I've been asked to say a little about my father, so I've tried to collect some memories to illustrate the man he was.
His would have been a typical pre-war childhood in a quiet seaside suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. Grandma told me that when war did break out, like any boy he thought about what this would mean for him – he quickly realised that no more ships coming out from England would mean no more Kellogg's Rice Krispies. So off he went to the grocer's for a stock of boxes: he allowed himself one small bowlful each morning, and they lasted nearly through the War.
In time, he went away to medical school at Otago University, far down in the South Island (more on that from Peter Dykes above). Years later, he regaled us with tales of grand tramping expeditions with friends, exploring the stunning mountains and coastlines of New Zealand (no doubt the stories of mishaps were improved with the years, but I believe he always carried some of that scenery in his heart).
In 1955 the place for an ambitious young doctor was England, so he took ship for London. He worked his one-way passage, as ship's doctor to a dozen crew and several hundred sheep.
At this time he must have developed his pattern of writing home to his parents every week; he kept that up for the rest of their long lives – a regular feature of our week as children was the “blue letter” arriving by airmail from Wellington on Thursday, which he would read out over family dinner, and which must be replied to at the weekend.
Soon he met and married a nurse from Great Ormond St Hospital, who became our mother, Helen. When Anne and I were small, the family settled near Kingston – chosen they said because it's away from the Heathrow flight-path, and has good soil for growing roses.
He always set us and himself the highest standards of hard work and integrity. His life-long habit was to get up at 6:15am and deliver cups of tea to all the bedrooms, then work in his office until breakfast.
I do know that he always kept a couple of spare ties in his office at the hospital, to lend to any junior doctor who arrived on the unit “not properly dressed”. And somehow he managed to charm the ward staff into providing a Penguin biscuit with his cup of tea around 3pm every day.
He certainly relished every chance to travel the world, working alongside doctors from so many other countries. He made a point whenever possible of using his New Zealand passport, which of course led to no end of trouble with bureaucracy.
He brought back marvellous tales (somewhat improved, surely) of riding donkeys across the desert to visit a sheikh in an embroidered tent, or being rowed across a Burmese lake with a posse of armed soldiers, and a cheerful favourite among his photos showed the bath where the King of Egypt was stabbed to death.
When we were little, weekends had a steady rhythm: Saturday morning was for working, and Saturday afternoon was for shopping in Kingston (he said he liked to see all the healthy people walking around). Sunday was for physical exercise, designing and working on the garden he loved, out walking over the Surrey hills (he striding ahead, with us stumping along in our Wellington boots, always some way behind), or working on his latest d-i-y project in his wood workshop.
He decided one winter that we needed a decent stereo system. Typically, he researched and selected each separate component, but he must build the loudspeakers himself. So he worked out a design and set to with the woodworking skills he had learnt from his father in Wellington, and built them – they were enormous and sounded fantastic (he got ever so cross when we put vases of flowers on them).
At first, the family wasn't aware when the Parkinson's Disease began to develop, but he tackled that, too, with typical courage and ingenuity. We noticed that he would introduce himself as “Dr Joplin” even after being awarded his personal chair, which seemed charmingly modest, but actually his tongue just wouldn't pronounce “Professor”.
He managed to keep up his writing and editing of papers – in a recent quick search of PubMed (an internet database of medical papers and journals) I found over 210 different articles, letters and book sections listed under his name.
Recent years have been spent in a nearby nursing home, and as his world became smaller, he continued to charm the people around him, and the grandchildren enjoyed visiting him and sharing his endless supply of chocolate biscuits (some things never change...).
Although today's Memorial service is a sad time, it's not a shock as I think we've been saying goodbye to him gradually for a while.
With apologies to Dylan Thomas:
He went so gentle into that good night
He would not burn or rave at close of day
Nor rage against the dying of the light