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If Massey University's first woman graduate seems impossibly spry, please do not give her any credit. Whatever credit there is rests with her genes, she says. Her eldest brother didn't really appear to be old until he was about 92. So what if she's still an active researcher? It's really no big deal.

"I like to keep myself busy, occupied, doing all sorts of interesting things, and I consider that age is irrelevant," she says. Just this year she was appointed an honorary staff member at the Wellington School of Medicine. "And I don't tell people how old I am, because then they expect me to behave like a little old lady."

But then Dr Bassett has been confounding expectations for a long time.

Born between the wars, Paddy Bassett remembers her 1930s childhood as an idyllic mix of family, farming and horses. Her father, Francis Thorpe, farmed until his middle years, then became an Anglican clergyman. His parishes included South Westland, Banks Peninsula and South Canterbury. Her mother, Constance Menzies, came from a long-established farming family on Banks Peninsula, and it was on a farm at remote Menzies Bay that Dr Bassett spent some of her earliest years.

"The great treat was taking the team of horses to the back of the farm with my lunch and their feed bags, then being able to harrow a paddock by myself," Dr Bassett recalls of her childhood.

"My father would only take on country parishes - so he could always keep a couple of horses - and I suppose it is from him I inherited this natural empathy I have for animals. I recall how it was enormous fun, learning how to ride, roaming alone, all over the countryside. As the youngest of a close-knit family of five, these were halcyon days."

At Menzies Bay Dr Bassett's education was at the hands of a governess. Then came Okain's Bay Primary School, and six years as a boarder at Timaru's Craighead Diocesan School.

Throughout her school years the strong farming connection remained. Dr Bassett often stayed on her brother Bob's dairy farm, or on a sheep and cropping farm with her sister Frances. Here she could enjoy farming life without the attendant drudgery. She would become a dab hand with a .22 rifle, well able to supply the chief ingredient for rabbit pie.

Although Craighead provided a sound classical education - Dr Bassett excelled in Latin and French - science subjects such as chemistry and physics were largely absent.

"We had home science, which provided a mixed bag of information. I can remember learning how to take a stain out of a tray cloth - and then suddenly, one day, we were supposed to be collecting oxygen. It seemed totally irrelevant. Why on earth were we collecting oxygen? I had absolutely no idea."

Many Craighead girls came from wealthy farming families. "Marrying well was the thing. It was never imagined we would do anything else," says Dr Bassett. The high point of the social calendar was the Hunt Club Ball, with the prospect of finding a potential husband. Failing marriage, the interim option was to become a nursery governess.

'so I was always a bit of an oddity at school, because I was keen on academic success, and was rather punished by my peers because of it," says Dr Bassett, who had no intention of becoming a governess nor any immediate wish to marry.

If it was not to be 'marrying well', then teaching or nursing or perhaps office work were conventional career alternatives. The headstrong young woman refused them all. Instead, recognising her love of animals, she decided she would like to become a vet. Her family was supportive. "My father was the silent type, a liberal man, a great believer in the value of higher education... I guess he saw me as a bright child, was supportive of whatever I wanted to do."

On her father's advice she enrolled in intermediate studies at Canterbury University College (1936Ð37), courses that were common to agriculture, medicine and veterinary science. They would help her catch up with the science education she had missed.

"It took me two years, and to begin with it was all completely foreign. I had never heard of physics or zoology. I only had a vague idea about chemistry. And at the time, I'd only just been liberated from six years of boarding school, so everything was very strange."

But at the close came the hard recognition that a vet course would be impracticable. The nearest course was in Sydney. (Massey wouldn't establish a vet school until 1962.) Her second choice was agriculture: Lincoln Agricultural College wouldn't accept women; Massey Agricultural College, on the other hand, would.

"I didn't know I was the only woman enrolling, it just happened that way. All that was there (on the Palmerston North campus) was the old Main Building, and the Refectory down the hill. The male students were housed in those public works buildings on the perimeter."

The four women students - including three taking the Diploma in Agriculture - were boarded with the dairy farm manager's wife, Mrs Jean Clifford, in the Bachelor homestead.

Being one of only four women brought with it a certain amount of special attention from other students. Dr Bassett recalls how a couple of young men took it upon themselves to sit on either side of her in class, to make sure she was okay, that she had all the notes.

"To me it was not a problem, being the only woman. The men were always nice to me, but they were very much into their own thing."

In the late 1930s, with New Zealand still recovering from the Depression, Massey's students generally made their own fun. The Massey Debating Club was popular, as was the Kareti Club, formed to investigate "the velocity at which beer can flow over mucous membranes." The Massey Tramping Club (a precursor of the Massey University Alpine Club) had a Model T Ford for trips to the Tararuas, Ruahines and Tongariro National Park. Records show a "Miss Thorpe" to have been an active member. Swimming - a new pool had been built with funds raised by the students - was a popular activity, as were tennis, rugby and hockey.

"We used to cycle into town, to shop or to go to the pictures," recalls Dr Bassett. "The Capping Ball was the big event. It was held in the Main Building, and afterwards we would go to the Melody Lane Cafe in the Regent Arcade for breakfast." The campus community was quite formal, especially the relationship between lecturers and their students. Everybody was addressed as Mister or Miss. "Certainly, there was none of this first name business, and the boys were all expected to wear ties. Fortunately for us, trousers were just coming in. We had grey flannel slacks, which were very useful for practical assignments, like learning how to shear sheep. I could shear 12 in a day."

Once she had mastered the elements of physics, Dr Bassett found her Bachelor of Agricultural Science course absorbing. It would provoke her interest in fundamental research, and stimulate a lifelong interest in farming. "Even today, when I visit a farm, I can enjoy asking intelligent questions about things like animal husbandry... recently I went on a group tour to Turkey, and while many of the party were interested in the ruins, the most interesting aspect for me was how the locals used the land. So I guess what I learnt at Massey has remained with me."

During her vacations Dr Bassett assisted sheep husbandry lecturer Ted Clark, who was looking at the anatomical characteristics of the 'N-type' Drysdale.

The Drysdale - one of two famous breeds of sheep to come from Massey - had been developed by its namesake Dr F.W. Dry (Dr Dry is pictured above. Incidentally, the other breed was the Perendale, developed by Professor Geoffrey Peren.)

"We had a name for Dr Dry, we used to call him 'Daddy'," recalls Dr Bassett. "He was a very good geneticist, working with what were called the 'N-Type' sheep... they were mutations from the Romney flock. They were hairy, the rams had horns. But he was only allowed to carry on this research on the far corner of the sheep farm, because the visiting farmers were not allowed to see these strange beasts. Of course, when it was discovered that the wool was great for making carpets, the sheep were brought to the front of the farm, and Daddy got an OBE."

Dr Bassett graduated with a BAgrSc in 1941 asMassey's first woman graduate. "It was quite an occasion. The local newspaper wrote it up. My father came up from Nelson, and I went to the ball afterwards. It was a time of celebration." Next came a break in university studies, first to help out at home, then as an assistant research officer in the Animal Research Division of the Department of Agriculture.

'so I had my BAgrSc degree and I was seconded to this peculiar job at Lincoln, investigating ill-thrift in hoggets. By then the war was on, so I was replacing a chap who had gone off to fight with the RNZAF...

"But I didn't really know what I was doing. I was supposed to be analysing feeds and faeces, so the technician had to show me what to do. The outlook was pretty hopeless. That's when I decided I must go further, and do my masters' degree."

She was now joined by Massey's second woman BAgrSc, Daintry Walker. 'since I had taken time out after my first degree, Daintry caught up with me, we became contemporaries. We both wanted to do animal husbandry, and of course, the late Campbell McMeekan (formerly of Massey, and now regarded as the outstanding animal researcher of his time) was the professor of animal husbandry at Lincoln by then, so he was the obvious first choice as supervisor."

The Massey University Archives contain over 3,000 photographs, some official, others taken by students. They are an invaluable part of the University's historical record. If you are a former student and have material you would like to contribute to the collection, or material that could be copied and returned, please contact Lucy Marsden, University Archivist, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, phone (06) 350 4591, or email L.E.Marsden@massey.ac.nz

McMeekan had just come back from Cambridge, where he had completed a PhD under Sir John Hammond, a world-famous animal research scientist. He was willing to accept the young women for their masters' studies, and persuaded the Lincoln Agricultural College Council to approve this first-ever enrolment of women at Lincoln. They boarded with Kitty Stevens, the wife of an animal husbandry lecturer.

McMeekan was researching the quality of meat exports to Britain, but was also interested in cattle pituitary glands. Dr Bassett was assigned the task of investigating the relationship of these glands to ovarian dysfunction as her thesis topic. Daintry, meanwhile, worked on McMeekan's meat research project. (Daintry and McMeekan would later marry.)

"McMeekan was a good supervisor, very inspirational, but I had to develop the research techniques myself, really, especially histology."

Lincoln wasn't all smooth sailing, Dr Bassett recalls. Principal Eric Hudson had no time for academic women - or for research, for that matter. "We had only been there for a year when this incredible tension built up. McMeekan was away, and Hudson took the opportunity to have all his experimental pigs killed...

"Then there were the dances, which were like being at high school. You weren't allowed off the floor, and if anyone did go out in the grounds, Hudson would go after them with a torch, and bring them back. This was all quite curious to me, having just come from Massey. There, it had been taken for granted that we were responsible adults."

Ironically, this was when at which Dr Bassett met her future husband, Colin Bassett, who had just returned from active service in the Middle East. He was taking a rehabilitation course on valuation and farm management.

"He was about 33, and if he went to one of these dances with me, he was also expected to follow those rules. It was all

Colin had been farming on his father's farm before the war, and decided to retrain in valuation on his return. "Colin had once been engaged to someone else and he stole me off another chap - not before time - so we decided to get married almost immediately, rather than be engaged. I soon went off to Ruakura, and he had to stay to finish his course. So for a year we were living in different places and meeting in other locations."

Dr Bassett's move to the newly formed Ruakura Animal Research Station, as assistant research officer, came just after Campbell McMeekan was appointed first superintendent. She was quick to make the most of Ruakura's progressive environment; completing her thesis on pituitaries, then expanding her interests to include wider endocrinological problems in farm animals, especially ewes.

Gisborne vet David McFarlane had discovered that 25 percent of lamb loss at birth was due to dystocia (difficult birth). Dr Bassett set to work dissecting ewes, measuring the changes in pelvic joints and ligaments at sequential stages of pregnancy and after parturition. Her results showed that the loosening of these connective tissues governed the size and shape of the birth canal. This, in turn, had a direct impact on successful lambing rates.

Her findings were of sufficient important to have her sent to the Anatomy School, University of Cambridge, to study the microscopial features in bone and connective tissue underlying such changes.

"The idea was to further investigate this pelvic changes phenomenon, and in the course of those studies I wrote a thesis, then got a PhD. At that time there must have been quite a lot of money about, because staff members could go off for a period overseas, to other research institutions. It was quite the norm."

This was in 1954, a time when no doctorates were awarded in New Zealand. It was a good time to be in Britain, she recalls; food rationing was just over, and the British class hierarchy had relaxed little. Her supervisor was the inspiring and scholarly Professor John Dixon Boyd. She was attached to Newnham College, where students were expected to dine formally once a week, dressed in academic gowns.

"I really enjoyed that... it wasn't many years before that women at both Cambridge and Oxford could not be awarded degrees, so I would go to Newnham for dinner, and sometimes there would be some extremely old ladies there who had been through it all, who had amazing stories to tell. They really had to fight to get formal acknowledgement of their academic achievements."

Colin followed his wife to Britain after a year. He found a job gathering information for the East Anglia Farm Survey. They bought a car and were able to explore a little of Britain. Things had started coming together.

"I had begun to imagine I was odd to be doing these things, but then I went to Cambridge, and found I wasn't odd at all. It did me a lot of good. I could have walked down Kings Parade on my hands, and nobody would notice..."

Her return to New Zealand was sobering. "It seemed to be terribly old fashioned, particularly in the way the value of higher education for women was still not generally approved of, and the way women still just stayed at home, even when they didn't have small children."

Back at Ruakura the focus had shifted. There was little interest in Dr Bassett's work on connective tissue, and to compound matters there was a falling out with Professor McMeekan - a not uncommon occurrence according to McMeekan's biographer, Gordon McLaughlan.

So Dr Bassett was pleased to accept a position as a senior research officer in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Endocrinology Unit with the Otago Medical School. Here she continued her studies on connective tissue modifications, and later transferred to the medical school's Anatomy Department on an MRC grant.

Then came endocrine problems of her own. For six years Dr Bassett suffered from an undetected hypothyroid condition. "You become so stupid that you don't know how bad you've got, but in the end, it was diagnosed...

'so I was prescribed thyroxine, and I managed to get out of this deplorable state. I didn't publish much over that period, but I did get into lecturing on connective tissue and other subjects to second-year medical students in the Anatomy Department. I was fortunate in finding a way forward again."

In 1980 Colin, now well retired, felt the need to shift to Nelson, to build a house on property purchased years before. Dr Bassett was not ready to retire, and was reluctant to leave her work. Fortunately she was able to continue her research by becoming an honorary research fellow to the Nelson Hospital Board. The board had a substantial fund specifically bequeathed for research, which she was able to draw on. She was free to develop any theme she chose, co-opting valuable collaboration from researchers at the University of Otago's Wellington School of Medicine, in particular, senior research fellow and electron microscope specialist Dr St John Wakefield. That collaboration has now led to a position as an honorary staff member in the Pathology Department at the School of Medicine.

"Colin died four years ago, so I felt the urge to take up a new challenge. It was rather nice moving to Wellington, because I had been a little out on a limb in Nelson. I had pretty well used up the trust fund, and they were going to knock down the building I was in, so my move was fortuitous."

Dr Bassett and Dr Wakefield continue to collaborate in experiments on connective tissue change; further research papers are planned. Over a lifetime of research most of her 21 research papers have been printed in full. Another 18 are abstracts of contributions to scientific meetings.

Dr Bassett continues to find stimulation in her work, in helping unlock the mysteries of connective tissue changes, and she keeps in contact with her many old friends from Ruakura, Cambridge, Dunedin and Nelson. There's an old Wellington cottage she's bought and is restoring; the neglected garden is taking a lot of energy. She also enjoys playing the violin. And her thoughts about Massey University today? "Well, I find it quite strange, comparing the Massey I see today with what it was like when I was there.

"A while ago I attended a wedding on the North Shore, and for the reception I found myself on a Massey campus... Then back in Wellington, driving to work along Wallace Street one morning, I found myself driving past this thing called Massey. I thought goodness gracious!"