John Patterson

John Patterson was one of the generation of ex-service men and women who became medical students after the Second World.

About two-thirds of the year of 1946 at Edinburgh University had served in the forces. Ex-service grants supported many whose earlier aims had been unclear or restricted by financial circumstances. They formed an interesting group whose life experience contributed greatly to their maturity, an asset in the profession they were now enabled to choose. But their commitment did not stop them from having fun – perhaps a chance for some to be boys again.

John was the only son of Glasgow University graduates who moved from the west coast to Arbroath, Angus. He attended Arbroath High School where his father (also John) was principal teacher of English. His mother, Esther, gave up teaching mathematics on marriage, but the training and education of his parents influenced his own love of, and precision with, language for the rest of his life. He left school as medallist in French. The late James Cowie RSA commemorated the schooldays in a group portrait, the other two sitters being his own daughter, Ruth, and the late Reverend WMD Thompson of Oxnam.

At 17, John enrolled on a general arts degree at St Andrews University but was called up the following year. Commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1943, he spent the next two years stationed in camps and anti-aircraft batteries in the south of England at 24 different addresses, in varying degrees of discomfort. When his unit was disbanded at the end of the war, he was seconded to the Military Police with the rank of Captain and served in Egypt for eight months; later, he regarded this as the most luxurious lifestyle he had ever experienced.

During these years John realised that his true vocation was medicine. His time at Edinburgh was particularly enjoyable and fruitful, where amateur dramatics, pursued through the University’s Dramatic Society, of which he was president for a time, provided a range of friendships that lasted for the rest of his life.

In 1950, while still a student, he married Margaret Madeline Fraser, of Inverness, also a member of DramSoc.

After graduating in 1951, John had resident posts at Bangour and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He became an assistant in general practices in Workington, Forfar and Bo’ness. Locums in industrial and other less accessible parts of Scotland, notably Bonar Bridge and Barra, equipped him well for his first principal post on the island of Westray, Orkney.

For a time he ran a single-handed dispensing practice of 900 patients, with one very experienced district nurse, and the nearest hospital in Kirkwall, two and a half hours away by sea. There was no air ambulance, nor did the doctor’s house have electricity or a gravitational water supply, accounting for a rent of £12 per annum and a half-inch increase in his chest measurement as a result of the daily pumping of water.

At times improvised dental and veterinary skills were required, there being no easily accessible practitioner in either discipline. He learned to pull teeth in one morning. But there were compensations, such as crabs or lobsters discovered in his car, donors unknown. A “small” halibut from a trawler skipper grateful for emergency surgery on one of his crew provided 52 meals, shared with the other houses at the pier, refrigeration consisting of a providential snowfall.

In 1961 John returned with the growing family to Edinburgh to a single-handed practice, latterly developing a partnership in the Newhaven/Trinity/Leith area of the city with Dr Fred Anderson.

John joined the Royal College of General Practitioners and served as secretary to the Scottish Council of the College from 1969 to 1972. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the college in 1976. He was also energetic in helping to organise several reunions of his university year.

Having become a secretary of the college more involved with policy developments, John moved from general practice to the Scottish Home and Health Department in 1972, ultimately as a senior medical officer. He was involved in further development of general practice, and of health centres throughout Scotland. Following retirement in 1988, his professional skills continued to be applied as a part-time medical referee for the Department of Health and Social Security.

When he and Madeline, a professional social worker, were in their 60s they went on a Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) placement to North West Frontier Province, Pakistan (now Pukhtun Khwa). She became administrator in a project originally set up to provide basic health care for Afghan refugee camps housing around 30,000 people.

When the medical director, an Afghan, left following an assassination attempt, John became medical adviser. After the VSO placement ended he continued to assist Madeline in expanding the service to local villagers promoting non-discrimination and accessible care to more than 100,000 poor people. His wish to learn more about development studies culminated in an Open University BA in the year 2000.

His five grandchildren were born in the 1990s and he adapted with ease to the role of grandfather. His patience was to the fore, as it had been for his children, complemented by a gentle, wry and sometimes wicked humour that celebrated his pleasure in language.

The sciatica which had troubled him as a young man had left him with a less than perfect right leg, which in 2009 suffered a fracture of the femur. His hill-walking days being long over, photography was an abiding interest; he became a dab hand at baking bread and making soup, jam and marmalade (under supervision). He also took up singing with Edinburgh’s Jubilo choir, established in 1981 by some of his university generation; many members came to sing at his funeral service in Mortonhall Crematorium on 11 June, 2011.

John and Madeline shared interests in antiquities and became regular Mediterranean cruisers, visiting historical sites. It was on a cruise from Istanbul to Venice in May that he became ill and had to be admitted to hospital in Ioannina, Greece where he died after a heart attack. All five children flew out to Greece, in rotation, and he was very happy.

He is survived by Madeline, his wife of nearly 61 years, his five children, Ian, David Robert, Janet and Helen, two of whom are NHS consultants, and five grandchildren.

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