Greene Charles Raymond

(Bearbeiten)

Biografie:
Charles Raymond Greene d.1982
I would like to write something about our distinguished member and my friend Raymond Greene, of whose death I first learned when I read the obituary notices in the national newspapers and a day or two later was informed of it in a letter from his son, in which he said that his father had specifically instructed him that I was to be informed in the event. Raymond's death at the age of 81 cannot come altogether as a surprise; but even so his numerous friends in the Club will be saddened at his passing.
Raymond was an Oxford graduate and when an undergraduate at the University he was an active member of the O.U.M.C. After qualifying in Medicine, he went into general practice in Oxford for a number of years and that was where I first met him in 1935 when I went to pick his brains on medical matters in connection with a forthcoming expedition to Mount Everest that I was going on as a climber and doctor. Thereafter we remained in regular correspondence over medical and mountaineering matters, particularly in connection with high altitude physiology - a subject on which he was, at that time, the leading authority in the field, as opposed to the laboratory where Douglas at Oxford and Borcroft at Cambridge reigned supreme and were in friendly dispute with one another over the vital question as to how oxygen in the air we breathe is passed from the lungs into the blood.
After that my wife and I used to meet him at the Dungeon Chyll hotel in Langdale, whence we enjoyed many an excursion, 'over the hills and far away', to quote from Beatrix Potter, an author mentioned in his book. I remember particularly one glorious day when we walked with him and his daughter Annabel round the eastern shores of Ullswater.
Raymond was a devotee of the Lake District and had been so ever since childhood. But eventually, with increasing age, he found that he could no longer walk far even on level ground and so then we began to find ourselves, and his other friends up in Langdale and Eskdale, deprived of his company. But whenever we went up there we made a point of sending him a carefully chosen post-card 'for auld lang syne'. Raymond had done quite a lot of climbing in the Alps, particularly in Bavaria, before he made his real mountaineering debut with a first ascent of Kamet, at that time the highest mountain in the world to have been climbed. That was with Frank Smythe's team in 1931 and it was certainly a major achievement. It was that exploit which gained him his place on Hugh Ruttledge's expedition to Everest in 1933, on which he did so well. How important Raymond's contributions were on that occasion is brought out well in Wait Unsworth's magnificent book Everest. After Kamet and Everest he remained a life-long friend of Frank Smythe. For evidence of this, see a letter which Frank sent him from Everest in 1936 and which is now in the Club's archives.
Apart from his mountaineering prowess, Raymond became a Consultant Physician of great distinction practising in London and specialising in endocrinology, in which subject he made important contributions to our understanding of thyroid disease in particular. For many years he and the late Sir Geoffrey Keynes worked together on this subject at their famous clinic at New End Hospital. Apart from this, he had already advanced our knowledge of high altitude physiology with a series of important papers before he was moved to London. But let me first describe his rise to medical fame, as it is revealing of the character of the man. From being a C.P. in Oxford, Raymond moved to London in the late 'thirties' and took rooms in Wimpole Street (which I shared with him for a time) and proceeded to get himself elected to the Consultant staff at both the Metropolitan and then the Royal Northern hospitals, such appointments being quite a sine qua non for consultant practice in London, because they give access to hospital beds. And perhaps the story of his appointment to the Consultant post at the Royal Northern Hospital is worth recounting. It so happens that I know about it because I was working with his rival for the post at another hospital at the time. Now Raymond, a tall man with an impressive personality, was in competition with a candidate who had been working at the hospital for some years as a Registrar and had given satisfaction to his medical colleagues, who were supporting him for the post. But it was the practice at the hospital for appointments to the senior staff to be made by the committee, after the medical appointments committee had put forward the names of two candidates in order of preference. Raymond's name went forward to the lay committee in second place. But after they had interviewed the two candidates, they wisely reversed the order and appointed Raymond.
In 'Moments of Being' we have been given a short autobiography by Raymond, but I don't really like the book. In an important obituary notice in The Times it was said that he was supercilious and I can see what the reviewer was getting at, but it's not the right word. He loved shooting a bit of a line and was quite good at it, but he did this with tongue in cheek. One can see that in chapter 10 of 'Moments of Being'. Once when he was doing this without getting away with it, my wife said to him, 'A bit laboured, Raymond' to which he replied, 'Sorry, Dorothy' with a grin and that familiar twinkle in his piercing blue eyes. He knew exactly what he had been doing and was getting his fun out of it.
But how nice Raymond was underneath that public facade, which it sometimes amused him to put on for effect. He was one of those delightful people who could laugh at himself when, amongst real friends and become serious about the things that are nice and that really matter in life.
It is nice to remember that he was with us at the Club's exhibition just before he had his fatal heart attack.
Charles Warren
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 88, 1983, Seite 280-281


Gestorben am:
1982