John was a man of many talents. He was, as is so often the case, shaped by his background, challenges and chance events encountered by a fertile mind. He was born in 1930 London, to a medical family. His mother was an anaesthetist, with an interest in music, and his father was dual qualified in medicine and dentistry, and practised the latter.
He grew up in Brighton and was educated at a prep school in Hove, from which he had been evacuated during the war to Bradfield College. He stayed on in this public school, where he had an exceptional headmaster who fostered an abiding interest in English language and history. A particular highlight as a school cadet officer was meeting Field Marshal Montgomery, whom he was selected to accompany on a visit to the school.
Planning to study medicine, he matriculated in natural sciences at Cambridge in 1948, proceeding in 1951 to St Mary’s, London for his clinical years, qualifying in 1954. In 1951 he bought his first Leica camera, a brand he gained further experience of in his use of the outstanding Leitz enlarger in the Anatomy Department.
Following qualification it was medicine, rather than surgery that he chose to peruse, and within medicine, neurology. His third house job was in neurology at St Mary’s Hospital. During this posting, epiphany came to him after 3 post-ward round gins and tonic with his Neurology Consultant in the Fountains Abbey opposite St Mary’s on Praed Street. Neurosurgery became his future.
He did his national service in the Royal Army Medical Corp. Initially this was at Aldershot. He was a fine sportsman excelling in squash, fives and cricket and in Aldershot, cricket in general and wicket keeping in particular figured large in his ‘curriculum’. He chose this ahead of learning to fire his revolver. Later he was posted to Cyprus, where the EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organisation, was fighting to end British rule and unify Cyprus with Greece. That notwithstanding, he later professed to having had a very good time there.
He obtained the MRCP (London) in 1957 closely followed by the primary FRCS (Royal College of Surgeons). Professionally, he worked at St James’s in Balham with Tanner, the famous gastric surgeon, and Seddon of nerve injury fame at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore before passing the FRCS in 1961. The same year he started training in neurosurgery at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital (AMH) with Mr (later Sir) Wylie McKissock. Of his training he later wrote, ‘The ladder was ascended from the lower depths of ward doctor (MRCP, FRCS irrelevant), burr hole boy (thought not expected or required), registrar (occasional thought and opinion permitted) to senior registrar (24 hour responsibility for the Unit).
In 1962 he married Agnes, who he first saw on a railway platform. He maintained a life-long interest in European railways because of this happy meeting.
He was seconded to complete his senior registrar training to the newly opened Wessex Neurological Centre in Southampton, with Jason Brice, who had also trained at AMH. He was duly appointed consultant there in 1968.
Jason Brice and John were a formidable team. They emphasised the concept of the team as opposed to a hierarchy and had a major commitment to teaching and training in Neurosurgery. They were fully involved with the establishment of the Medical School under the foundation dean Donald Acheson (who went on to be knighted as the CMO). John taught generations of undergraduate students, and trained many post-graduate surgeons who went on to successful careers in the UK and abroad. The unit flourished under their joint control, expanding to three, then four consultants, and established an academic department. He published papers on a range of neurosurgical topics, and also jointly published the books ‘Dilemmas’ (1983) and ‘More Dilemmas’ (1989) with Charles Warlow, Professor of Neurology in Edinburgh.
John Garfield had a passion for the EANS - European Association of Neurosurgical Societies. The EANS’s primary aim was to promote the free interchange of neurosurgical knowledge and experience: collaborative research and organising training courses for trainees, which were extremely popular. It continues to hold a major conference every 4 years. John was fully committed. His aim was to get the British Neurosurgical Society involved, and he succeeded. His commitment, focus and vision led to him being secretary in 1983-87. In 1995 John published a book of photographs with Jean Brihaye (a key figure in the development of the EANS) encompassing the history and the European cities where EANS meetings had been held over the years.
John was elected to the Council of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and in 1990 became president. As President he reviewed British neurosurgical practice and produced the ground-breaking document ‘Safe Neurosurgery’. This publication laid a foundation for planning the future of the Specialty and made substantial medical political impact.
John Garfield was interested in the medico-legal side of medicine in general, and neurosurgery in particular. He was appointed to the Council of the Medical Defence Union in 1979 where he served for many years. He was chair of the Cases Committee and on the Board of Management. He collaborated with his neurologist colleague Chris Earle, with whom he co-edited a medico-legal guide, ‘Medical Negligence – the Cranium, the Head and the Spine’ in 1999. This was noteworthy for its inclusion of both expert medical and legal authors.
His early interest in music led to working during holidays as an usher at Glyndebourne, as the family lived nearby, and his later wide-ranging interests included jazz, with a sizeable collection of recordings on ‘78s’. This particular interest was not shared by Agnes, his wife, whose interest in music was primarily classical.
A visit with his parents to France in the early 1960s had initiated John’s interest in War graves, and this became a major focus of his parallel interest in photography. He went on to produce an extensive photographic library of the Great War cemeteries, in France and Belgium, in strikingly evocative black and white images. This led to many lectures, often with his life-long friend and local medical colleague John Jenkins, and his book ‘The Fallen’ ran to four editions. John’s final exhibition was held in the Hartley Library, Southampton University autumn 2018 under the title ‘The Great War Remembered’ with his contribution entitled ‘John Garfield: Armistice 1918 - The Cost’.
In his book, ‘Images of Music’ his photographs were of musicians taken during rehearsals at the Turner Sims Hall of Southampton University where he and Agnes were prominent members for many years. These were then developed against thought provoking backgrounds. His photographic skills extended beyond his evocative monochrome images: He published a book (including colour pictures) of the Dean Garnier Garden in Winchester.
His archives on Music have been donated to the University of Southampton; his archives on the War Graves have been placed in the Special Collections Archive at the University.
He leaves his wife Agnes, 3 daughters and 6 grandchildren.