A TRUSTED, reassuring figure, ready to respond to a call-out at any hour of day or night. If anyone personified the traditional, community GP, it was Ian Bagshaw. No wonder so many tributes have been paid to Dr Bagshaw – retired GP and community stalwart in the village of Hurworth-on-Tees – since the sad news of his death, at 83.
His impact on Hurworth was profound. Not just as the local doctor, but as someone who quietly but effectively embedded himself into village life, always with the aim of helping others. “To him, being a GP was much more than a job – it was a vocation and a way of life,” says his daughter Fiona.
“It was never a question of counting the hours, he was on call all the time. That was just how it was.” Ian Bagshaw was born in Leeds but didn’t come from a medical background.
His father was an insurance salesman, his mother did administrative work, and Ian had two younger sisters, Joanna and Caroline. As a teenager, attending the local youth club, he met his future wife, Victoria, granddaughter of Britain’s first Labour prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald. Young Ian was a boy scout, the recipient of The Queen’s Scout Award, while Victoria was an equally proud girl guide.
Ian Bagshaw as a boy scout (Image: Bagshaw family) They went on to be married for 58 years, having four children – Roderick, Fiona, Nichola, and Darroch – plus 10 grandchildren. Victoria’s parents were doctors, and it was medicine that Ian chose to study after leaving H.