Dr Sleep and Peter Rabbit
John Nunn was a rock in more ways than one.
The renowned anaesthetist was a polymath who pursued multiple interests outside medicine including a passion for geology and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
A posting to the Far East in 1949 as a surgical assistant with the Colonial Medical Service gave him a taste of his future career.
The young doctor sheepishly admitted he had never carried out a surgical procedure but impressed senior colleagues when suggesting a blind nasal intubation on a patient with a jaw tumour.
He later recalled it was the moment he decided to become an anaesthetist and a glittering career followed on his return to the UK.
He wrote numerous papers and held various prestigious positions including becoming Head of Anaesthesia at Northwick Park, Dean of the Faculty of Anaesthetists at the Royal College of Surgeons, President of the Section of Anaesthetics at the Royal Society of Medicine.
He was also the first recipient of the Ivan Magill Medal in 1988 for his outstanding contribution in the field of anaesthetics.
The majority of us see retirement as a chance to put our feet up but Nunn saw it as an opportunity to expand his horizons returning to his first love of geology.
His passion for geology was such that the day after he graduated from medical school he joined the first post-war expedition to the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard as a self-confessed ‘rock carrier.’
He later went on to became the first amateur geologist to win the prestigious Richardson Award, and was later elected to the Fellow of the Geographical Society.
Then there was the small matter of having spent 20 years of evening classes at the British Museum where he became fluent in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
He subsequently published a book on Egyptian medicine and a hieroglyphic version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit co-authored with Richard Parkinson. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?
John Nunn passed away in 2022 after a short illness.