Dr Robert M.L. Weir, pictured with his wife, Isobel, and seven grandchildren.

Roy Weir died in January 2005 after a short illness, at the age of 82. Roy was born and brought up in Langside, and his interest in sailing began in childhood, sailing yachts around the islands off the west coast. During the second world war, whilst studying medicine at Glasgow University, he spent his free time serving with the Clyde River Patrol, mine-watching and controlling the river. He then undertook his national service with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and found himself aboard the mighty warships HMS King George V and HMS Duke of York.

Roy’s naval service ended in 1948 and he worked in General Practice in Stornoway, and was later appointed senior registrar at Stornoway County Hospital. In 1953 he moved to Kirkcaldy where he ran the tuberculosis unit – his work ultimately being recognised with a doctorate. With TB eradicated, from 1960 Roy played a significant role in establishing geriatric services in Fife as a Consultant Geriatrician from 1963, retiring in 1985.

In 1964 he was approached by the RNLI in Fife, with a view to setting up a lifeboat station at Kinghorn. Roy held the post of Honorary Secretary at Kinghorn Lifeboat Station, and played a crucial operational role in deciding whether to call out the lifeboat and alerting the crew with maroons. He remained an active member until 1994. Roy was a member and former Commodore of Kinghorn and Burntisland Sailing Clubs, and a founder member and latterly Honorary Member of the Serpent Yacht Club. He was a keen participant in the club’s events, and sailed Farahbout to second place at the 2001 Spring Muster.

John Elias-Jones

The mast unstepped and horizontal laid,

un-shackled shrouds, the rigging coiled and slack,

the sailcloth bagged; and all that sailor’s tack

with which a vibrant yacht is shipshape made …

now dormant … for the soul who poured his love

into this craft has ta’en his final leave,

and seaborne gone, where promontory, nor cove

can chart his course; nor comfort those who grieve.

Kind, skilful hands; an intellect so wide;

so much he gave; so much he had to share.

By fate curtailed, he parted on the tide;

before the ebb; before we were aware.

“Stardust” may slip her berth and put to sea,

but John rests, harboured in our memory.

John Burman

Bryan Jennett

Bryan was Professor of Neurosurgery at Glasgow University, and the leading academic neurosurgeon of his era. He was born in Twickenham to Scottish and Irish parents. After a time on the family farm in Lanarkshire during the war, agricultural college beckoned, but he finally decided to study medicine.

His brilliant, logical and inquiring mind led him to question all that he did and to seek rational, definitive answers to many problems faced  by fellow clinicians. His Glasgow unit became a magnet for trainees and researchers from all over the world, and at one time seven out of 10 professors in neurosurgery in the UK were Glasgow trained.

Long-standing uncertainties in establishing a prognosis for head injuries represented a significant challenge, which was gradually unravelled. In 1974 he developed the Glasgow Coma Scale with Graham Teasdale (who succeeded him as professor) and the Glasgow Outcome Scale. Another crucial contribution was in establishing the criteria for "brain death". Without his courageous, committed and at times uncompromising stance, transplantation programmes could have been set back for years.

Outside medicine, he and Sheila, a professor of physiology, were keen cruising sailors on the west coast of Scotland. Bryan was a founder member and later commodore of the Serpent Yacht Club. From the 1960s the family had a second house in Lochgoilhead, from which sprung memorable sailing adventures.

He was made a Commander of the British Empire, and received an Honorary DSc from St Andrews University.

(An abridged version of an obituary by Sir Graham Teasdale and Sam Galbraith, published in The Herald on 2nd February 2008.)