Thomas Henry Learmont Bryson (“Tom”) qualified from Glasgow University in 1953. On the first day of house jobs, at the Western Infirmary Glasgow, he went to theatre to assist and was told “to get the patient under”: he was to be the anaesthetist. This, together with his time on national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, in Uganda, kindled a lifelong interest in giving, teaching, and improving anaesthetics.

After anaesthetic training in Liverpool, he was appointed consultant anaesthetist to the Uganda Government between 1962 and 1964. It was there that he met Professor Philip Bromage, from Canada, who introduced him to epidurals and furthered his interest in obstetric anaesthesia. …