Clive Aber was a consultant physician and cardiologist in Hull and East Riding, assistant editor of Thorax, and a board member of the Daisy Appeal, incorporated in 2002 to raise funds for scanning facilities locally.
Clive Peter Aber was born on 19 February 1928 in Leeds to David Aber, an upholsterer’s warehouseman, and Hilda (née Madeloff), the daughter of furniture manufacturer Marks Madeloff. His twin brother, Geoffrey Michael Aber, also became a physician and dean of postgraduate medicine at Keele.
Both boys were educated at Leeds Grammar School and gained medical degrees at Leeds University in 1952, Clive with an intercalated BSc. A keen sportsman, Clive played rugby, cricket and tennis for the university – later interests included golf and bridge.
Trainee roles began in 1952 as house physician at Leeds General Infirmary, moving to St James’s Hospital, where he stayed for his next role as medical registrar. From July 1954 until June 1956 he served as a junior specialist in medicine in Egypt and North Africa.
Returning to England, a six-month post as SHO at the Royal Hospital Sheffield and six months at the Hammersmith Hospital in London predated a move to Liverpool in 1957 where he became registrar to Emyr Wyn Jones and A John Robertson, working across cardiology and thoracic medicine.
In 1958 Clive married Joan (‘Johnny’) Creyke (née Wildblood), whose father Norman Rhead Wildblood was the former chair of Blythe Colour Works in Cresswell, Staffordshire, a business established in 1908 producing colours and glazes for the pottery industry. The couple had one daughter and one son.
Clive remained in Liverpool for his first senior medical registrar post at the Liverpool Thoracic Surgical Centre at Broadgreen Hospital, moving to the Royal Infirmary in Liverpool in 1963 as senior medical registrar and tutor in clinical medicine.
After a year’s research fellowship at the Cardiovascular Research Institute in San Francisco, he returned to England for his final senior registrar role back in Liverpool, this time at the Regional Cardiac Centre at Sefton General Hospital.
In 1966 he was appointed as a consultant physician with an interest in cardiology, working across hospitals in Hull and East Riding, where he stayed for the remainder of his career. During this time he became assistant editor of Thorax in 1969 and a member of the RCP’s cardiology committee in 1974.
When Professor Nick Stafford set up the Daisy Appeal to improve access to scanning facilities locally, Clive was one of the first board members. The charity had raised £8m by 2008, which funded the building of a Medical Research Centre (the Daisy Building) at the Castle Hill Hospital site. Later fundraising led to the opening of the Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning centre, replacing the lorry that housed the scanner before it had a proper building.
Clive died on 4 April 2013, leaving his wife and children Jeanette and Stuart.
RCP editor
Sources/further information
https://justbeverley.co.uk/articles/prof-nick-stafford-obe-director-of-the-daisy-appeal
https://draycottinmoors.wordpress.com/tag/blythe-colour-works/