18258 RGS ONA Issue 99.qxp_v 06/02/2017 09:41 Page 13
Obituaries Nicholas Wright (42-50) Born 20 March 1932, died 30 September 2016, aged 84
By the time Nick retired in 1992, numbers were down to 200. He did not approve of the present situation where it is increasingly difficult to get psychiatric patients admitted to hospital, where hospitals can be many miles from their home and where patients are often moved from one hospital to another. He also regretted the frequent changes in consultant that patients now experience.
activities – theatre and music, travel and cruises, winters spent in South Africa. Wherever they went they readily made friends. He loved the Lakes and now stayed near Loweswater, with manageable walks, no big peaks and not crowded. It was very Nick to have worked out this exact adjustment to his changing capacities.
In discussion Nick was independentminded, in which he must have Nick was the first visiting psychiatrist to owed something to the school, always HM Prison, Winchester. His expertise, eager to encourage independent coupled with a clarity of thought and thinking. His views were clearly but expression, brought him a large not aggressively stated. He struck medico-legal practice and he featured a humorous quizzical note. The in many high-profile murder trials. He effect was of a clear cool rather also served on the Parole Board where detached light, dispersing fog and Nick became a consultant psychiatrist. he argued against the injustice of many clearing up muddle. indeterminate sentences. He joined the school in Penrith in the There came a darker side when he Middle School. I have a vivid memory Nick and I had lost touch with each learned in 2010 that he had incurable of him romping around with the spirited other during our middle years but prostate cancer. The time left to him glee and bright intelligent eyes that recovered it when we attended the was spent actively, his pleasures remained with him all his life. But we continuing much as before. He did not were also aware of a shadow. He was reunion in Penrith in 1999 to mark the express concern for himself, rather a in 11 different billets and did not settle 60th anniversary of the evacuation. Half a dozen of us who lived in the mild surprised pleasure that he was in any of them. After returning to South East took to lunching together lasting so well. Newcastle his spirits recovered. Perhaps his war years were one factor regularly in London. He leaves his wife Rosemary, his sons in his choosing a career in attending Nick would enter, always at ease, Alex and Ian, his stepchildren Saira and to the distress of others. always in much the same manner, Jeremy, and four grandchildren. a friendly glint in his eyes. He had Later he concentrated on his studies become remarkably urbane – used By David Boll (38-49) and his interest in sports and became to the world, socially confident and a school Prefect. He won a County experienced, and exceptionally at Scholarship to Cambridge where he ease with himself. read Medicine. He was appointed consultant psychiatrist at a major hospital in Basingstoke in 1966 and also provided the psychiatric service for Winchester. When he arrived the hospital had about 1,300 in-patients.
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ONA – Old Novocastrians Association Magazine Spring 2017
He lived in Winchester where he played rackets at Winchester College and later real tennis, and won the British Open Real Tennis Senior Doubles Championship in 1983. He enjoyed Contract Bridge. He and his wife Rosemary shared many