‘I admired his patience’

Rajan Madhok, retired public health doctor

Just when I thought that life will be resuming soon, with lifting of restrictions, and that one would be able to do what old men do: have a drink, walk down memory lane, share stories, and complain about the state of the world, then the thunderbolt struck.

By an uncanny coincidence I was watching an Indian film: Ram Prasad ki Tehrvi, about the gathering of the clan after the death of the patriarch when the message arrived that Kailash was no more. Sudden, no time to say goodbye and having that long overdue visit that we kept postponing, since I now live in North Wales and because of prolonged periods of travel restrictions on cross border movement, we had not managed to get together for some time.

Among many other qualities, I admired his commitment to the NHS and his patience and used to wonder what kept him going, while I had thrown in the towel after the Jarrow March I did in 2015. We were both watching the slow destruction of the NHS, an institution we loved, but rather than let it defeat him it energised him – “Do not go gentle into that good night” – and until the very end he was actively championing it. We will all miss his fearless, thoroughly researched and objective reporting of the issues facing the NHS.

And I will miss his daily “Lesson for life”, arriving just in time for my morning tea to lift me up, and his poetry – a connoisseur of Urdu poetry – he had one for every occasion. Thank you for the good times. Sleep well, my friend.