the times | Saturday April 9 2022 81
Readers’ Lives
that opened the way for the second
stage of his career as the postgraduate
medical dean in 1992 at the University
of Aberdeen. There he made it his
priority to increase medical trainingStraight-talking Scottish consultant physician and university dean
opportunities in the north of Scotland
and went out of his way to ensure
that the doctors he taught were
placed in suitable training positions.
At the end of an esteemed career
he was recognised as the lead dean
for psychiatry in Britain, and a fellow
of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
and the Royal College of Surgeons of
Edinburgh. In 2019 the Royal College
of Physicians of Edinburgh presented
him with its first ever medal for
“fellowship with distinction”.
An Edinburgh man through and
through, Bertie was born in the city in
1939, attended the Edinburgh
Academy and read medicine and
pharmacology at the university. His
father John was a GP and his mother
Janet (née Hall) ran the family home.
Alongside medicine he had a
lifelong preoccupation with golf andhe was often on the course on a
Wednesday afternoon. He was an
Edinburgh blue, and part of the
university golf team during the
1962-63 season when they won both
the Scottish and British universities
championships. He went on to
represent the successful Scottish
universities’ international team and
was a member of the Royal & Ancient
Golf Club of St Andrews for 56 years.
In 1964 at a university ball he met
Sheila Pirie, a medical student, and
was instantly smitten. They married
two years later and raised Nicola, a
strategy director, Andrew, a
sportswear designer, Joanna, a lawyer,
and Phillippa, a teacher. Sheila
worked as a GP and ran a diabetic
clinic with her husband in Perth.
In retirement Bertie worked into
his eighties in medical administrationand was on several committees. He
also served as HM inspector of
anatomy for Scotland.
Bertie’s work ethic was legendary.
Rare were the family dinners when he
did not later return to the wards, and
he often called in to the hospital at
the weekend. Colleagues appreciated
his high standards of clinical practice,
thoughtful comments around the
committee table and direct approach.
One trainee recalled being
interviewed by Bertie, who wasted no
time in asking three questions: “Do
you have any criminal convictions?
Do you have issues with substance
abuse? Might you pose a danger to
my nursing staff ?” Hearing a “no” for
each answer, Bertie responded:
“Good. In which case you don’t have
any of the problems of some of my
colleagues. You can have the job.”As the consultant physician at the
Perth Royal Infirmary for 20 years,
Robert Wood cut a robust figure. He
specialised in diabetes and medical
oncology and after one consultation
asked a young patient if he could
shake her hand. She was happy to
oblige but questioned the gesture. His
reply? “Because if you don’t change
your lifestyle we’ll never meet again.”
Amusing, industrious and widely
respected, the pipe-smoking Professor
Wood, known as Bertie, also taught
medicine and therapeutics at the
University of Dundee, held several
posts for Tayside health board and
was treasurer and trustee to the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
It was his administrative strengths
Prof Bertie Wood, 82
Bertie Wood had a blue in golf and was
a Royal & Ancient member for 56 yearscompanion and, for a short
while, a Mark Mason. As
secretary of the Bristol
Masonic Society his minutes
were legendary and often
more entertaining than the
meetings they described.
Even after leaving Bristol,
Martin remained acutely
aware of the importance to
university life of its alumni,
and he continued to cultivate
and foster the allegiance of
graduates. He was president of the
Manor Hall Association, which he
helped to revitalise, and a
Convocation representative on the
University Court, which served as a
bridge between the university and the
wider community.
A learned man, he was a fellow of
the Geological Society and the
Society of Antiquaries of London and
sometime chairman of the Bristol and
Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society. He published many articles
and books, and his lectures on the
history of Bristol and the university
number well over a hundred.
His 1990 Bristol PhD in
ecclesiastical history, at 968 pages
with 5,500 footnotes, was of such a
prodigious length that the university
subsequently imposed a word limit for
doctoral theses.
Martin’s memory never left him
and he continued to delight listeners
with poetry and readings from the
Bible, the Book of Common Prayer,
the works of Charles Dickens, Gilbert
and Sullivan and colourful limericks.
Martin had many bouts of ill health
but faced them stoically with support
from friends. At the Bristol Royal
Infirmary in 2018 he kept a visitors’
book signed by 397 people during his
three-month stay.
In his living and work quarters he
collected an extraordinary number of
antiques and, as fond as he was of his
students, one was heard to remark
that they loved the warden “almost
as much as the warden loves his
Chinese porcelain”.
Martin Crossley Evans died on
October 18, 2021, at the Royal
Lancaster Infirmary after surgery
following a fall. A memorial
service will take place in Bristol in
the Great Hall of the Wills
Memorial Building on April 23
at 2.30pm. To attend, email
[email protected]Martin was known to be passionate
and punctilious in everything he
undertook. On one occasion, during a
heated discussion regarding the
graduate database, the registrar
pronounced: “Martin, the trouble with
you is that you have the ability to
create principles where none exist!”
In addition to his students, he was
committed to charitable work. From
1973 he was involved in the Heswall
Disabled Children’s Holiday Fund,
which hosts holiday camps, first as a
volunteer and later as a leader,
recruiting many of his students to
help. He served as a trustee and
chairman of several local charities,
many connected with the
18th-century Christ Church with St
Ewen, where he worshipped and was
church warden.
For 18 years he was a well-
respected Bristol justice of the peace,
with a skill for blending authority
with compassion and for clearly
explaining the bench's decisions. A
wider circle of friends came from the
fraternity of the Old Greshamian
Lodge where he served as master, and
in 1990 he joined the Saint Vincent
Lodge in Bristol. He was a Royal Archcommittee of its alumni body, the
Wills Hall Association.
He studied archaeology and
geology and was taught by Dr Basil
Cottle, the historian and reader in
medieval studies, who was struck by
the student’s “savage, enormous blue
writing... full of dates”.
After Bristol, Martin got a
postgraduate certificate in education
at Keele University, and for a while
taught at the independent
Shrewsbury School. He followed it
with a position at Gresham’s School,
north Norfolk, where a colleague
wrote of him: “For three years he gave
us all something different... to some
a religious awareness; to others a
sense of humour and proportion.”
In 1984 Martin returned to Bristol
and stayed until his retirement in
2018, for a frenetic three and a half
decades of devoted service. He joined
the Corps of Bedells, the Bristol
University ceremonial officers, and
was university marshal between 2013
and 2017. Recalling The Mikado's
Pooh-Bah, other university titles
included historic collections officer,
alumni officer, and assistant secretary
and clerk to convocation.A devoted Anglican who could
combine spiritual seriousness with a
liberal and often scurrilous sense of
fun, Dr Martin Crossley Evans was
warden of Manor Hall and Sinclair
House, the undergraduate halls of
residence at the University of Bristol,
for 34 years. It made him the longest-
serving warden, including as head
warden, of any hall at the university.
Martin’s students were his lifeblood,
and his tenure was characterised by
his generosity, hospitality, kindness
and sense of humour. He had the
ability to make almost everyone he
met feel they shared a unique
friendship and he went to great
lengths to include those who came
from overseas.
Of the many student societies who
met in Manor Hall, Martin was an
honorary member of the Malaysian
and Singaporean Students
Association, the Chinese Society, the
Malay Cultural Society and the Hong
Kong Society. Lifelong friendships
were formed with his undergraduates,
and he was a frequent guest at their
weddings, including in Asia, and a
godfather for several.
Much of Martin’s pastoral work
happened quietly. On many occasions
he was called to intervene with
students who were finding it hard to
cope. At all hours, and ignoring his
own ill health, he used his kindly
powers of persuasion and empathy to
reassure them. In 2017 he was
devastated by the university’s pastoral
review, which replaced wardens,
deputy wardens and senior residents
within halls with a new model of
Sympathetic
warden of
Bristol halls
of residence
“hubs” in the surrounding areas.
In 2001 Martin was appointed MBE
for “services to higher education” and
his wardenship is commemorated by
a portrait by the Bristol-based
Laurence Kell, which hangs
in Manor Hall. He is warmly
remembered by staff, from deputy
wardens and hall tutors to his student
support administrator.
Martin Crossley Evans was born in
1957 in Bromborough, Wirral. As a
child he spent many hours with his
grandparents, who were born in the
Victorian era and were representative
of its habits and sensibilities. Martin
himself was rarely seen in anything
other than a three-piece suit, sporting
a pocket watch and chain. Family
history was important to him, and
after his retirement he returned to the
Wirral to live near his brother, Mark.
As a child Crossley, as he was called
by friends, initially struggled with
reading. To compensate he learnt
much by oral recitation and by the
age of five could name 100 flowers.
He went to Christ Church Primary
School in Willaston and on to
Wellington School, a private grammar
school in Bebington. Sure of his
religious convictions from an early
age, he was only 11 when he was told
off by a teacher and replied: “I answer
only to the headmaster and to God.”
His happiest times were as an
undergraduate from 1975 at the
University of Bristol. As a resident of
one of the university’s oldest halls,
then all-male Wills Hall on the edge
of the Bristol Downs, he made
lifelong friends, particularly as a
member of its debating society,
Barney’s Club. Such was the value
that he placed on its supportive
atmosphere that he later served
for 20 years on the executiveDr Martin Crossley
Evans, 64
Remembering loved ones
w s M w m m M a u a ad tIf you would like to commemorate
the life of a relative, friend or
colleague, call 020 7782 5583 to
discuss the content and cost, or
email: [email protected].
thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditionsThe portrait of Martin
Crossley Evans by
Laurence Kell hangs in
Manor Hall, Bristol. Top,
with Manor Hall students