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In honour of my father

 

IN HONOUR OF MY FATHER, DR LUCIUS ALLEN

Obituary

Born 17 MARCH 1920 - Rockhampton, Qld

Died 2 August 2003 - Brisbane, Qld Vale:

Dr Lucius Allen. BA (Hons 1st Qld), MBBS (Qld). An obiturary. By his son, Dr Roger K.A. Allen 17.08.03

In my opinion it is impossible to describe my father without an understanding of his father. My father, Dr Lucius Allen was the product of a rich intellectual and cultural heritage from his father and grandfather and even beyond.

My father's grandfather, William Allen, was an Anglo-Irish pioneer who had emigrated to Sydney in 1848, and settled in the promising settlement on the banks of the Fitzroy River , Rockhampton in the 1870s. The suburb, Allenstown bears his name. His father, William Kennedy Abbott Allen, known as Kennedy and his younger brother, was dux of the Rockhampton Grammar School , and later excelled himself with the University Medal at the King's Inn, Trinity College , Dublin at the turn of the 20th century in Moderns and Law. He became highly esteemed in Brisbane as an academic barrister and district court judge, and a gentleman writing that the Justices Acts of Queensland , the Police Manual and Solicitors' Manual, and received the an honorary Doctor of Philosophy in Law from the University of Queensland in the early 1960s. Fluent in Italian, he had studied in Sienna for two years from1926 until 1927 and published his reflections as a regular column for the Rockhampton Bulletin. He was the president of the Shakespeare Society for 30 years, and was a scholar of Ancient Greek, Latin, French and Italian and played violin to the accompaniment of his wife, Kitty who was an excellent pianist.

Into this rich patrimony, my father, Lucius, was born on St Patrick's Day, 17 th March 1920 in Rockhampton. In 1926 the family moved to 47 Abbott Street , Ascot and he attended the Ascot and Eagle Junction Primary Schools where he was a promising student. He could recite some Greek and Latin to the Headmaster even in early primary school. He graduated from the Brisbane Grammar School in 1937, as dux, receiving the Lilley Medal as well as numerous other prizes including for Ancient Greek, Latin and the Basil Porter Prize in French. To his credit I also won this in 1969. He was awarded an Open University Scholarship and graduated with First Class Honours in Classics at the University of Queensland , then in George Street . In his second year in the Department of Philosophy, he had was awarded the Douglas Price Memorial Prize in Ethics and Metaphysics as the top student in Classics and Philosophy. Although he commenced a Master of Arts in the social history of the period of Lucian, he never completed this as he commenced medicine.

In 1942 he became a Latin Master at the Toowoomba Grammar School for a year followed by a few months at Brisbane Grammar School in 1943 before commencing medicine. After graduation ( University of Queensland ) he married Lucy Gulbrandson, a senior theatre sister, on 28th January 1950 and soon after his internship, commenced practicing at Pittsworth, on the Darling Downs and not far from his mother's family farm at Jondarian. I was born in Toowoomba in 1951 and after several years of dedicated service, and much to the sorrow of the local people, he moved to a solo practice in Ballina, Northern New South Wales where my sister, Kathryn, was born punctually on my birthday in 1955 (Ref. 1).

In 1960 he studied neurology at Queen Square , internal medicine at Hamersmith, cardiology at the Institute of Cardiology and at the Post-Graduate Medical School , London but returned to Brisbane in 1961 when his father became ill. After working at the Repatriation General Hospital , Greenslopes as a Senior House Officer, he bought a practice in 738 Gympie Road , Chermside, Brisbane where, as a solo general practitioner, he served the local community with great dedication and compassion for 28 years...and never with appointments. My mother was his constant companion, practice manager, confident, prompt, critic and nurturer. Together they made a great team.

Although a physician he was ever the teacher and student. Literature including the Classics, were his greatest love. He had an exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting, knowledge of European and Ancient History, Ancient Greek, Latin, French and later mastered Italian and Spanish, and even knew enough German to tutor his grand daughter, Rosmary, in Grade 10 German. He was widely travelled with a love of Egypt and often on bus trips became the de facto guide because of his amazing knowledge of antiquity.

Curiosity was his hallmark, academic excellence his aspiration, teaching and reading his escape and love. He carefully guarded his innermost thoughts, and was a complex man of many paradoxes; generous of money and time but parsimonious with my mother's old cake tins, intolerant of fools and mediocrity but long-suffering as a teacher. Every evening meal was punctuated by an excursion to the dictionary of one language or another. He tutored most of the family members including his brother, Julius, at some time in one or other discipline; algebra, mathematics, French, Greek, Latin, German, English and history. He taught me senior French for my Senior Public Examination as an extra subject to a very high standard and for five years tutored an advanced class in French for the University of the Third Age at his home. For three years he taught Italian to Rev. Phil Crook who conducted his funeral service with great warmth and humour at Saint Mark's Anglican Church, Clayfield, on 5th August 2003.

He died at the age of 83, the same age as his father, on 2nd August 2003 after a long battle with ischaemic heart disease which led to his retirement at the age of 78. He is survived by my mother, Lucy, his daughter, Kathryn, and me and ten grandchildren as well as his bothers whom he called "The Twins", eight years his younger, Adrian and Julius. His younger sister, Rosalind, (viz."As you like it"), died several years ago.

By his influence I emulated his scholarship, his teacher's way of finding of one's academic weak spot, the cultivation of a critical mind, the love of French and the Classics, as well as the difficult art of diagnosis and his compassion in the practice of medicine (2).

My most poignant memory of him was a few days before he died. He was sitting out in the sunny balcony on ward 4F at St Andrew's Hospital, lost in thought looking down Boundary Street to the Brisbane Grammar School nearby, where my sons, Emlyn and Christian attend. I can only guess at his thoughts.

Alas, physicians and teachers such as he, with his great depth and breadth of learning, are rare. We are the poorer for his passing but his legacy endures.

1. Allen RKA. Remembrance of things past: reveries of a sleep physician. Int Med J 2002; 32: 429-431

2. Allen RKA. Poetry and Medicine; healing for the healer. A call for a literary supplement. Int Med J 2001; 31: 426-427

 

The Courier Mail Obiturary

Pursuit of Learning GP's Eternal Quest (pdf)

 

The Squatter's Chair

The squatter's chair.
From my childhood's memory
It's always been there..
My Grandpa's study with shafts of sun
The books and legs, as if at one.

There sat the squatter's chair

My Father too, legs in the air.
Books of Greek, Latin and French
Lexicons with binding worn
Cicero and Molière
Herodotus, Homer and Baudelaire.

There sat the squatter's chair.

This was the world my Father knew
Greek texts, enticing, strange,
A different world; a special view.
Journeys of the inner mind,
Dante and Omar Khayyam.

There sat the squatter's chair

During his life he worked with pain
Suffering, and death.this ray of light,
With my Mother's help
Patients by day, and in the dead of night.

There stood the squatter's chair.

But at home he had a secret life.
There were us children and Mum,
But his other wife,
Was a Grecian Muse in a gown of white.

Beside the squatter's chair

My mother toiled in her garden of love,
While he flew in his minds to lands above,
But still loved her roses, and cornflowers blue;
Her perfumed garden and ephemeral hue.

Around the squatter's chair

But now it's all over
The garden is bare,
There is no one sitting in the squatter's chair
And his thirst for all these treasures of old,
More precious to him than silver and gold.

But when spring comes
It will be back on the lawn
Surrounded by flowers, grandchildren and Mum.
And there will he be in his father's chair

Reading and snoozing while we're having fun.
Such is the squatter's chair.

Now I sit in his chair beside my wife,
Whose perfumes and hues pervade my life.
For the squatter's chair is the chair of life.

And what of the man who is made of dust,
He lives in this garden that he loved so much.
He'll always be here, surrounded by love,
By the sunshine and peace and the turtle doves.

Such is the squatter's chair.

 

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