Sudden death of Dr James Hobbs, founder & committee member, BPARA. Funeral oration given by his friend & colleague, Dr Peter Jarvis.
James Ashworth Hobbs
b. 16 September 1926
d. 30 October 2011
Thank you all for coming. It shows how much we all thought of Jimmy.
Jimmy was born in Old Colwyn and educated at Conway Road Council School, Colwyn Bay. I was later at the same school and years after, my mother told Miss Roberts, our nursery class mistress, that I had gone into partnership with him. ‘Ah yes,’ said Miss Roberts, ‘I remember him – the boy with the beautiful eyes.’ Jimmy moved on to Colwyn Bay Grammar School, where his father taught physics, and then to London University – King’s College, where he qualified as a doctor in 1951.
He did the two compulsory house jobs – at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford. During his second house job, he married Mary, whom he had known at school in Colwyn Bay, and they were married for 59 years. He did his National Service, with a short service commission – that’s three years – in the RAF. David was born in 1954. On emerging from the RAF, Jimmy did a traineeship in general practice in Buckingham and then spent two years in Leicester before moving to Bletchley in 1959, living in the surgery house at 221 Whaddon Way until 1973, whence they moved for the last time to Whalley Drive.
The surgery house was then occupied by our devoted secretary Molly Christmas, who is here today. I joined the practice in 1961 and Tony Labrum (also here) joined us in 1971. Three people more unlike each other would be difficult to find, which is probably why we worked so well together. Jimmy and I had something of a local record in that we were the two doctors longest in practice together in the district in the last century – 25 years.
Jimmy did orthopaedics:
Orthopaedics has no root
In Orthos, straight, and ped, a foot.
Better, though still slightly wild
Is Orthos, straight and paed, a child.
Best of all is Orthos, straight,
And pedios, to educate.
I did obstetrics; we watched each other closely and if either of us dropped a brick, the other would field it before it hit the ground. He saved me, several times. The usual tragedies of medical practice apart, we were usually lucky and once we became our own masters, generally happy. We were both on the committees for building the new Milton Keynes General Hospital. We were both with St John Ambulance Brigade – Jimmy’s whole family was in St John; he was a Serving Brother and Mary was a Serving Sister – she was president of the Nursing Cadets for 35 years. Jimmy said he could think of no other organisation where a Brother could be married to a Sister. David was a Cadet.
Jimmy was also medical officer to White Spire School, where the Head said he was on the premises so much that he might as well be a Governor, so he became one – after he retired in 1986 he became Chairman of Governors there for ten years. I was Chairman at another local school and we were both of the view that ten years is quite enough in that job. Jimmy joined Rotary in 1973 and was helpful in funding a minibus to take the children on outings to Whipsnade and so on. He was also keen on Rotaract, the young peoples’ club, where David and Julia met.
He had a long and happy retirement – apart from Rotary, he played golf, he played bridge, he was on the Rectory Cottages Management Committee with Sue and me for many (Thirty? Forty?) years. I would go to his house, but odd thing, he would rarely come in our house – he didn’t like cats! He played golf every week until the Wednesday before he died. Then, the day the clocks went back – why we have continue to put the hour back I do not understand – he had an argument with the clock on his gas boiler, had a coronary and died almost on the spot. Beware the clocks on gas boilers. It was a horrid shock to us all, but at least it was sudden.
He was a gentle man, a model of how a good GP should be. The word Doctor means Teacher. Many of us, me perhaps more than most, learnt a lot from him.
With Mary, David, Julia, James the Younger and Jessica, we share their sorrow and salute the passing of a noble soul.
