Peter Bayliss Clark 1927–2007

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Peter Bayliss Clark OBE TD, a distinguished Past President of BAOMS, died on 16 February 2007 after a relatively short but debilitating illness. Peter was born on 8 August 1927 in Oldbury, West Midlands, where his father was a director of Albright and Wilson, the large chemical manufacturers. Despite a career varied both geographically and academically he never quite lost his “Brummie” accent. He was the second of four children, two brothers and a sister, all of whom eventually qualified in medicine although there was no tradition of medicine in the family.

During World War II Peter was sent to Ruthin School in North Wales as a boarder. A sporting accident deprived him of a front tooth, which was re-implanted on the field. Surprisingly this incident fired his interest in a career in dentistry rather than the opposite. His was a close family and he had a particular fondness for his younger brother with whom he used to hike in Scotland. It was during these years that he developed a love of outdoor pursuits and field sports that stayed with him for the rest of his life. He was a young man of exceptional aptitude, and after entry into dental school in Birmingham he converted his preclinical years into a BSc before going on to complete his dental qualification. Postgraduate qualifications in dentistry were then at the embryo stage and Peter – perhaps encouraged by his siblings – completed a double qualification in medicine and dentistry, eventually graduating in 1952. That same year he married Vivienne Pile who had just qualified in physiotherapy. These were the days of compulsory National Service and Peter, with his new wife, found himself in Kenya at the beginning of the Mau Mau uprising. Besides his duties they followed leisure pursuits, and Peter was able to hunt and fish in an African environment. It seems his weapon skills were less than those expected of a regular army officer, as on one occasion the roof of a Landrover intercepted the bullet intended for one fortunate buck. His shooting improved together with his surgical prowess as witnessed by an impressive array of trophies that decorated the walls of his house in later years.

After National Service Peter and Vivienne moved to London, to the Eastman Dental Hospital, where he came under the seminal influence of Sir William Kelsey Fry. From there it was perhaps a natural step to move to East Grinstead where he became senior registrar to Terence Ward, himself a former pupil of Kelsey Fry. Those who worked with him then remember him as an outstanding technical surgeon with a lively mind and sense of fun. This was a “work-hard”, “play hard”, department and on more than one occasion Peter had to be fed into a taxi after a hospital party to return to his long-suffering wife. Despite the long hours then worked by trainee surgeons, Peter continued his enthusiastic participation in the Territorial Army, which involved regular meetings in London. The TA also became a lifetime interest. He received the TD for length of service, and by the time of his retirement he had achieved the rank of Lt Col RADC, TAVR and was Honorary Colonel 225th (Highland) Field Ambulance RAMC (Vol).

In 1961 Peter applied for and was appointed as consultant at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where he stayed for the next 27 years until he retired in 1998 aged 63. He was a man of driving ambition who set out to make Aberdeen a centre of excellence in oral and maxillofacial surgery. He was particularly impressed by the rapid developments in the specialty that were taking place in other parts of Europe. He had spent a period during his higher training at Rostock in East Germany, and became an enthusiastic member of the new European specialist association founded almost single-handedly by Professor Obwegeser who was then head of department in Zurich. Hugo Obwegeser became a close personal friend, a friendship which lasted until Peter's death and which took the two of them all over the world in the pursuit of their mutual interests, hunting and fishing. To watch Peter with a salmon fly rod in hand on his beloved river Dee was to watch a craftsman at his sport. But it was hunting that eventually became his major hobby, and trophy collecting its spin-off. He left among other examples a marlin from Mauritius and a moose head from Alaska, still sitting in the living room fireplace as it was too heavy to mount on the wall.

Peter was for many years a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Craniomaxillofacial Surgery at a time when he was also developing his academic reputation in Scotland. When appointed to the Grampian Region he was a single-handed consultant and became almost ex officio the regional dental postgraduate dean. The quality of his teaching courses given every year for dental practitioners is legendary. Peter's ebullient enthusiasm and his surgical and presentational skills combined to attract a continuing stream of postgraduates to his door. In 1979 he was deservedly awarded an OBE for services to dental education in the north east of Scotland. His influence as a teacher rapidly spread beyond the local scene. He became an examiner for the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in both Edinburgh and Glasgow and was awarded honorary Fellowships in each of their dental faculties. In 1974 he was elected to the Council of the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons and became its President in 1980. Those who were fortunate enough to attend his presidential meeting in Aberdeen will never forget it. This was a joint meeting with the Scandinavian association and attracted delegates from the USA and other countries. Whereas the academic content was that to be expected of the association in those days, the social programme by day and night was a feast of conviviality fuelled by a limitless supply of sponsored whisky, which had been engineered by the persuasive tongue of the President.

BAOMS has lost one of its finest fellows in both senses of the word. He leaves a wife, three children, three grandchildren, and a body of friends from all over the world. Those who knew him cannot have failed to absorb some part of his genuine “joie de vivre”.