Tribute to Horsham man who became one of the first NHS radiographers

Tributes have been paid to long-time former National Health Service radiographer Maurice Underwood who has died aged 97.
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Maurice, who was one of the first to work for the NHS when it was founded in 1948, lived at Heath Way in Horsham for more than 30 years.

He became a much-loved and familiar figure whizzing around the town on his mobility scooter.

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Maurice loved to recall his early years and recounted many times how, at the age of 12, he saw the Crystal Palace burning down with molten glass running down the gutter of Anerley Hill.

Maurice UnderwoodMaurice Underwood
Maurice Underwood

Maurice was 15 at the outbreak of the Second World War and was called up to Aldershot in 1943, still only 19, and sent to Northern Ireland from Liverpool. After training in the mountains of Mourne, in just a vest and shorts - he never liked the rain or cold - he was assigned to the RAMC.

He always joked that he liked the idea of driving motor cars but then found out it was the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Once in the Army, he signed up for training as a radiographer which would be his career for life.

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For the remainder of the war, he worked in various hospitals in India and no Christmas was complete without his account of the baby baboons coming down to steal his sandwiches.

Returning home in 1947 as a radiographer, he began his career in the National Health service from its beginning in 1948.

He became a senior radiographer at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in 1951 where he met his wife, Winifred.

He moved to the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds and after helping to plan the X-ray department at the new hospital there, Maurice took a post in 1964 as a superintendent radiographer.

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In 1978 St Thomas’s was the first hospital to have an EMI scanner. Opened by Princess Diana, the scanner department was subsequently a major part of his responsibility until he retired.

His retirement years, over 30 of them, were passed in Horsham.

He loved holidays and visited Tunisia, Madeira, Tenerife and, only in the last few years, did he stop flying to Nice.

Not one to be put off by a pandemic, most mornings he could be seen on his scooter, off on his way to Waitrose.

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This was followed by an afternoon watching some favourite films on his TVs - he had several.

On one of his more recent visits to hospital a man shouted across the bays to him. “I know you! Aren’t you that bloke with five TVs?” – “No” said Maurice, “Six.”

A funeral service was held at St Mark’s Church, Horsham, conducted by the Rev Richard Caldicott.

Maurice leaves a daughter, son-in-law, two grandsons and two great-grandchildren.

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