Vincent England Sherburn

Vincent England Sherburn

Former senior medical officer with the medical boarding centre (respiratory diseases) Sheffield (b Warrington 1923; q Manchester 1946; MB ChB, MRCS Eng LRCP Lond, MFOM RCP Lond), died from pneumonia on 18 November 2005.

Vincent Sherburn ("Vin") was born on 6 July 1923 in Padgate, near Warrington, and was educated at Manchester Grammar School. He studied medicine in Manchester during the second world war and, as a student, served on fire watch duties and also treated some of the first casualties to be evacuated back to England after the D Day landings. He was house surgeon on the firm of Sir Harry Platt, where he also worked with John Charnley, some years his senior. Although he contemplated a career in surgery his interest was drawn to respiratory diseases and he worked initially in the Manchester region, at the High Carley sanatorium in Ulverston, as deputy medical superintendent. It was while working in the Lake District that he met Beryl, whom he married in 1951. In 1952 he and Beryl moved to Doncaster, and he was appointed to the northeast mass radiography service in Sheffield, where he continued to work until 1964. He was then appointed to the medical boarding centre in Sheffield, particularly dealing with compensation tribunals for workers suffering from pneumoconiosis and tuberculosis. In this capacity he served a large territory which extended from Sheffield and Whitby in the north, down as far as Norfolk. He was subsequently appointed as senior medical officer until his retirement in 1993.

At school he was a keen sportsman, and it always irked him that despite being captain of the Extra A Rugby XV he was never awarded his full colours. He was a life long supporter of Lancashire Cricket Club and also, as a personal friend of Ross Salmon, the BBC cricket scorer, enjoyed Test matches at Old Trafford and Headingley. (Characteristically, Vin and Beryl had provided hospitality and accommodation when Ross had travelled to Yorkshire to deliver an after dinner speech to a meeting of the Doncaster Round Table.) For many years Vin played golf regularly, but his expertise never quite matched his enthusiasm for the sport. In his adopted home town of Doncaster he served as honorary medical officer for the race course for 42 years between 1951 and 1993 until reluctantly forced to retire on reaching his 70th birthday.

In the 1960s Vin had a family holiday in the small village of Cogolin, close to St. Tropez, and subsequently purchased a property there. Though he travelled widely, it was always Cogolin which he loved most and to which he frequently returned. He spent much time gardening and was also an accomplished bridge player, both activities which he shared with Beryl. His later years were plagued by progressive visual failure due to macular degeneration but he remained intellectually astute and continued to entertain and amuse, and enjoyed the growing successes of his two grandsons, James and Jonathon, who had also both attended the Manchester Grammar School. He also leaves a wife, Beryl, and two children, Anne and Nigel.

By nature a quiet and generous family man who enjoyed his pipe and a gin and tonic or a French wine, and who thrived in company and conversation, he would have liked no greater tribute than to be remembered simply as "a good caring bloke." [Bob Redfern]