Obituary

Philip Ashby was small, bespectacled, and shy but a determined, uncompromising evangelical Christian who was efficient in his practice, in the Christian Medical Fellowship, and for 40 years as secretary of a parochial church council. He kept a diary from the day he entered Uppingham School to the day of his death and preserved all his notes, records, and correspondence with meticulous care.

At Cambridge he was a well known figure racing along on a child's bicycle. Characteristically, when the president of the college's boat club tried to persuade him to train as a cox by saying that it was not strenuous and he could swear at everybody Philip replied, “But I don't particularly want to swear at anybody.”

After various hospital jobs he became an assistant in a general practice in Cambridge. There he met his future wife, the practice's pharmacist, but they did not embark on their 43 years of married life until 14 years later. In 1930 he became an assistant in a general practice in Tunbridge Wells, and he returned there after the war as a partner. From 1969 he was the senior partner in a growing practice of Christian doctors. He officially retired in 1976 but continued to hold surgeries until 1981 at the age of 75.

Last year, when he was already suffering from heart failure, a gastric carcinoma was diagnosed and he elected to have only palliative treatment. His wife died in 1993, and he is survived by his daughter (a general practitioner) and son and two grandchildren.—FREDERICK J WRIGHT

Philip Theodore Ashby, who was a general practitioner in Tunbridge Wells 1938-41 and 1946-81, died 2 August. Born Tunbridge Wells, 15 February 1906; educated Uppingham School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the London Hospital (MRCS, LRCP 1931; MB, BChir 1933). During war …