Donald Heaton (F 42-47).

The following piece (kindly supplied by Alec MacCaig (FS 42-46) and slightly edited) was read at the service of thanksgiving.

Don Heaton was born in Carlisle to elderly parents on 4th September 1929. He was an only child.
His father was the County Surveyor and would travel around the farms and estates in Cumberland and the Lake District and occasionally he would take Don with him. On one such visit Don met an elderly lady at a farm in Near Sawrey - she was Beatrix Potter.

According to his father, Don was able to drop kick a tennis ball at the age of four and his life was certainly closely associated with ball games from that time. He first attended Carlisle Grammar School until the age of thirteen and it was there that he began his love of sports. His home in Carlisle had a playing field in front, there were 16 tennis courts immediately behind, with Carlisle Rugby ground and a trout and salmon river at the end of the road. He was next sent away to school at St Bees, where his sporting prowess became very apparent: he was captain of cricket, tennis and fives!  He played rugby for the school as a centre three-quarter and played for the English Public Schools against the Scottish Schools in 1947 and in the same year he was the Cumberland Junior Tennis Champion.

His housemaster suggested to him that he apply for the Medical School at Newcastle, which was then part of Durham University, and he went there in the Autumn of 1947. He played rugby for the university for six years and was captain in 1952. He also played cricket for the university for five years and was captain in 1951 - the same season he also played cricket for the English Universities. He played rugby for the Newcastle Medicals and was captain in 1952 when they won the Northumberland Cup. He qualified as a doctor in 1953. Most importantly, in Durham Don was fortunate to meet Eileen Barclay, who was studying Pure Science and played lacrosse for the university and was a very able tennis player.

Don did his National Service in the RAF during which time he played rugby for the Air Force at representative level and cricket for the Royal Air Force and Combined Services.  It was thought that no other RAF National Serviceman had ever done this before. During his time in the Medical School and R.A.F. he played rugby 37 times for Cumberland mainly in the County Championship.

During his National Service he married Eileen in June 1956.

It was when representing the RAF at cricket that Don came to Bedford to play against the county. His talents were spotted by a gentleman called Gilbert Cook, who asked the young man if he had any plans when he left the RAF and whether he would consider coming to Bedford to play rugby for the town and cricket for the county! Jobs were in short supply, with many qualified doctors having left the forces, and so Don said “If you find me a job, then I’ll come”. A job was duly found and Don and Eileen came to Bedford in 1957 for a year...and there they stayed!

Don remained in general practice in Kempston for the next 33 years. Within a year or two they moved into the surgery house at 122 Bedford Road. This was the old fashioned model of general practice: the surgery was in the heart of the community and if Don stepped out of his front door, he would invariably bump into one of his patients. Many doctors - particularly today - would find this difficult, but not Don who was very happy to see and chat to his patients. Life was very different then and in a partnership of two, he was often on duty for thirteen out of fourteen nights. Even if he was not officially on duty, he could be called upon at any time in an emergency. Indeed he missed most of the famous 1966 World Cup Final as he was applying emergency CPR to a patient in his hall! He played rugby for Bedford and cricket for the town and county and later for the Gentlemen of Bedfordshire. He played tennis twice a week for many years and if Eileen wasn’t available to answer the phone, he would put a recorded message on which said “If the doctor is required, he can be found on the tennis courts opposite the house”.  He was an excellent GP, full of common sense and advice, very caring and down to earth with a wonderfully dry sense of humour.

He was the first chairman of the North Beds Post Graduate Education Committee – a position he held for four years.
Sport was a very serious matter to Don: the objective was always to win and he struggled to play any sport on a social level. He was always very competitive. He was not the person you wanted at a social tennis party. After he retired from playing, he continued to support the local teams for whom he used to play and was a club doctor at Bedford Rugby Club for many years, where he was famous for getting the Bedford players quickly and neatly stitched up on the touchline and straight back on the field, whereas the opposition players were required to go back to the changing room and the whole stitching process took just a bit longer - thereby keeping them off the field for longer!

He was a member of the MCC for over forty years and had debentures at Twickenham. His knowledge of sport - particularly of rugby or cricket - was also encyclopaedic. The mention of any place in the British Isles or any school, however obscure, would invariably produce a nugget of sporting information. It was either a place that Don had played a match or a school that had produced one of Nottinghamshire’s finest left arm spinners! Occasionally, in the midst of one of his anecdotes, his recall would fail him and he would turn to Eileen and say “Who played fly half for Leicester in 1958?” and invariably Eileen would supply the answer.
   
Don retired some twenty years ago but his life post retirement can only be described as being very active - despite having had a pacemaker fitted a few months earlier. As well as many regular visits to Lords and Twickenham, he pursued his love of field sports spending many happy times shooting and fishing. Don fished for trout and salmon all his life. It was something he had learnt from his father, who would take the young Don fishing on the Eden and would tie a rope round his waist and the other end to a tree as Don couldn’t swim.  Indeed this was one of the few sporting skills that Don never did master! By contrast, his skill as a fisherman was legendary: he gave the whole matter much thought before getting to the water. Even if others believed the conditions were hopeless, Don would persevere and was often rewarded with a catch when others were unsuccessful. He once said when he was in his seventies that salmon fishing was one of the few things he was still getting better at! He tied his own flies and ghillies would regularly ask if they could have one of them. Despite never having read a legal textbook in his life, he was inducted into Jill’s London law firm’s fishing society as an honorary member!
 
The allotment close to his house in Kempston also occupied Don in his retirement and he won many prizes, particularly for his onions, which were proudly photographed next to a cricket ball - for scale!

Finally, of course, Don was a family man. He and Eileen made a great team and they in turn were wonderful parents to Caroline and Jill, and welcomed Jim and Cris into their family, with many happy times spent in their cottage in Rothbury and summer holidays in their apartment in Spain. They drove through France, as following his RAF years, Don had developed a dislike of flying but it also allowed him to enjoy his love of good French wine and food en route. Of course, he made many trips to Lords and Twickenham. Don was always interested in other people and particularly enquired after their sporting interests or activities.

He had a positive outlook on life. This was based on the philosophy that if you can do something about a problem by worrying about it, then worry about it – but if you can’t, then there’s no point in worrying about it at all! Don’s down to earth philosophy was legendary. 

More recently, sadly, things became very difficult. His wife’s health deteriorated to the extent that she was no longer able to live at home with him and although he visited her regularly, he clearly missed her enormously. Don himself became ill and increasingly frail, but thanks to Caroline and Jill’s dedication and hard work, he was able to stay at home until the very end, which was his wish. Despite some sadness at the end, Don’s life was immensely full and rewarding with many happy hours spent with his family and following his many sporting passions and hobbies.

 

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