-Smith all over the world, including to Germany where he met his wife, marrying her in
1963. Retiring at the age of fifty-three in 1985, now ‘Major General’ Michael Carleton-Smith was approached by Marie Curie.
The interview discusses the change in management style at Marie Curie with Michael Carleton-Smith as Director General, as
well as the Charity’s increase in income from nine to fifty-five million pounds per year, the development of the Marie Curie
Nursing Service, and, most importantly, the softening of attitude in the organisation towards the larger hospice movement.
Michael Carleton-Smith also recounts the impact of his own personal experience of cancer, including the two episodes he suffered
himself, and his wife’s terminal illness, through which Michael Carleton-Smith helped nurse her. It was under Michael Carleton-Smith’s
leadership that Marie Curie began to participate in the growing national scene, and the National Council for Hospice and Specialist
Palliative Care Services and Help the Hospices are both discussed. Michael Carleton-Smith was knighted for services to cancer
care in 1997 and subsequently became chairman of the Leicester Royal Infirmary NHS Trust.
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| Interview conducted by Neil Small, 26 September 1995 |
| Interview Duration: 54 minutes |
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