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do something and he set up a trust with
the princely sum of £1 in 1967 and by
1974 sufficient funds had been collected
for the trust to start in earnest. He
first established two Macmillan nurses
in Cornwall, which grew to 16. He
also established St Julia’s Hospice in
Hayle, named after his mother. His
cottage at St Ives offered free holidays
for terminally ill cancer patients.
He wanted to share his knowledge
of palliative care overseas and his
charitable arms extended across the
length and breadth of India from the
Palliative Care Society in Assam in the
North East to the Institute of Palliative
Care Medicine at Calicut, Kerala in
the South West. The Wilfred Bruce
Davis Gold Medal was inaugurated
to recognise young doctors in India
who made a significant contribution
to the delivery of palliative care. He
enjoyed flying, gliding and sailing. On
one occasion, whilst lost in a fog off
Portland Bill, he tied up to a buoy,
only to find it marked ‘Keep Off, Firing
Range’. When he sold his sailing boat
the proceeds were used to establish
Pallium India’s Bruce Davis Training
Centre. He was appointed MBE in
1992, having been nominated by a team
of Macmillan nurses. He is survived by
Dodo, his wife of 65 years, and their
three daughters.
Frederick George Blackwood
(K, 39-44): died 17.11.2017 aged 91. At
school, although he enjoyed cricket, he
opted to support local farmers digging
ditches. National Service with the
RAF in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
building airstrips on which they played
cricket. Magdalen College, Oxford, 2
Agriculture 1950. He was offered a job
on a farm in the Great Rift Valley. He
flew to Nairobi in a Dakota, flight time
three days with overnight and lunch
stops. He arrived at Gogar Farm to
live in a house with mud walls. On his
retirement the farm had a collection of
T he T rusty S ervant
antique equipment – ox-carts, Fordson
Major tractor, a 2-cylinder kerosene
John Deere, 1-cylinder Lister diesel
and a threshing machine. During the
Mau Mau uprising he served with the
Kenya Police Reserve. He took over
the full management of Gogar Farm in
1967 and maintained it to perfection
with 74 miles of tensioned fencing and
all the roads maintained with drainage
ditches built to endure whatever the
African rains threw at them. He retired
in 1992 and left Kenya and returned
to Somerset where he continued to
maintain the land and kept machinery
going when others would have despaired
of them. Married 1968 Fiona Grant who
survives him with their son and two
daughters.
Peter Gregson Cronk (H, 40-44):
died 29.7.2018 aged 91. Jesus College,
Cambridge, 2 Natural Sciences 1948.
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, MB, BChir
1951. He then did three years in the
Royal Army Medical Corps, with whom
he served in Tripoli, Libya. Retired as a
Captain 1954. He then took up a sole
General Practitioner post in Gloucester
in 1957. In 1973 he attended an
Occupational Therapy course and
soon had a portfolio of corporate
clients including Wall’s Ice Cream,
Permali and RAF Innsworth and soon
he became Senior Medical Officer,
Ministry of Defence. He later served
with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary 1985-87,
serving as a ship’s doctor, visiting the
Falklands and Norfolk, Virginia. He
was a member, Tewkesbury Borough
Council 1989-9; member, Gloucester
Diocesan Board of Finance 1998-2007;
and member, Bishop’s Council 2003-
2007. Stamp-collecting played a large
part in his life and he was a long-serving
member of the Royal Philatelic Society.
He won awards for his ‘Seahorses’
collection. He loved sailing and cruised
extensively with the Island Cruising
Club. He bought keelboats and
27
based them at Salcombe, and later in
Dartmouth. He enjoyed pottering and
tinkering with the boats. Married (1)
1953 Elizabeth Ogden (died 1993) and
(2) 1996 Diana Richards, who survives
him with three sons.
William (Bill) Frank Philip Currie
(B, 41-46): died 6.2.2018. His halcyon
days were at West Hill preparatory
school when it was evacuated to
Polzeath to escape Hitler’s bombers.
RMAS 1947. Commissioned into 4th
Hussars, later to become the Queen’s
Royal Irish Hussars, with whom he
served in Malaya, BAOR, Borneo and
the United Kingdom. He was Adjutant,
the Shropshire Yeomanry and later
attended the Australian Staff College.
During this time he witnessed the
muster not of sheep but of hundreds of
kangaroos. His last appointment was
Commanding Officer, the Armoured
Automotive School. He retired as
Lieutenant Colonel in 1978. As a
Retired Officer he was Staff Officer to
the Military Secretary at HQ UKLF
1980-93. He ran a syndicate on the
Army shoot at Tidworth and he shared
with his wife an interest in working
Labradors. He is survived by Ann, his
wife of 64 years, and their son and
daughter.
Sherban Georges Cantacuzino
(H, 42-46): died 19.2.2018. He was
the elder child of Prince George
Cantacuzino. Cannons were fired on the
Cantacuzino estate on his birth and he
claimed descent from the 14th-Century
Byzantine Emperor John VI. He came to
England in 1939 to attend prep school.
His father returned to Bucharest in
1940, where he was imprisoned and
Sherban was never to see him again.
His housemaster, Budge Firth, became
a surrogate father, paying for his last
term. Co Prae, Bisley and Editor, The
Wykehamist. Exhibitioner, Magdalene
College, Cambridge 1947. MA 1956.