Anthony Walsh (E67)
ANTHONY COPLESTON WALSH (E67) 20th December 1948 – 7th January 2017 was a dedicated and successful GP. In 1988 he moved from Telford, Shropshire, to Milton Keynes, where he started Walnut Tree Health Centre. He was excited by the opportunities offered by a new town, where patients were young and often from deprived backgrounds, with challenging needs.
One of the first GPs to own a mobile phone – a huge contraption with a separate portable battery – he continued to work as a GP until his early retirement due to ill health in 2010. He was also a founding and prominent member of the Shropshire arm of the medical campaign against nuclear weapons, speaking for it on local radio.
Tony was born in Malvern, Worcestershire, to an English mother, Brenda, and an Irish father, Phillip, an army colonel, and spent several years in Germany and Jordan as a small child. He had an older brother, Christopher (E63), and younger sister, Katie.
After Ampleforth he went to Lincoln College, Oxford. He excelled academically and at sports, especially enjoying cricket and rugby. He was Head Boy and captain of the 1st XI cricket team.
At Oxford, he met his future wife Charlotte Jessop, with whom he had three children. Having graduated in modern history, he decided to take up medicine, and became president of the student union at Middlesex Medical School. He specialised in paediatrics before deciding to go into general practice, training in Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon, and taking his first job as a GP in Telford. Particularly interested in psychoanalysis, and in what motivates people to go to the doctor, he found that in a new town, without the support networks of established cities and towns, people relied on their GP for guidance, rather as they had formerly done with a priest.
He was a founding member of Willen Cricket Club, where he won the batting award for most runs scored in 1990. He scored two centuries for them, including a famous 174 not out, which earned him the nickname Titanic Tony. Always fit and active, he replaced cricket and rugby with tennis and cycling later in life, and was an active member of Stony Stratford Tennis Club. In 2005, with his son Guy, he completed the London to Paris 360-mile cycle ride for Action Medical Research.
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