Real lives: Africa challenges were too great for Kenneth to resist

Professor Kenneth Rankin, an orthopaedic surgeon and anti-apartheid campaigner, has died aged 72.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in January 1939, Kenneth Cunningham Rankin was raised in Edinburgh before his illustrious medical career took him to South Africa.

His father was with the Royal Air Force in Alexandria, but the family returned to Edinburgh in 1942 and Kenneth attended Tynecastle High School.

He was later transferred to Boroughmuir High, where he researched the work of medical missionary Albert Schweitzer in Africa.

After studying medicine at Edinburgh University and graduating in 1963, he served in various surgical posts in Edinburgh before being appointed as ship's doctor on the Canberra and voyaged to Australia.

In 1966, he was registrar in paediatric surgery in Edinburgh and the following year began his close association with Africa when he joined the medical team at the Sibasa rural hospital in the Limpopo province of South Africa. He then undertook work at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto, and was attached to KwaZulu Natal.

His work was organised by the South African Council of Churches and he provided medical care to those displaced by the apartheid regime. At this time Prof Rankin met his future wife, the journalist and political activist Joyce Sikakane.

Apartheid laws forbade an inter-racial marriage and the two made plans to get married outside South Africa.

However, Ms Sikakane was detained by the authorities and they were not married until 1974. In the intervening years, Prof Rankin returned to Scotland where he was registrar in orthopaedic surgery at Bridge of Earn.

He returned to Africa in 1971 as senior registrar in surgery and orthopaedics at the University Teaching Hospital of Lusaka, Zambia, and an honorary lecturer in surgery in the University of Zambia. At a chance meeting he was reunited with his fiancee, who had been released and exiled from South Africa.

Prof Rankin gained a pilot's licence and became lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at Edinburgh University.

In 1977, the family moved to Dundee where Prof Rankin became senior lecturer with a special interest in paediatric orthopaedics. However, the lure of Africa proved too strong and he moved with his family to Maputo in 1980.

He returned to Scotland in 1992 and for two years from 2009 he was locum consultant at hospitals in Elgin, Edinburgh and Dumfries. In 2010 he was taken ill while operating at the Royal Infirmary. Acute myeloid leukaemia was diagnosed, eventually forcing his retirement this year.

Prof Rankin was a keen hill walker and sailor. He worked tirelessly on behalf of the anti-apartheid movement and was awarded an OBE in 2002 "for services to orthopaedics in Africa".

He was also a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.