Christopher Strang

After house officer appointments in Newcastle he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1942. After the second world war he became house physician at the Brompton Hospital before becoming a medical registrar and subsequently senior medical registrar at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, and at the cardiothoracic unit at Shotley Bridge Hospital. He was appointed consultant physician with special interest in chest diseases at the Newcastle General and Ashington Hospitals.

Christopher Strang was a splendid example of a diminishing breed of general physicians. He was a greatly admired and respected colleague who became on the basis of his publications a member of the Thoracic Society and the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland early in his consultant career. While devoted to the NHS he also had an extensive private practice and was an excellent clinical teacher of medical and dental students. As a kindly and compassionate physician, he became widely known in the north east as the doctor’s doctor, consulted by doctors and their families because of his broad expertise, approachable personality, and wisdom.

He was a man of great charm, immaculate dress, and diction, demanding the highest of standards of food, wine, music, and décor. He and his wife, Marie, were splendid hosts. His love and knowledge of music made him organise, successfully, an appeal to keep the department of music in the university open for future generations. He enjoyed holidays in France, eventually sharing a house in Provence with friends. On arrival his whole demeanour and body language changed to those of a Gallic man.

Christo, as he was known to everyone, developed increasing disability because of advancing Parkinsonism in the last two years of his life, but was devotedly cared for by his wife, Marie, who survives him, as do a daughter and two sons, one a medical practitioner, and eight grandchildren. Their youngest daughter died from a cerebral tumour in 1997. [John Walton, Raymond Dobson]