The Salopian no. 160 - Summer 2017

OLD SALOPIAN NEWS 99
recorded in his obituary in The Times, in the secret war
gallery at the Imperial War Museum and in several books.
The citation for the award of his Military Cross noted that
no conditions could have been more difficult for partisan
work. Nevertheless, the partisans whom John trained
and led inflicted heavy casualties while resisting a strong
German attack. They then liberated several areas before the
arrival of Allied troops, took 10,000 enemy prisoners and
captured large quantities of material. The citation recorded
that John’s judgement and advice were always sound and
that he set an example of devotion to duty to all with
whom he came in contact.
These attributes were to be a feature of John’s whole life,
as were the humility and the enormous sense of social
responsibility which were also a legacy of his wartime
experiences. More important to him than the Military
Cross were the honorary citizenships of Belluno and
Feltre, where he was always given an official welcome
when he returned to meet old comrades and friends. Until
frailty supervened, he was to be seen most years at the
Remembrance Day service in Hereford, inconspicuous
towards the back of the crowd. Like other war veterans,
John would be wearing his medals but, unlike the others,
he would be wearing his medals under his overcoat.
When he moved one might catch a brief glimpse of the
Military Cross behind the lapel of his coat. He wore his
medals because it was right and proper so to do when
remembering his colleagues on a formal occasion, but he
saw no need to exhibit the evidence of his own bravery.
John returned from the war determined to be a force
for good. Life was far from easy for him. His father was
dying of cancer and the business had gone bankrupt,
leaving the family in greatly reduced circumstances, but
John did not let the grass grow under his feet. Within two
years he had taken first class honours in Natural Sciences
at Cambridge and won a scholarship to the London
Hospital. After qualifying, he worked for 11 years at the
London and its associated hospitals. Some of his students
there kept in touch throughout his long life. During this
time, he obtained his doctorate and pioneered the use
of percutaneous kidney biopsy in Britain, having learned
the technique from R C Muehrcke of Chicago when the
latter visited London in 1956. John developed his own
modification of the Vim-Silverman needle, which improved
the likelihood of obtaining a successful biopsy, and he
visited hospitals around the country to teach the technique.
During this time, he also taught a weekly physiology
tutorial in Cambridge and helped with renal work at
Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
John found himself applying for consultant posts at a time
when there was a dearth of such opportunities and the
medical brain drain was at its peak. Younger men with
careers unimpeded by the war were joining the job market
and, despite an excellent CV, John was also hampered by a
severe attack of viral meningoencephalitis. Nearing the age
of 40 and with a young family to support, he considered
emigrating to Australia but, after nine unsuccessful
interviews, was finally appointed as a general physician in
Hereford. Here he soon developed a reputation as a wise
and outstanding clinician, covering all aspects of general
internal medicine.
His clinical abilities were matched by his qualities as
a leader. Everyone, be they patients, doctors, nurses,
students or porters, was made to feel that their opinions
mattered. The esprit de corps which he engendered
among both hospital doctors and general practitioners
enhanced Herefordshire’s reputation as a happy and
stimulating place in which to practise medicine, and
thereby encouraged many trainees to return to permanent
posts. With his formidable intellect and clarity of mind
he could sift through muddles which others found
impenetrable; and with his energy and sense of purpose
he could make things happen more quickly than anyone
else. As area postgraduate director and regional adviser
for the Royal College of Physicians, he was immensely
respected throughout the West Midlands and beyond. His
recognition of the importance of postgraduate education
made him the initiator and driving force behind the
fundraising and planning for the Hereford Postgraduate
Medical Centre, which bears his name and which was one
of the earliest and best designed in the West Midlands.
With others he was also instrumental in obtaining new staff
accommodation and the hospital’s first critical care unit/
intensive treatment unit. John was still pursuing academic
research and publishing scientific papers in the five years
preceding his retirement in 1985.
In retirement he published on medical education and
training, and he spent two months helping in a medical
college in a remote part of China. Retirement also provided
more time for portrait painting, for music and for his
interests in medical biography and history, on which he
published several papers, the last only two months before
his death. He had founded the Hereford Hospital Orchestra,
but was later deprived of the joy of music by increasingly
profound deafness. Above all, retirement allowed him
to pursue his lifelong interest in all forms of wildlife, but
especially in planaria and freshwater crustaceans. John was
a founding member and vice president of the Herefordshire
Wildlife Trust, editing and contributing papers to its journal
over many years. With others he successfully opposed the