Connor Edward Morris

Like his father, Charles, who lectured for many years at the Royal College of Surgeons, Connor Edward Morris (“Ed”) was a Barts man. He went from house jobs on to the GP rotational scheme at the Royal Free Hospital and got his MRCGP. In 1984 he moved to Witney, Oxfordshire, to take up a post at the Nuffield Health Centre, where he remained for the rest of his career, latterly as senior partner. Ed’s reputation was as a committed and compassionate doctor. During his memorial service in St Mary’s Church, Witney, conducted by the Bishop of Reading, former patients or their family members stood up spontaneously across the church to testify to the quality of attention and care he had afforded them across three decades.

Trying to summarise Ed’s contribution over these 30 years puts me in mind of John Berger’s classic 1960s study of a west country GP, The Fortunate Man. Berger asked what was the social value of a pain eased, or of the witness that a GP offered families and individuals across time, across life events. He concluded that society did not know how to take the measure of the contribution of ordinary working doctor, that his value was ultimately unassessable.

So, too, the value not only of a good doctor, but of a good man. It may be that a good man is also ultimately unassessable. Perhaps the best distillation of Ed came from one of Ed’s practice partners, who described him as “moral and rebellious.” Ed was a Quaker but never really mentioned it. He didn’t need to, because he so embodied the Quaker traditions of tolerance and philanthropy in his everyday life, and the understanding that faith is nothing if not accompanied by deeds. He was involved in all sorts of charitable and humanistic projects, local and international, from the Woodland Trust to Palestinian human rights. At the time of his death he was the local distributor of Palestinian olive oil, an example of his practical approach to solidarity. He was not above sneaking into Waitrose and putting “Buy Palestinian” stickers on Israeli produce.

Ed was also a sporting man: he played league squash past 60, was my irreplaceable cycling companion on many “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” style trips in Mediterranean countries, and he trained as a microlight pilot. It was while flying his microlight that he died in an accident at Enstone airport, Oxfordshire, on 3 July.

He leaves a family to whom he was wholly committed: his wife, Lesley; daughters Katy and Mathilda; and three grandchildren.

Where do we start with Ed Morris? We are all carrying a set of felt associations with him, which are at once as fresh as a daisy but also suddenly of another world. It’s hard to capture or summarise someone’s presence and movement in the world, isn’t it? We are all not just the sum of our parts. Each of us carries our own version of Ed.