Isabel Walker and Andy Etchells were invited by Professor Chris Redman to join the Silver Star Society committee shortly after the birth of their second child, Joseph, in January 1988.
They offer their appreciation of “the most admirable person we have ever had the privilege to know”.
Isabel writes:
Chris Redman was a brilliantly insightful and humane doctor, a pioneering scientist and a wonderful human being: kind, caring, honest and often funny. Despite his manifold skills and accomplishments, he was consistently self-effacing, never seeking any praise, public acknowledgment or material advantage for himself. Andy and I often talk about him as the most admirable person we have ever had the privilege to know.
I well remember the first time we met, back in June 1987. Andy and I had recently suffered the devastating loss of our first baby, Benji, who was delivered at 27 weeks because doctors were unable to halt the progression of my fulminating pre-eclampsia. Despite advice from a local team that the next pregnancy might be equally blighted, we went ahead and conceived again. And at this point I was eight weeks pregnant – and terrified!
Arming myself with a (true) cover story that I was writing an article about pre-eclampsia for a women’s magazine, I arranged a telephone interview with Chris. In the back of my mind was a worry that he would be arrogant and patronising, like many of the senior doctors I had interviewed in my time as a medical journalist. I needn’t have worried: Chris was friendly, helpful and lovely and, once the business part of the meeting was over, I told him my story and how I was constantly consumed by worry.
I will never forget his response: he had a one-hour window in his diary the following Tuesday and Andy and I were welcome to come along and see him. That consultation was a complete eye-opener. In just an hour I finally understood what had happened to me and how my local specialist should manage the current pregnancy to avoid a repeat disaster. Chris offered to write to the specialist and, almost as an afterthought, said he would happily look after me himself but the 100-mile round trip to Oxford might be a disincentive. Andy and I didn’t hesitate, and I made that trip to Oxford most weeks for the duration of that pregnancy and the next one.
We feel we owe my family – son, daughter and two grandchildren – to Chris. Our gratitude to him is inexpressible. And Andy and I were privileged to be able to work with him, first on the Silver Star Committee and later with Action on Pre-eclampsia (Apec), where I was Director, Chris Medical Director and Andy a trustee. A further privilege for me was collaborating with Chris on two books about pre-eclampsia: Pre-eclampsia: the facts, published by Oxford University Press in 1992, and Understanding pre-eclampsia, self-published in 2017.
Countless women owe successful pregnancies and healthy babies to his hands-on care in the Silver Star Unit. Countless more have benefitted at a distance from the guidance and wisdom he dispensed at the long-term Medical Director of Apec.
Our greatest sadness is that, despite many attempts to gain a public honour for him, Chris Redman’s work remained unacknowledged in the public sphere. Our hope is that there will now be some kind of posthumous recognition.
Andy writes:
I already thought very highly of “the Prof” for the reasons Izzy describes above but I gained a further insight to the type of man he was deep into Izzy’s first Silver Star pregnancy. She was enduring another of her regular hospital stays and one Sunday I bumped into him, white-coated as always, emerging from one of the wards. I said I thought Consultants like him would be out on the golf course or failing that, shouldn’t he be at home with his feet up?
His reply was: “If my juniors are expected to work weekends, then so should I.” Of course, the idea of Chris with his feet up was preposterous. Soon after I became Chair of the Siver Star Society, he outlined to the Committee the need for a vital but expensive piece of diagnostic kit which the hospital management could not afford. The usual events were planned but it was clear that the price tag - £50,000 as I recall - was of a different order of magnitude from previous fundraising efforts.
Chris took me aside and asked if I could use my contacts in the athletics business to get him a place in the London Marathon. As soon as the precious Marathon spot was secured, Chris duly donned his trainers and started out on the first of a remarkable streak of tremendous Marathon fundraising efforts that benefitted Silver Star and Apec for the best part of a decade.
And yes, the target was reached and the kit was installed. Of course, it took more than just the Marathon: parents and supporters chipped in at all kinds of other events but I can’t think of a single one that Chris missed, despite all the other demands on his time. And, of course, soon after that first Marathon, he was back to the Committe with another outrageous plan!
All this, while shouldering a massive clinical load; talking with endless patience and calmness to worried parents like us; delivering papers to conferences; undertaking research; and embarking with us on the setting up of Apec which was to become as significant a player on the national stage as the Silver Star Society was at a local level.
Softly-spoken and understated he may have been, but this is a man with a huge and lasting legacy. I was honoured to call him a friend. He will be sorely missed by all who were fortunate enough to know him.
