Surgeon reached for the stars

Surgeon Geoffrey Wynne-Jones was also a passionate astronomer who helped build one of New Zealand’s largest telescopes.

When surgeon Geoffrey WynneJones, who has died aged 94, was growing up in Ha¯ wera his uncle, Mortimer Townsend, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and active Southern Hemisphere observer, taught him the fundamentals of astronomy.

Geoffrey, who was dux at Ha¯ wera Technical High School, initially went on, as one would expect of one interested in astronomy, to study mathematics and physics at Auckland University.

However, he changed direction after graduation, going on to excel in medicine at Otago University.

A fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Geoffrey rose to be head of surgery at Waikato Hospital and chair of the Braemar Hospital Trust.

But, as a big thinker, he never lost his interest in the universe.

As a young medical man his career, for the most part, appeared to run to plan – although he did spend a year with the 16th Field Regiment on active service in Korea 1952-1953.

He embarked as a Lieutenant, returned as a Captain, and ‘‘never talked much about his experiences to his family but was pleased to come home,’’ son Peter told those at the Cathedral Church of St Peter.

He remained a proud member of the Hamilton Officers’ Club until a couple of years ago.

Following medical school Geoffrey moved to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland where, as family lore will have it, he took more than a professional interest in a young nurse assisting in a medical procedure. 1950s to live their lives in River Road, Hamilton, in a house they only left in 2018.

Their third son, Stephen, was born in 1959 and Rodney followed in 1961. Peter noted, somewhat tongue in cheek, that Jenefer and Geoffrey, apparently not willing to risk a fifth son, adopted Julie in 1964.

Geoffrey worked long hours from rooms in Wesley Chambers and then in Collingwood St but nearly always got home in the evenings for dinner with the family.

To his children, the sound of his key in the front door was one of the happiest times of their childhoods. A member of the Nursing Council, he participated in the 1971 Carpenter Report which recommended in 1971 that nursing education take place in educational institutions rather than in hospitals.

Geoffrey was one of the pioneer surgeons in stomach bypass surgery.

In 1975 Geoffrey published a treatise in the respected medical journal The Lancet with the alarming title: ‘Flatus retention is the major factor in diverticular disease’ – in which he argued the disease was confined to the cultured, refined, and considerate folk of modern urban communities.

Geoffrey believed the disease should be recognised as originating in the suppression of a normal bodily function.

In the early 1960s, Geoffrey and Jenefer decided skiing would be a great family activity and initially stayed at the Chateau before joining the Christiania Ski Club.

As well, in 1965, they started another great love affair when they built their bach at Waihi Beach.

Travel remained a passion and, once the children had left home, the couple travelled extensively.

Geoffrey packed and planned his retirement and returned to his astronomy and cosmology.

He became an active member of the Hamilton Astronomical Society, serving as President and Patron, and was often quoted in the Waikato Times opining on meteorites, unusual sights to watch for in the night sky above Hamilton and, on one occasion, the likelihood the end of the world was nigh due to overpopulation.

In the mid-1990s Geoffrey was instrumental in the building of one of New Zealand’s largest telescopes, a 61cm NasmythCassegrain with a polar mount and 11-metre dome.

He spent many hours in a cold building in Alma St working on various aspects of the job which involved minute tolerances.

He also managed the fundraising side of the project as well as the construction of the new domed structure at Rotokauri.

Sceptical about the Big Bang Theory he gradually developed explanations for an alternative view, which he called the Infinite Non-Expanding Universe Theory.

In 2000 he presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand on alternatives to the Big Bang Theory, largely relating to Compton Red Shifting.

Geoffrey offered several papers on his theory of the universe to scientific journals and, although some interest was expressed, they chose not to publish, possibly because, in his own words, his thinking was ‘‘too contrary to the popular but very conceivably flawed Big Bang Theory’’.

He played golf for a few years at the Pirongia Club and bridge well into his 90s.

In 2011, after Jenefer had two successful operations for her cataracts, Geoffrey embarked on the same plan.

His operations did not have the same positive results and his eyesight was disastrously impaired.

With the help of carers, Jenefer and Geoffrey were able to stay at River Rd until their move to Possum Bourne Retirement Village in May 2018 where they were closer to family. They died within months of one another.

Geoffrey was the husband of the late Jenefer; father of Peter, Jeremy, Stephen, Rodney, and Julie; Father-in-law of Jacqueline, Christine, Elizabeth, Diane, and Mick; and grandfather of Victoria, James, Alexander, Ben, Liam, Jade, Simon, Thomas, David, Amy and Ryan.