Keith was born to a baker’s wife at the Matraville Private Hospital in Sydney. 

He loved to play the piano, and at the age of 12 years, gained his Masters of Music from the London Conservatory of Music.

He completed his schooling at Petersham Primary School and later at Christian Brothers Lewisham.

He graduated from Sydney University in 1950 with a Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery and later worked at Lewisham Hospital.

It was here where he met and later married his best mate and most amazing wife, Shirlee, on January 5 1952.

They honeymooned in Melbourne and afterwards commenced working life in a cottage hospital in Delgate on the Victorian border.

During the winter months, he would travel out in the cold and snow, using the Sydney Morning Herald wrapped around his body under his suit to keep warm. 

Other times, on house calls, he would be met at the farm gate and be taken to the patient on the hay tray of a tractor, due to the snow being too deep for his little car to travel on the farm track to the house.

After six years of running a dispensing practice and being the town and shire doctor, he moved the family – Paul, Damien, Anthony and Denise – along with Shirlee, to Crookwell.

In Crookwell, Keith was awarded the Ambulance Medal, and attracted the very first Ford Galaxy ambulance and fundraised by doing chocolate wheels.

Keith was a catalyst for getting the local pool’s filtration plant upgraded, because of the increase in sickness from the water not being filtrated for safe swimming.

During the early years, Keith accepted payment for his services by means of potatoes, pumpkins, eggs and other essentials such as firewood, knitted gloves and beanies.  Paying for quality medical care was tough in the early years.

Keith was always able to provide for the family on weekends after a day of golf or lawn bowls, when he would arrive home with a frozen chook or meat trays… it drove Shirlee crazy.

Keith often did night calls and his practice had a night bell for patients to ring when they required his services after hours.

After 15 years in Crookwell, the family moved to Goulburn and stayed from 1972 to 1991. Keith was the first-ever known practice manager in Australia, managing a big group practice of 19 doctors, and at the time, it was the biggest group practice in Australia.

Keith was invited to give many keynote addresses at conferences in the United States on practice management.

He became interested in farming, and moved to a small farm just north of Goulburn where he completed a small motor and welding course at Goulburn TAFE, and became an inventor of the quick-release farm gate hinge (if it fits).

18 years later, Keith and Shirlee went on a holiday to Port Macquarie and discovered Wauchope, and in 1991, up and moved on the basis of retirement, where he devoted 25 years of practice to the Wauchope community.

This retirement wasn’t meant to happen and he found himself doing locums for nearly every medical practice from Kempsey to Taree.

Well, moving to Wauchope didn’t dampen Keith’s enthusiasm, and as in Crookwell, he was always able to provide for the family. On weekends, after an afternoon at the bowls, he would come home with a frozen chook, meat trays, and ended up filling the freezer, it drove Shirlee crazy again.

Keith gave of his time to local rodeo as medical officer, local boxing as medical officer and during his time, up until his final days, sent submissions to Federal and State health departments championing age care needs and encouraging young medicos to complete time at aged care facilities.

He was also the Commonwealth Medical Officer for the area.

Keith was a man of the highest honesty and integrity, upholding Christian values, and was known for being a compassionate and loving father, grandfather, uncle, father-in-law, great-grandfather and much more.

He gave his time without complaint to country communities where he provided counselling, maternity advice and delivery and being there for them as a dedicated country GP of over 60 years.

Keith recently, while visiting a practice in Port Macquarie, started talking to a lady in the waiting-room who was there with her mother, and found out that she was the very first baby he delivered at Crookwell Hospital.  Oh, how he talked about it.

Keith hung up his stethoscope at the age of 85, in 2012, the year Shirlee, his rock, died.  This year, on January 23, he turned 90.

The trust the country folk put in Keith was beyond reproach, in his non-assuming humble way, he was their hero, and to his sons and daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he will always be their hero.

Keith, in a recent interview with the Wauchope Gazette, said with a smile that he had composed his epitaph:  “When I die, it will be:

‘I was bred to a baker’s wife, I took up medicine because the dough was better, and that’s what I live by.’”