A Tribute
ADAPTED FROM SUSIE KING’S TRIBUTE AT HIS MEMORIAL SERVICE AT ALL SAINTS, FULHAM ON 12 JANUARY 2023
This is a belated obituary for our good friend, Dr Tom King, who died on 12 December 2022, and whose Memorial Service was held at All Saints, Fulham on 12 January 2023.
Thomas James King was born on 15 November 1932. Tom and his 3 brothers were brought up in Bedford, and all four of them gained scholarships to Bedford Modern School and, in due course, went on to be eminent in their respective fields. The young ‘Tommy’ sung in the church choir at Elstow, kept mice (or were they rats?), endured brother Bob’s loud jazz, explored the countryside, listened out for doodlebugs, hung out in milk bars, and, along with his brothers, went rowing at Bedford Modern School - there would always be rowing. Tom first rowed at Henley in 1950 in the school’s 1st 8 in the Princess Elizabeth Cup.
In the autumn of 1950, Tom went up to St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School. He would have thrown himself into the hard work and the adventures awaiting a young medical student in those days. He trod the boards, hurtled round London on his bike, drank beer in the Fountains Abbey. He won his Purple for University of London, rowing for them at Henley in the Thames in 1951, and then for St Mary’s Hospital in the Wyfolds in 1954, probably his last year of serious rowing, as he would have been concentrating on his medical exams after that. He reached the semi-finals at HRR in both 1951 and 1954, no mean feat!
After qualification and house jobs, in 1958 he was commissioned as Surgeon Lieutenant in the Royal Navy based at the Asian Hospital in Singapore and in Hong Kong. He often reminisced about his time in the Royal Navy – not The Navy, you understand, the ROYAL Navy.
Tom and Adèle Bebb married in HK in 1959; their firstborn, Scarlett arrived in Singapore in 1960, their second child, Miles, in 1961 and their third, Alex, in 1964 – all on 16th May. On their return home, Tom and Adèle lived in Drayton Gardens, London, and enjoyed family life there during the 1960s and 70s. These were the days when new trattoria sprang up – Tom mimicked Italian restauranteurs hailing him ‘Il Dottore’. Family holidays were often taken in France - he told the story of settling the 3 children on mattresses in the back of the car in Drayton Gardens, telling them they weren’t allowed to get out until they reached Nice!
Tom loved his family deeply, agonised in their setbacks and delighted in their joys, a notable one being the birth in 1992 of his only grandchild, Tallulah.
In the mid-1960s Tom joined the flourishing private general practice in Basil Mansions, Knightsbridge, London. Over 35 years he made firm friends of many of his patients who loved and trusted him. He kept in touch with his colleagues and many of the nurses-cum-secretaries who worked in the practice. Tom loved them all – his second wife Susie (née Pym), who he married in 1984, was one of them. Someone once described Tom as the ‘best diagnostician’ in London – which might have encouraged their neighbours to ask him to come round to look at a child’s rash; the best diagnostician in London famously told them that he hadn’t the faintest idea what it was!
Tom was extremely competitive, threw himself into every sport and was a stickler for the rules, including short tennis! However, rowing was the sporting love of his life. He returned to rowing with a vengeance, dubbing himself a ‘fanatic veteran competitor’ at LRC, which he joined on 16 October 1978, having been proposed by John Millbourn, and seconded by David King (with Maurice Rayner as co-seconder), all sadly now gone too. For 10 years up to the late 1980s he competed in numerous regattas and events at home and abroad, in a single scull, and in 4s and 8s, most often at stroke – he was a masterful stroke! Many, many hard-fought wins, hours of training, jogging before work and, undeterred by the cold and the dark, back on the water in the evenings.
Tom first won as a veteran in 1982 where he won twice at the Nat Vet Champs - VD8 and VE8, as well as in Ghent in a VD4+, plus 9 others; his really big year was 1984, with 17 wins, including FISA Masters in Prague in a 4, three at the Nat Vet Champs, Vesta Head, two in Amsterdam! He also had a good year in 1986 with 8 wins, and in 1987 when he won at FISA Masters in Sweden, and 5 other wins. No doubt there were many more, but the regattas were FISA Masters; Vesta, Molesey, Upper Thames, Henley and Reading Heads; Nat Vet Champs; Richmond; Vesta; Worcester; Met; Putney; Hammersmith; Henley Town; Mortlake; Bedford; Maidenhead; and internationally Amsterdam and Ghent. The list goes on and on - there were so many wins!!
Tom wrote that his proudest gold medals were won in 4s at the FISA Masters international events in Prague in 1984 and in Sweden in 1987. Mostly he rowed with Simon Rippon, Richard Linning, Tony Hall, Andy Donaldson, Lee Marriner, Desmond Hampton, and Robert Rakison, with Rodney Bewes and Keith Ticehurst coxing.
His final appearance on the water was in the LRC Twelve Oar marking Henley’s 150th anniversary in 1989, which rowed over the course in a time of 6.30.
In 1981 he served as the Medical Officer to the GB Rowing Team at the World Championships in Munich.
Golf was also important to Tom and, over the last 25 years, he relished his membership of New Zealand Golf Club in Surrey. Whilst always a strictly social golfer, Tom was a former Captain at Roehampton, had been a member of Aberdovey and Rye, and was a past Captain of the George Stubbs Golfing Society. His St. Mary’s golfing group, most originally rugby players, continued to join forces for decades with their families in Cornwall at Easter.
There was always time for other pursuits and passions. Initially reluctant to have a dog, he quickly grew to love Tom’s and Susie’s first daxi, Albert, and formed the most remarkable bond with his successor, Teddy – someone wondered if he had ever really got over losing him and the answer is that no, he hadn’t!
He enjoyed his food and wine and mourned the passing of the days when he could linger over a dinner table with a cognac and a cigar. He was an enthusiastic gardener and he loved birds and enjoyed watching and feeding them (the day after he died his friend the robin hopped up to the back door to say cheerio). He was an excellent photographer, loved musical theatre and enjoyed annual jaunts to Chichester Festival productions; last summer it was Crazy For You which Tom and Susie first saw on Broadway on his 60th birthday. He got to grips with modern technology, and was an absolute dab hand at DIY, doggedly determined to mend and fix pretty well anything.
But of course, time took its toll as he became increasingly immobile and restricted in what he could do. Anyone who has watched rugger with Tom will vouch for the fact that he was obsessively absorbed in every game and always had a few match recordings up his sleeve to watch - when the coast was clear!
He has gone, along with his loving heart, the twinkle in his eye, his ready smile and his kind words. He hated growing and being old and decrepit but never totally gave in and NEVER complained; he bravely endured and rarely spoke of the many, many unwelcome and disruptive complaints with which he lived, including the chronic back pain he suffered throughout his adult life.
Our sympathies go out to Susie and the rest of Tom’s family.
