Dr Chris Cameron
Scottish general practitioner, talented musician and lover of the Outdoors
Christopher H Cameron, general practitioner. Born: 10 January 1940 in Edinburgh. Died: 27 September 2020 in Kelso, aged 80
Dr Christopher Cameron was in general medical practice in Kelso, Borders Region, for many years.
Although he came from a medical background( his father, Ernest Cameron, was a prominent ophthalmologist in Edinburgh), his first forays were quite unrelated to what became his main life's work.
While still in his teens, he was offered as a future legacy an 800-acre sheep farm in the hear t of the Lammermuirs, where his parents had a summer cottage, such was the enthusiasm and competence he displayed when down there on holiday. He turned the offer down and in due course entered the Arts Faculty of Edinburgh University to study languages. After a year of this, however, he decided to follow his father and transferred to the Faculty of Medicine-an administratively easy step at that time, but leading to a fairly gruelling first year, as he had no basic science of note.
Once qualified and having done the several hospital residences required, he set about fulfilling his ambition of taking up a general practice in
the Borders and in due course became a Principal in practice in Kelso, a post he remained in for the rest of his working life.
A spell of ill-health, combined with a growing dismay at the way the Health Service was being reorganised - which he felt was affecting general practice for the worse - led to his taking early retirement.
However, far from slipping into inactivity, he enrolled at university again, taking Russian( and, at least initially, Gaelic), pursuing the former to degree level, having found
a long-lost branch of his family in St Petersburg which provided an extra stimulus to his studies.
His next excursion was to set about a thesis on "Colloquial names for birds in South-east Scotland", thus giving expression to his profound interest in bird life, his lifelong attachment to that area and his love of people and of con versation. He was awarded an M.SC. “Magna cum Laude”.
He was a very competent violinist, but later moved over to the viola, which he played not only informally in chamber groups with friends, but in the B orders Orchestra: in addition he spent some years as a member of the European Doctors' Orchestra, playing in many of the principal cities of the Continent. He maintained his musical activities until the progression of what became his final illness made it impossible to continue.
Beside and around him, underlining all these activities, however, was an overarching delight in the countryside, particularly the Border Hills, where much of his outdo or time was spent tramping the valleys and the high grounds, which he knew with an intimacy that reflected his love of the area - a love he was only too keen to share with anyone who could keep up with him on his "walks" (ten to 20 miles over rough moor and gradient).
In an age of ever-narrower specialisation, Chris was a polymath: his many interests outside the world of Medicine enhancing the practice of his vocation while enriching the lives of those touched by him: we are all the poorer for his loss, but immeasurably richer for having known him.
Chris is survived by Isobel, his wife of 52 years whom he met while a junior doctor in Taunton, their three children and four grandchildren.