General practitioner and campaigner;
Born: March 3, 1930; Died: October 21, 2012.
Dr David Robertson, who has died at the age of 82, was a greatly respected GP in Saltcoats for nearly 30 years. He was a big man: big in stature, but also big in the width and the depth of his generosity.
He was generous with his time and home visits to the housebound and the chronically sick were an essential part of his approach to caring.
He was generous too in the time he gave to the causes to which he was committed. He served on the board of the Ayrshire Hospice and also on its clinical governance committee. He was a dedicated member of the local Rotary Club, hardly ever missing a meeting. He was heavily involved in the campaign to rid the rid the world of polio, Polio Plus, and he was given Rotary's highest honour, the Paul Harris Award, for his work in this area.
Dr Robertson was a regular attender at the annual Rotary conferences. He had been president of the Saltcoats Rotary Club and was its secretary at the time of his death.
He was a committed member of St Cuthbert's Church in Saltcoats, where he had been a member for more than 45 years, rarely absent on a Sunday morning, and a valued member of the kirk session.
David Robertson had always wanted to be a doctor. He graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1955 and became a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1968. After traineeship in Dunblane and six years' partnership in a country practice in Alyth, he joined the Hamilton Street practice in Saltcoats in 1965. A colleague in the practice, Dr Ewing McIntosh, described him as a doctor who saw things through, and good with patients by whom he was very well liked, not least for his jokes. After almost 30 years in the Saltcoats practice, he retired in 1994.
But his time was filled, whether working in his garden, or watching the birds he loved feeding; or in the house, listening to music. There were holidays to enjoy in his caravan in the Lake District or Cornwall and he frequently visited the US and South Africa. He was a keen bowler and curler.
Dr Roberston was a glass-half-full person, literally sometimes, as he enjoyed his red wine (especially South African) and his malt whisky. He had a great sense of humour and was known by his colleagues in Saltcoats as "the practice comedian".
He is survived by his wife Margaret, whom he married in 1957, his daughters Rhona and Elaine and his late son Ian's children Gavin and Ashleigh.
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