Edward Harris, who has passed away at the age of 87, knew from the age of four that he was going to be a doctor. A visit to a surgery at that tender age so impressed him that he never deviated from that ambition.

For him medicine was always a vocation. He was well -known in Chadwell Heath, where he worked for many years as a GP, eventually in a purpose-built health centre. He was loved by patients and respected by other local professionals. He was that rare kind of family doctor: someone who was seen by his patients as a family friend. He knew all his patients, their families, their backgrounds, without having to look up their notes.

If a patient with a terminal illness was being looked after at home, he would give the family his home phone number so that they could reach him whenever they needed him. He would get out of bed in the middle of the night, or leave a dinner party he was hosting to attend to an emergency. Sometimes he even acted as an agony uncle to his patients, sorting out their domestic issues as well as healing their physical problems.

Eddie had a degree in English literature, and was as passionate about music and theatre and the arts as he was about medicine. In his native Dublin he sang solos as a boy soprano at the Adelaide Road Synagogue. He was also invited to visit Wales with his choir to take part in the Eisteddfod.

Despite his Irish charm, Eddie Harris was really a first-generation Irishman; his Russian grandfather Harris Abrahamson fled Kishinev after the pogroms and settled initially in Liverpool.

The family moved to Dublin when their first child, Isaac, was two years old.
Eddie was fond of telling friends that his grandfather had been killed in the Easter rising — leaving them to imagine deeds of valour. In fact, Harris Abrahamson’s death was far more prosaic.

He was hit by a stray bullet while crossing a road on that fateful day. His son Isaac, then in his early 20s, was left to look after his widowed mother and half-a-dozen younger siblings — and see them all married and settled before getting married himself in middle age, and becoming the father of two sons, Eddie and his younger brother Stanley.
Eddie was born in Dublin, the elder son of Isaac Harris and his wife Rebecca (née Astrinsky).

An academically bright boy, Eddie studied at Wesley College before gaining a place at Trinity College, Dublin to study medicine.
He began work as a hospital doctor, first at the Leicester Royal Infirmary, then at St Giles Hospital, South London, followed by Beckenham Maternity Hospital, before spending a year at a GP surgery in Hendon. His last move was to Chadwell Heath, East London, where he stayed for the rest of his working life, eventually becoming the senior partner. He continued to work as a locum at his own practice after he had officially retired.

We met at the inaugural meeting of a new club called Delta, a social and cultural society for single Jewish professional people in their 20s and 30s. I was a journalist and film critic at the Jewish Chronicle, and had some success as an author. We were both co-opted on to the committee.

I was living in Edgware, while Eddie lived with his mother in the flat above the surgery in Chadwell Heath. Committee meetings were held half way between the two venues. Eddie went miles out of his way to give me lifts home, pretending it was on the route, and I pretended to believe him! We were married on March 29, 1970 and settled in Clayhall, Ilford.

We were soulmates, and went on to enjoy a blissfully happy marriage of 52 years.
Eddie had a sweet nature, which endeared him to everyone who knew him — he also possessed the gift of making everyone laugh with an off-the-cuff quip, delivered with perfect timing.

He was a founder and popular member of the B’nai Brith Golda Meir Lodge. We also enjoyed theatre, travel and entertaining family and friends at parties, where he was the perfect host.

We had looked forward to sharing retirement together, but it was not to be. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s with Lewy bodies, and being a doctor he knew what lay in store for him. He bore the onset of dementia and the gradual loss of his faculties with patient resignation.

He passed away peacefully at home a few hours after his 87th birthday. He is survived by me, his brother Stanley, niece Ilana, nephew Franklyn and their children and my family.
PAMELA MELNIKOFF

Dr Edward Harris: born: May 6, 1935. Died May 7, 2022