Dr Margaret Fleming

Wartime surgeon who treated maimed and wounded soldiers returning from D-day

n Dr Margaret Fleming, surgeon and GP. Born: 3 January, 1914, in Edinburgh. Died: 4 April, 2015, in Newcastle upon Tyne, aged 101.

M ARGARET Fleming was a wartime surgeon whose skills in the operating theatre were crucial to the maimed and wounded returning from the tumult of D-day.

A woman born before the outbreak of the First World War – a conflict that it had been hoped would be the war to end all wars – she had found herself, just a generation later, propelled into the maelstrom that followed one of the 20th century’s most epic events as the world was embroiled in battle once again.

Having graduated with a medical degree a couple of years into the Second World War, she was working as a doctor at Edinburgh’s Gogarburn wartime emergency hospital when she was called up by the Royal Army Medical Corps to form part of a mobile medical team.

It was the early summer of 1944 and plans for a military invasion of unparalleled scale were being put into action amidst the greatest secrecy.

With no idea where she was heading but having already anticipated a hush-hush move might be on the cards, she had already devised an enigmatic message in which she would call her mother with instructions to cancel her “hair appointment”. It was her code to signal that she was being posted south.

Margaret left Edinburgh on the eve of D-day and treated the returning casualties of the Normandy Invasion, serving as an assistant surgeon during amputations and operations to treat the bullet wounds suffered by troops who had taken part in the mission known as Operation Overlord.

Although the largest Combined Operation in history was a success for the Allies and marked the beginning of the end for Hitler, the carnage on the beaches of northern France was as shocking as some of the losses at the Somme.

Margaret, whose skills and expertise were vital to the clearing stations, went on to become a GP and reach her century. She later recalled: “When I was younger I always wanted to be part of history – it’s only recently I’ve realised that I was.”

The daughter of a medical family – her father William Walker was doubly qualified as a doctor and dentist and her mother Jessie was a nurse – she was born at their home in Edinburgh’s Inverleith Row which also served as her father’s practice.

After being educated initially by a governess, she attended the capital’s St Denis School where she became head girl. At one time she had hoped to train as a nurse but decided instead on medicine, despite never having had the chance at school to study any of the sciences.

However, her father encouraged her not to go straight into a medical degree and gave her the option of having a year abroad at a finishing school or taking and arts degree.

She opted for the latter, studying subjects including French which was to prove a practical advantage when treating wounded French soldiers.

She graduated with an MA from the University of Edinburgh in 1938 and then, following a crash course in science, embarked on her medical studies there, graduating MBCHB in 1941.

From there she went to Gogarburn where part of the facilities, which normally accommodated people with learning difficulties, had been turned over to become an emergency hospital dealing with surgical cases from the forces.

On 5 June, 1944 – the day before D-day – she was part of a surgical team of six who left Edinburgh bound for the south of England. Initially Margaret, who was the assistant surgeon, was posted to Horton Hospital, Epsom. Several weeks later she moved to Park Prewett in Basingstoke, a psychiatric hospitalcum-military clearing station where the man regarded as the father of plastic surgery, Sir Harold Gillies, who had pioneered facial reconstruction during the Great War, also worked during the Second World War.

Although she had dealt with casualties at Gogerburn, including some German prisoners of war, the aftermath of the invasion was an eye-opener. The advent of penicillin meant that many more of the wounded could be treated by antibiotics and survive to be operated on back in the UK rather than succumb to infection in the field.

And with so many men in the medical profession already away serving their country, the situation gave Margaret the opportunity to become involved in work she may not otherwise have experienced.

After the war ended she married John Fleming back home in Edinburgh in 1946. They had first met as schoolchildren – he was seven, she was eight – through a family link. Her aunt married his uncle and when Margaret and John saw each other again as adults it was love at first sight.

The couple, who were married for almost 60 years, moved to Gosforth in Newcastle upon Tyne where she worked as a doctor for Marks and Spencer and as a medical expert assessing the health issues of retired miners. By the 1960s she was working as a GP, combining the job with the role of mother to their son Charles.

Margaret, who retired at the age of 64, had many interests outside work, including Scottish history, and was a member of the Saltire Society until the end of her days.

She and her husband had also been life members of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne which they joined in 1947, and she was involved in the Pybus Society for the History of Medicine. She was also an active member of her local church and had been president of the Gosforth Musical Society.

Philosophical about her limitations as she aged, she remained determined but adaptable, a woman of strong moral principles and who retained a deep attachment to her Edinburgh alma mater. She returned for the 60th anniversary of her medical year and last year, having turned 100, attended the centenary of her old school’s former pupils’ association, cutting the cake and making a brief speech.

Predeceased by her husband John, whom she had cared for at home for several years after he developed Alzheimers’ disease, she is survived by their son Charles.

1 MAY

1517: “Evil May Day” riots in London as apprentices attacked foreign residents. Sixty rioters later were hanged. 1522: England declared war on France and Scotland. 1648: Scots began second Civil War. 1707: The Act of Union between Scotland and England came into force. 1786: The first performance took place, in Vienna, of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. 1840: The first Penny Black stamps with Queen Victoria’s head went on sale five days before the official issue date. 1841: London Library, founded by Thomas Carlyle, WE Gladstone, Lord Macaulay and others, was opened. 1851: The Great Exhibition was opened in Hyde Park by Queen Victoria. 1912: The statue of Peter Pan was installed in Kensington Gardens, London. JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, commissioned and paid for it although children were told fairies put it there. 1931: President Hoover opened New York’s Empire State Building, 1,245ft high, with 102 floors. 1931: First unit trusts went on sale in Britain, marketed by M&G General Trust Fund. 1941: Orson Welles’s first film, Citizen Kane, received its première. 1942: Japanese forces took Mandalay, Burma, while British retreated along Chindwin Valley to India. 1949: Britain’s gas industry was nationalised. 1961: The Betting and Gaming Act came into force, and betting shops opened in Britain. 1978: The May Day holiday was celebrated for the first time in Britain. 1982: British Vulcan bombers flew epic 3,500 miles from Ascension Island to bomb Falklands airport at Port Stanley. 1986: Millions of black people stayed away from jobs and schools in what was described as largest anti-apartheid protest in South Africa’s history. 1989: Vietnamese-installed government in Cambodia changed country’s name and flag. 1990: Soviet protesters heckled president Mikhail Gorbachev at May Day parade on Red Square. 1990: Secret naval documents published in The Scotsman revealed history of accidents involving the multi-million pound submarine hoists at Faslane. 1991: Government forced War Crimes Bill through, using Parliament Act for first time in 40 years to override Lords objections. 1997: Seven Tory Cabinet ministers lost their seats as Labour swept back to power after 18 years in a general election landslide that saw Tony Blair become prime minister. Labour had 419 MPS in the new Parliament, Tories 165, Liberal Democrats 46 and SNP six. 2003: Ten countries – Estonia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – joined the 25-member European Union. 2008: The Conservatives scored a resounding victory in local elections in England and Wales in which Labour’s 24 per cent of the vote cost them 331 seats and pushed them into third place behind the Tories and Liberal Democrats. A day later the Tories’ Boris Johnson unseated Ken Livingstone as mayor of London. 2011: The late Pope, John Paul II, was beatified at a ceremony at the Vatican in front of hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful.

BIRTHDAYS

Joanna Lumley OBE, actress, 69; Rodger Arneil, Scottish rugby player, 71; Naim Attallah, publisher, 84; Lady Sarah Chatto, daughter of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, 51; Roger Chapman, golfer, 56; Judy Collins, singer, 76; Rita Coolidge, Grammy Awardwinning pianist/singer, 70; Tony Dobbin, Northern Irish jockey, 43; Prof Phillip King, sculptor, president of the Royal Academy of Arts 1997-2004, 81; Danny Mcgrain, Scottish footballer, 65; Julian Mitchell, author, 80; Una Stubbs, actress, 78; Antony Worrall Thompson, television chef and restaurateur, 64; Anushka Sharma, actress, 27; Ray Parker junior, musician, 61.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1218 Rudolf I, founder of the Habsburg dynasty; 1672 Joseph Addison, poet, essayist and co-founder of The Spectator; 1839 Hilaire, Comte de Chardonnet, rayon manufacture pioneer; 1878 James Graham, 6th Duke of Montrose, inventor; 1923 Joseph Heller, author (Catch-22). Deaths: 1700 John Dryden, Poet Laureate for 32 years; 1859 John Walker, inventor of friction match; 1873 David Livingstone, medical missionary, traveller, philanthropist; 1928 Sir Ebenezer Howard, founder of Letchworth and Welwyn Garden cities; 1945 Joseph Goebbels, Nazi leader; 1952 William Fox, founder of 20th Century Fox; 1998 Justin Fashanu, footballer; 2011 Ted Lowe MBE, British snooker commentator; 2011 Sir Henry Cooper OBE, former British heavyweight boxing champion.