John Cranna has sent in the following notice regarding his late father,
Robert Allister Cranna (SH 33-37).

“My father, known as Allister, was born on 5th August 1919 in Bolton and died at Epworth Grange care home, Bury on 5th November 2022. He was the youngest of four, the others were Duncan, Margot and Fergus. His father, Robert, was a GP, who came from Aberdeenshire, as did his wife, Mary and they moved down to Bolton in 1905 to be ‘where the work was’. Allister went to school in Bolton and then to St Bees School in Cumbria.

He read medicine at Manchester University during WWII and qualified in October 1944. He was appointed a House Officer at Hope Hospital, Salford for a year before entering the royal navy, but in June 1945 (between victory in Europe and victory in Japan) his father unexpectedly died at the age of 69, and the authorities deemed Allister would be better employed locally than serving “drinks in the navy”!

Thus, he was prematurely pitch forked into general practice at the age of 25. As his father had been a highly respected chairman of the Local Medical Committee (LMC), he was immediately elected on to the committee and was later chairman for three years. Even after his retirement from practice in 1987, he was co-opted back onto the LMC because of his extensive experience.

Soon after entering general practice, he became one of the youngest divisional surgeons in the St John’ Ambulance Corps. He was elected secretary of the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the BMA.

In 1946 he married a nurse he had met whilst working at Hope Hospital, Marjorie Bridge. They had three children – Chris, Jane and John.

After he had worked for three years as a single-handed GP, the NHS was born on 5th July 1948 and he was elected a founder member of the Bolton Executive Council of the NHS and he later became vice chairman. The practice now covered Astley Bridge, Bromley Cross, Egerton and Belmont Village. To cover this large area north of Astley Bridge, Allister and Marjorie bought a house, Rockfield, in Bromley Cross and converted three rooms to a consulting room and waiting rooms. He also took on Dr Andrew Fraser as a partner and for over thirty years cared for the local community with kindness, candour and a unique sense of humour.

Allister and Andrew did all their own home visits each morning and afternoon and they were also on call at night for emergencies. His approach to general practice was to listen to and understand the patient rather than to just prescribe pills. Any patient who was perturbed to leave the surgery without a prescription was told that they did not need any pills. Conversely patients would say “thank you very much for all your help”, and he would reply “I’ve done nothing – I’ve listened to you, and you’ve been able to let go of your problems”.

In 1979 Dr Moya Cole, a radiologist at Christie Hospital, Manchester opened St Ann’s Hospice in Little Hulton, between Bolton and Manchester. Allister was one of five doctors who agreed to give their time voluntarily one day a week and he also visited at weekends and often to do the rounds on a Wednesday afternoon with Dr Cole. He is remembered by the staff as someone who ‘gave more than 100% and was very much in tune with the philosophy of holistic care and his role even extended to dressing up as Andy Pandy in a play for the patients’!

In the mid 1980s a new medical centre was built in Bromley Cross which could handle more patients and meant more doctors served the area due to the increase in population in the area. His children had left home by then and the house was too large for himself and Marjorie. They had grown apart by then and there was an amicable separation and divorce.

Allister then moved into a bungalow near the health centre and on the day after his official retirement age, he reinstated himself, which doctors are allowed to do. He continued as a doctor at the health centre until 1987 when he was invited by one of his patients, Sheila Tyler, for coffee, with whom he later fell in love, and this precipitated his full retirement. He was Bolton’s longest serving GP having worked for 42 years. They married in 1990 and lived together happily in Smith Lane – they were very suited for each other and enjoyed both local trips and frequent holidays abroad. When they were unable to live independently, they both moved together to be cared for at Epworth Grange home, Bury. Sheila died in 2019 very peacefully in her sleep in very much the same way that Allister died three years later.

Allister was a keen Freemason going to the local lodge, St John’s 221 in Bolton every Month, but he gained more spiritual guidance from the Lodge of Living Stones in Leeds, which he visited every month from the 1970s travelling over the Pennines and back in a day and did so into his 90s – then going by local transport which was even more of a challenge. He was a founder member of the Rotary Club of Turton and was later elected a life member.

Allister had few hobbies as such but did some rally driving with the Bolton le Moors car club and the family would go to car gymkhanas, would add improvements to the many Mini cars he owned (they were ideal for travelling around the back streets of Bolton and parking in tight spots) and when he retired, he became a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists.

He is survived by his three children, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.”

 

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