obituaries
Professor Duncan Vere
(b 1929, q The London Hospital Medical College 1952, d London 2022)
Duncan trained at The London Hospital Medical College (LHMC) and graduated, after getting a string of prizes, with Honours in 1952. He spent his whole working life at The London, apart from a brief period from 1954 to 1956, doing research at The Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine. Duncan then had various academic posts at LHMC, becoming a consultant physician in 1965. He was Professor of Therapeutics at LHMC from 1972 until he became Emeritus in 1994.
Duncan was a well-known Christian committed to his local church and children’s Christian education. He wrote many articles on ethics from a Christian perspective in addition to his many scientific papers. He was involved in committees on regulating medicines from the 1960s until his retirement, making significant contributions related to adverse reactions. Despite his towering intellect, he was also very practical, designing systems for drug dispensing in the hospital, notably reducing drug errors.
He was a caring clinician, treating everyone equally, from the alcoholics living on the streets of Whitechapel to members of the House of Lords.
He looked after his wife, Vera, for many years after her stroke. He is survived by his two daughters and grandchildren.
Professor Stephen Evans is Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Sir Eldryd Parry
(b 1930, q Cambridge, d 2022)
Sir Eldryd Hugh Owen Parry, KCMG OBE, a CMF member, died aged 91 on 13 November 2022. I wanted to write a brief appreciation of his extraordinary life of service in universities in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Ghana and the establishment of the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET).
Many might ask what moulded this remarkable man.Eldryd himself acknowledged several key influences. Firstly, his parents, who were GPs in Cardiff, often worked with very deprived families before the start of the NHS. His mother set up an early palliative care service, occasionally accompanied by Eldryd, and she raised funds for the Christian Medical College at Vellore, South India. Eldryd recalls the impact of cold baths and food rationing at school during World War Two on developing his appreciation of ‘austerity’! At university – Cambridge and Cardiff – Eldryd especially appreciated the vibrant academic atmosphere in the Welsh National School of Medicine, where he saw many patients with infections. Perhaps that was where Eldryd caught TB? He was very ill and needed a thoracotomy as well as TB drugs.
Secondly, his friends. Many of his contemporaries at Cambridge became medical missionaries, and his best man went to work in Nepal.
Eldryd worked at several prestigious hospitals with eminent consultants who recognised his very bright intellect; they spent time nurturing Eldryd’s clinical and investigative skills. These enabled Eldryd to make massive contributions to the management of cardiac disease in Africa.
Thirdly, existing academic links with universities overseas enabled extremely talented consultants in the UK to be seconded to centres of excellence in Africa. Eldryd was therefore not surprised to be asked at interview in London, ‘Would you be prepared to be seconded to Nigeria?’.
Fourthly, his family. Eldryd married Helen, an extremely bright and gifted linguist and teacher who made massive contributions to many African schools and colleges and subsequently at the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) in the UK. She agreed they could go to Ibadan, Nigeria – leaving just six days after their wedding! She made a welcoming home for their four children and countless visitors.
Fifthly, his colleagues – in Africa and the UK. Eldryd had the unique ability to recognise talent and readiness to contribute to clinical care, teaching and research at the many African university departments he headed up. He particularly valued developing deep relationships with senior and junior African colleagues, encouraging robust but respectful dialogue and mutual learning. The affection of his colleagues, particularly his African colleagues, is expressed in the online condolences that have poured in since his death.
Finally, but far from least, his faith. Eldryd was always explicit about his personal Christian faith and how it motivated his attitudes, relationships, and practice. He loved the expressive worship of several African churches that he and Helen attended. Eldryd gave inspiring talks to groups of students – organised by CMF and other organisations. He emphasised the value of Scripture, citing the writings of Luke (in his eponymous Gospel and the Book of Acts) as being crucial in challenging social norms when providing care for the ill, especially for the disadvantaged. The genuine presence of Jesus in Eldryd’s life was striking, and many who worked for or with Eldryd knew that they had become different people. ¢
Andrew Tomkins is Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Global Health, UCL, London
J Michael Winter
(b Cirencester 1939, q Barts 1962, d Cirencester Nov 2022)
It could be said that Michael was born into medicine, just as he was born into the Christian faith he held fast to from an early age. He followed his father into medicine and later into general practice in the town where he grew up.
The second world war broke out when he was less than three months old, and one of his earliest childhood memories was of tanks rumbling through the streets of Cirencester, which was on the route for driving armaments from the Midlands to the south coast. However, this Brethren family were more likely to be pacifists and missionaries than soldiers.
After medical training at Barts Hospital in London, he worked at Addenbrookes in Cambridge, where he met Adrienne Nye, also a second-generation doctor. In 1965 they married and travelled together to Uganda to do medical work with the support of the Church Mission Society.
After starting a family and returning to the UK, Michael attended All Nations Christian College. But despite the continued pull of Africa, a growing family and involvement in general practice took priority.
In 1974, the family moved to Cirencester. In those days, Cirencester acted as an associate district general hospital with acute medical, surgical, children’s and maternity wards. Michael trained hospital Senior House Officers (for which he was awarded FRCP in 2002). He was on-call almost every night, alongside his work as a GP. This was a golden era for patients but not for doctors and their families.
Michael’s gentle, sociable nature suited general practice. He disliked conflict and had a desire for unity. For a while later in life, he was chairman of Cirencester Churches Together and was an elder in Cirencester Baptist Church. He also joined Street Pastors, patrolling the town at night to show kindness to strangers who were often the worse for wear.
After retirement, he walked, sang, sailed and travelled, putting his encyclopaedic knowledge of people and places to good use. Michael had an extensive collection of maps and delighted friends with his local and global knowledge. He continued his involvement in CMF, maintaining his concern for those at the coal face of the ethical dilemmas facing Christians in healthcare.
But it is as a local GP and trainer of GPs that he will be most widely remembered. ‘He (was) unfailingly professional’, said a colleague.
‘A highly respected doctor and an amazing person who quietly carried his faith into all areas of life.’ ‘He would come out to care for us in the middle of the night, always in a suit and tie’, said one former patient. ‘We owe him a debt of gratitude we could never repay.
Hundreds gathered for his memorial service in Cirencester in December 2022 after he was ‘gathered to his people’ aged 83, just 400m from where he was born.
Michael will be missed by many, including his wife Adrienne, children Jonathan, Peter, and Kirsten, and his five grandchildren.
Donations in memory of Dr Winter will go towards a water borehole and community health work in Uganda and can be made at justgiving.com/fundraising/jmwinter
Jonathan Winter is a Social entrepreneur, founder of The Career Innovation Company and co-founder of Primary Care International
Professor Andrew Sims
(b 1938, q Westminster Medical School, London 1963, d Shropshire, December 2022)
Andrew Charles Petter Sims was born on 5 November 1938 in Exeter to GP parents Charles and Norah Sims (née Petter), who were vibrant Christians and founder members of Belmont Chapel Brethren Assembly in Exeter. He was sent to board at Monkton Coombe School at the tender age of 12, which was not initially a happy experience, but then went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he thrived and met his future wife, Ruth Marie Harvey. His Christian faith blossomed whilst working at a cheese factory in the months before starting at Cambridge and grew and strengthened across his life.
He went on to Westminster Medical School in London to continue clinical medical studies. He met some opposition when he decided to train in psychiatry, from those who felt Christianity and psychiatry were incompatible. However, Andrew felt strongly called to psychiatry and had great compassion for his patients. For much of his life, he studied and wrote about faith and psychiatric symptomatology, fascinated by the evidence for the protective influence of religious faith on health, and keen to clarify and correct misconceptions. These concepts are expounded in his most recent books, Is Faith Delusion? and Mad or God? Jesus: the healthiest mind of all, written with his friend and colleague Pablo Martinez.
He became Professor of Psychiatry at Leeds in 1979. He was based clinically at St James’s University Hospital, where he continued working until he retired in 2000. He wrote a number of textbooks, including Lecture Notes on Behavioural Sciences, and Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to Descriptive Psychopathology, which was first published in 1995 and reached its sixth edition in 2018. Overall he has authored or co-authored 29 books.
He completed his MD on the long-term outcomes of patients with neurosis, notable for the thoroughness of his follow-up. He was also awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1995 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, ‘in recognition of his services to psychiatry, in particular in promoting the need to evaluate the religious and spiritual experience of patients.’ He was very involved in the Royal College of Psychiatrists for much of his career, becoming President of the College from 1990 to 1993, having previously served as Dean.
He had four children and twelve grandchildren, six of whom followed him into medicine and one into psychiatry. He was a very hands-on father and a proud and delighted grandfather, passionate about rugby union, international cricket, gardening and walking the hills, particularly in Yorkshire and Dartmoor. He also loved classical music, enjoying being part of the Alveley singers and the church choir and filling the house with Bach organ music on CD. He travelled widely to teach and examine psychiatry at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Pakistan, Singapore, Zambia and South Africa. In his retirement, he was involved with PRIME in Nepal, the Czech Republic and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was an active member of CMF for over 40 years and, together with Ruth, was keen to show hospitality to CMF members new to Leeds. Their generous hospitality continued at the home they retired to in Alveley, Shropshire, where Ruth became a non-stipendiary priest and Andrew was Chair of the Deanery Synod, hosting regular men’s breakfasts in the barn, with interesting Christian speakers for local friends and acquaintances. They also taught and led seminars at CMF conferences.
At 60, he needed a replacement aortic valve due to severe stenosis but returned to being fit and active, particularly in medicolegal work, which had always interested him. Shortly after his eightieth birthday, he developed bacterial endocarditis, which was not diagnosed until a large abscess had formed, requiring significant surgery from which he never fully recovered. He remained kind, charming, loving and godly till he was ‘called to Glory’ on 14 December 2022.
He is survived by Ruth, two sons, two daughters, six grandsons and six granddaughters, who will always be grateful for his love, encouragement and Christian example.
Mary Bunn is a GP and palliative care specialist currently based in Sierra Leone with a small team working to establish a palliative care service.
Other members who have died in the last few months:
Matt Davis
(b 1986, q Oxford 2010, d December 2022)
David Hutchinson
(q Trinity College Dublin 1974, d June 2022)
Jonathan Lavy
(attended St Georges, d January 2023 )
Patricia Price
(q University of Edinburgh, 1951, d March 2023)
