Page 67 - Old Ratcliffian 2020 Edition

notably taking to market the haemostatic only to the opposition. He was a member
medical dressing Kaltostat, which remains of Streetly’s team when they won the
a brand leader to this day. Province 6 five-a-side football trophy; his
ability to get in the way of his opponents
In 1958, on holiday in Cornwall, he met compensated for his lack of skill at the
Wendy, a sophisticated London lady who game and was invaluable. He was also OBITUARIES
was bowled over by this straightforward, invited to be part of his circle’s entry into
good-looking Midlands lad. They fell in the Sutton Coldfield Circle’s annual song
love, marriage followed, and so did their contest, but he explained that his family
son, Jamie, and daughters, Lisa and Julia. had forbidden him ever to sing in public.
Richard had an athletic build, the The last 33 years of his life were spent with
constitution of an ox, and he was a brilliant Annie, who, although not a Catholic, took
engineer, a real life-force, and a gentleman. full part in Catenian activities, and was very
Indeed, he was a bit of a character. He supportive of his faith. They were devoted
could never bring himself to pay anyone to one another.
to do a job that he reckoned he could do
himself. Nor was he very good at following Sadly, in his later years, Richard developed
instructions or warnings, all designed in a degenerative heart condition from which
After school, he joined the family metal his mind for lesser beings. He was great he died shortly after Christmas 2019. His
engineering business, JE Mapplebeck. He company, and if you happened to be on his life was celebrated with a Requiem Mass
did his National Service as a commissioned table at dinner, you knew you were in for an at a packed St Anne’s Church in Streetly,
officer in REME, the engineering branch entertaining evening. on January 16th 2020. He will be greatly
of the British Army, after which he took a missed by Annie, his three children, and
BSc degree course at what is now Aston Richard was a keen rugby and squash five grandchildren. May he rest in peace.
University. When the family business was player, and he brought to these sports
sold in the 1980s, he applied himself to more enthusiasm than grace, as well as a Published with kind permission
consulting and entrepreneurship, most tendency to regard the rules as applicable of the Catena magazine

CHRISTOPHER BROWNE

MARCH 13TH 1944 – APRIL 22ND 2019
OLD RATCLIFFIAN 1958 – 1963

Christopher was born in March 1944 on the Christopher arrived at their house with his
outskirts of Birmingham, and, after local stethoscope, listened to the dog’s heart,
primary schooling, he went to Ratcliffe in and gave him a tablet – so he did not only
January 1958. Following his A Level exams, treat humans!
he went to Ireland as a medical student
at the Royal College of Physicians and Christopher was commissioned as an
Surgeons in Dublin, where our father had officer into the Irish Defence Forces in
studied to be a doctor in the 1920s (being October 1972, and he spent the next
from Strabane in Northern Ireland). After 37 years in the Army Medical Corps as a
qualifying as a doctor in 1969, Christopher doctor, retiring as a lieutenant colonel
did a great deal of work in hospitals in in 2009. He was immensely proud of his
Dublin, as well as locally to his home near service in the Defence Forces, and he loved
Naas in County Kildare, while also helping his time in the army. His career took him on
out at surgeries for local GPs. He even adventures to places such as Cyprus and
ran unofficial surgeries at his home, as Lebanon, both of which he visited several
neighbours often arrived in a panic, with times, and also to the Sinai Desert, Somalia,
children bleeding heavily from somewhere Bosnia, Kosovo, and others.
or other, and having blood all over the
kitchen table and floor was a regular Two stories are worth telling. When his
occurrence. Of course, he never charged a first son was about six years old, he and
friend or neighbour (although a basket of his mother were watching the news on
fruit, eggs, or another commodity, would Irish television, and it was showing the Irish
occasionally be found on the doorstep!), area of South Lebanon under heavy attack,
and he kept most of the village going complete with explosions and tracer
with free prescriptions for decades. I bullets. (At the time, Christopher was was saying that an Irish soldier had been
am even told that, on an occasion when serving as a doctor with the 2nd Irish UN badly wounded, there, on the screen, was
a neighbour’s dog was hit by a car, peacekeeping force.) Just as the reporter his dad, sprinting in a crouched position
The Old Ratcliffian 2020 67