I was after-dinner speaker at a dinner for consultants from the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust in the grand setting of Durham Castle last night.
I was lucky enough to sit next to a remarkable man - Dr John Cotes.
Dr Cotes told me how he was the man who designed the oxygen masks used by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay when they climbed Everest in 1953.
Dr Cotes was working for the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine at the time and the masks for modified from standard RAF issue.
They were later developed into the first portable breathing apparatus used by miners suffering from chest diseases.
Now 85, and 20 years after he retired, Dr Cotes is still passionately engaged in research which he describes as the most exciting of his life.
A breath of fresh air indeed.
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