C O U G H B OY ! F O U R E A R LY S C H O O L MEDICAL OFFICERS
BY DAVID GOLDWATER (51-62) WITH ALISTER COX (HEADMASTER 72-94) It was the appointment of Sir James Spence, Professor of Child Health and a paediatrician, as a School Governor which resulted in 1954 in the appointment of Dr Errington Ellis as the School’s first Medical Officer.
Henry ‘Bingy’ Barnes (right) with Simon Wood (72-77), ONA President (1998-2000) at an ONA Dinner
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e had lost an elder brother to meningitis which influenced his choice of Medicine as a career. After working in London, Dr Ellis moved to a new Child Health Department at the Newcastle RVI. There he assessed children with cerebral palsy, a regional survey of 300 such children forming his MD thesis.
He became medical director of the what was then called the Percy Hedley School for Spastics and, to this day, the Percy Hedley Foundation is a lasting tribute to him. The BCG vaccination programme introduced into the UK in 1953 will have been how I and most of
my contemporaries will have met Dr Ellis. The painless jab left us all with a small circular scar for life, as well as an immunity against the killer disease tuberculosis. But there was another short health test administered which included the use of a cold spoon and the order to cough, hence the title of this piece! Need I elaborate? Dr Ellis died in July 2006, aged 84. In the tributes to him, he was described as a kind and gentle man, filled with humility, who effortlessly commanded respect. He was immensely proud of the fact that he never saw a private patient. He was succeeded in the role in 1969 by an Old Novo, Dr Andrew Smith (33-39), son of another ON, Dr Andrew Smith (1890-94), who had established a thriving practice at Whickham. At a Debating Society Toast List Dinner in May 1983, he gave a most informed and informative speech about the changing fashion in medicine through ‘direct action’ to ‘preventative medicine’, concluding that the patient had a great deal to put up with, but generally survived and was worthy of receiving a toast in reply! Dr Smith, MB, BS, ON, OBE (awarded 1970), was peculiarly fitted for his job at the RGS; as a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners he combined high professional skill with wide knowledge of people. He was described as completely unflappable, honed by his RAMC and Parachute Regiment background. As clinical Tutor in family medicine at Newcastle University he had the background in which to employ his brusque, cheerful and down to earth approach. He used it at School in his chats with individual boys and in form talks, with nothing barred! After 17 years at RGS, he became a Lecturer in General Practice at Newcastle University, obliging him to relinquish the post of School Medical Officer which he had filled so successfully. Novo, in Autumn 1986, bade farewell with great reluctance to a man who was ‘always ready, in the friendliest way, to tell you “to walk more, eat less and smoke not at all”. He could be discovered in the smoky Common Room munching his austere apple’. Andrew Smith died in May 1996. Dr Henry Greenfield Barnes ON (32-39), affectionately known as Bingy by friends and colleagues, succeeded Dr Smith in 1969 and served for 17 years in the post. As another Old Novo and a GP in Tynemouth and North Shields from 194885, he was well suited to take on the rather nebulous job of School Medical
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