Richard Claude Hamber

Richard Claude Hamber (“Dick”) was born in Fordingbridge, the son of John Francis (“Frank”) Hamber, a local general practitioner (his obituary appeared in the BMJ on 31 October 1987).

He was educated at St George’s College, Weybridge, and called up for national service in March 1945. He attended the officer cadet training unit in Bangalore and was commissioned into the Hampshire regiment, seeing service in HQ Canal South at Fayaid in Egypt.

He returned to England in 1948 and the following year started his medical studies at King’s College, London. After qualifying, he completed three posts at King’s, including paediatrics under Sir Wilfred Sheldon (1901-57), paediatrician to HM the Queen.

Dick met his future wife, Aita Sell, an Estonian, at King’s, where she was a nursing sister.

He came to Salisbury in 1957 and accepted an assistantship without a view to partnership, which included helping an elderly, neighbouring, general practitioner, Dr RC Monnington, and at no extra salary. However, they got on well and Dick was subsequently taken into partnership such that, by the time Monnington retired, Dick had a list of his own and was able to join Drs Watson and Davies in New Street, Salisbury, his original employers.

He became senior partner in1970. The following year the University of Southampton established its medical school, and Dick became one of its first trainers of general practitioners.

To his GP trainees, he was great exemplar of the vocational aspects of being a doctor and impressed on them the therapeutic effects of just listening to patients, giving them time, being there for them. And,to avoid an invitation from the GMC, his sage advice to them was that doctors got into hot water for not going rather than not knowing.

Dick had a ready smile and a great sense of humour. To avoid that difficult patient you were about to bump into in town, he gave the useful tip, “Hide behind a lorry.” Of course Dick always led by example.

Dick said he was never happier in his professional life than when visiting his patients in their homes in the Bourne Valley. He felt you could not get to know people in the surgery in the same way. He particularly enjoyed his paediatric patients and loved his work as a school doctor at Chafyn Grove School, Salisbury.

As a physician he was held in high regard by his colleagues, both in hospital and among his fellow general practitioners. He was also seen as someone who could contribute to the management of the NHS and served on the hospital district management team and the Wiltshire family practitioners committee.

Dick retired in1992. It was at this time also that the practice opened a branch surgery at Porton in the Bourne valley and was named Hamber House in his honour.

In his retirement he continued to hone his considerable skills in cabinetry and woodturning that had included building a highly detailed dolls’ house for his daughters and subsequently numerous wooden toys for his grandchildren. A proud and loving father and grandfather, he enjoyed many family holidays fell walking in Cumbria.

His wife of 55 years, Aita, died in 2010. He leaves a brother; children, Anthony, Joanna, and Lisa; and 11 grandchildren.