Stephen Andrew Cairns

Steve was born in Preston, only two miles from where he would later practice as a consultant physician for 28 years. The maternity ward was hit by an outbreak of neonatal diarrhoea and there were several tragic deaths. Steve teetered on the brink but survived, according to his mother’s account, as a result of copious amounts of Lourdes holy water sprinkled daily on his forehead. Some 60 years later, by complete coincidence, he attended a domiciliary consultation with a lady with a similar birth date—and discovered that she also was one of the Preston outbreak survivors.

Steve was the middle of three boys. His father was an engineer, his mother a teacher. Secondary education was at the …