John Roberts

Born : Clydebank 8th December 1934

Died : Edinburgh 21st December 2014

Dr John Roberts , who has died aged eighty, was known in Edinburgh firstly as a hard-working General Practitioner and secondly as the generous host of one of Edinburgh's most celebrated salons, his busy home in Morningside where it was not unusual for leaders in the world of politics, the arts and science to gather for informal suppers, sometimes as often as four times a week

A small, invariably happy, man who was once famously described as having the demeanour of someone who had a lifetime subscription to the Sunday Post, The Sunday Herald and The Lancet , Dr John was the son and indeed grandson of the Landlord of the mining village of Whitburn's legendary Old Market Inn.

The pub was a busy one and although offering no lavatory facilities for ladies it served foaming oceans of beer to often thirsty miners staggering in from their shifts and, often in competitive contrast, belligerent recruits fresh from the parade grounds of the local police college.

Keeping these and other fighters apart was no easy gig and from an early age John became known for his ability to calm and pacify and to never be rude unintentionally.

Although an only child John was both happy and successful at Bathgate Academy, though he was unusual for being mystified as to why anyone would want to waste an afternoon kicking a football when there was so much better fun to be had from reading and in his sixth year decided to study medicine, which he did in Edinburgh.

His years as a junior doctor were so demanding that when he was called up for National Service he amazed his fellow recruits by announcing that basic training was a breeze as at least you were allowed to sleep undisturbed for a full eight hours a night, not a luxury he was used to as a junior doctor

Once trained he was sent off to Seremban with the signals corps of the Gurkhas where he was to serve in often trying conditions, reportedly delivering over a hundred babies, many in houses that had no electricity.

Returning to Edinburgh's Waverley station ( platform 19 as he was often to fondly recall ) he was to meet the sister of a colleague, one Annie Slora. A feisty young dental student who gathered friends as a rolling snowball gathers snow she was the perfect counterfoil to John's quiet intellectualism and after their marriage in 1976 they were to establish a fantastically busy household in Edinburgh with John often sitting grinning quietly at one end of the table whilst Annie produced meals for numbers that were often over a dozen.

The sheer financial strain of such generosity never seemed to bother John who would often observe that anything that benefited a friend wasn't to be taken as a loss.

The legends about those party days are legion. It was said, for example, that the Mother of Pearl inlay in the guitar of a famous folk singer of that era was inserted by Annie using her dental drills - and that the Shetland fiddler Aly Bain not only had dinner with them every Wednesday but also had a troublesome wisdom tooth removed in the front room, which to be fair was Annie's surgery.

But it was to the people of northern Edinburgh that Dr John gave most of his life working in a busy practice for thirty eight years, eventually retiring at 64 as the senior partner. Later one of his colleagues was to remark that if any of his patients were asked for three words to describe Dr John they would probably have chosen kind, kind and kind.

Away from work he had a great love for opera and reading, but it was his family of Annie and their two children, David and Irene, that were always prioritised.

Only two weeks from his death, and deeply aware of his very limited life expectancy, Dr John amazed and worried his friends by announcing that he was to host one last party, for his eightieth birthday.

It was an event that rather defined the man for although some were concerned that the party might be tense and even a touch maudlin John confounded his critics by sitting in court at the centre of the occasion welcoming his guests with the same level of social dexterity he had first exhibited in the

Old Market Inn sixty five years earlier.

Later he was seen bouncing several children on his knee whilst patiently hearing out their expectations for Christmas and the whole affair was made merry and relaxed by his intermittent chuckle of pure delight.

He is survived by his wife Annie, his two children and two grandchildren. Henry and Rebecca.