Obituary: Rachel Weldon

Dr RACHEL Weldon, 54, was born Rachel Vermeer in Waalwijk, a small town near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Her father ran a shoe factory, but the young Rachel had her heart set on the medical profession.

She told a Dutch journalist: “When I was about eight years old, the teacher asked what we wanted to be. I told her I wanted to be captain of a big boat so I could sail the world. The reply was that it was a man’s job. My second thought was to become a pilot, but that, too, was considered inappropriate for a girl. Finally I told her I wanted to travel around like the Flying Doctors in the TV series. ‘Ah, you mean a nurse,’ the teacher said.”

Clearly, Rachel didn’t. The Small Isles of Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna off Scotland’s stormy west coast might not have been the Australian outback, but this dispersed, remote island practice must have fulfilled some of Rachel Weldon’s childhood dreams.

For 22 years – driven by her husband and boatman, Eric – she used a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) to make her rounds, sustaining the lives of 170 people on four tiny islands. Together with their collie dog, Laurie, the trio was featured on a monthly trip to Canna in June 2011 as part of Radio 4’s GPs Need GPS series.

That trip was recorded on a good day. Rachel and Eric were once caught in a Force 8 after they’d left the island of Rum. The pair knew immediately they should have stayed overnight but had passed the point of no return. The waves were as high as houses. Eric called it their Valentine’s Day cruise.

A fellow Eigg islander remarked: “On a fierce day, your whole body aches from hanging on as the hours grind by on the RIB.”

The Small Isles practice could means weeks of cold, wet, hard work, followed by calm, Mediterranean blue seas and brilliant sunshine; moments of drama followed by weeks on call. Action then waiting – reading Tolkien or knitting while Eric rebuilt the house, cooked or went fishing or whale-spotting.

Eric Weldon, from Airdrie, met Rachel in Utrecht in 1981. She was studying medicine, he was visiting his sister and working as a painter. A visit to the Highlands with Eric in the mid-1980s changed their lives. Rachel entered general practice and before they settled on Eigg, the couple travelled the Highlands, working from Aberdeen to Barra and the Orkneys. Rachel was a GP in Keith, Fort Augustus, Helmsdale and Cromarty.

I recall the couple’s first Hogmanay on Eigg at a typically “robust” all-night dance. Rachel was a watchful presence, but never a disapproving one. “You should see the ceilidhs on Barra,” she said.

That seemed to set the tone for her time as Eigg’s most qualified professional – a difficult middle ground to occupy for any outsider who also wanted to make the island a real home. She didn’t condemn “party” behaviour – she didn’t collude with its ill-effects either.

Rachel had been reluctant to move permanently to Eigg, 15 miles south-west of Mallaig. Although the practice was advertised in 1990 she arrived first as a locum, but promptly fell in love with the island and took over as GP a year later.

At that time the island’s 64 inhabitants had set up a trust to buy Eigg from its controversial owner, Keith Schellenberg. The celebrated community buy-out finally took place six years later.

Through that long period of stress, uncertainty, electricity shortages and substandard accommodation for some of the oldest residents, Rachel was a calm and steady presence. Remote islands attract waifs, strays, or people looking to escape. Newspaper coverage also attracts the curious. Inevitably that meant accidents – ranging from serious fractures after falls from the sheer face of the Sgurr to severe seasickness among the judges who arrived for a Village of the Year competition. All were tended with care and professionalism.

There is no nurse, midwife or pharmacist on the Inner Hebrides – no-one else to do vaccinations, health checks or treat injuries that would be sent to A&E in a city. A patient with a suspected heart attack might be in an ambulance within minutes on the mainland. On Eigg – even on a good day – an airlift takes three hours. In bad weather or darkness, Rachel managed acute conditions overnight on her own.

But it was as a family doctor dealing with non-emergency and everyday health problems that Rachel excelled. She was wonderfully straightforward as a doctor and yet managed to combine her role of objective professional with that of genuine neighbour.

Rachel was dedicated to the practice. She was very worried the health board might close it down, as her predecessors Chris Tiarks and Hector MacLean feared before they retired. The threat of closure circled around the practice for Rachel’s 22 years on Eigg – no reflection on her work, but on the health board’s views about the cost of maintaining remote practices.

The loss of a GP would be a terrible blow for these communities, and Rachel always let visiting politicians know the continuing existence of the Small Isles practice depended on their vocal support to fend off the bean-counters and bureaucrats.

Rachel was found dead at her home on Eigg last Wednesday. She is believed to have taken her own life. In April she had been banned from driving and fined for being over the legal alcohol limit during a trip to Fort William.

The communities of Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna are still stunned by Rachel’s sudden death. Patients and friends from all four islands and beyond feel loss, shock and grief that such a well-loved pillar of island life could fall without warning, explanation or consolation.

Rachel is survived by Eric, mother Lily Vermeer, brothers Harry and Kees and sister Harriet.

LESLEY RIDDOCH