TAH (Rab) Hide 1935–2020

TAH (Rab) Hide graduated from Glasgow University in 1960 and was Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, Glasgow, from its inception in 1970 till 1998. He was President of the SBNS 1994–96 and subsequently of the UEMS. After retirement he was active in NHS Scotland and in the production of Safe Neurosurgery 2000.

My first introduction to Rab Hide was as a medical student, when we had small group teaching in Neurosurgery. We were ushered into a room where Rab animatedly expounded, with numerous rather gory slides, on his favourite subject – Craniofacial surgery. It was of course totally incomprehensible to an audience of medical students, but no matter: such was the charisma and charm of the man, I was hooked.

And that was Rab: enormously entertaining, but deadly serious; flippant, yet totally committed; bon viveur, but curiously shy. I was hooked by his passion, and, under his guidance, I developed it too.

Thomas Armstrong Henry Hide – then known as Armstrong – was born in Glasgow in 1935 and grew up in Hunter’s Quay, near Dunoon. In those days this was quite a desirable location – twenty years later, my parents spent their honeymoon there – and it was a perfect place for a child who loved the outdoors. Young Armstrong’s father was a marine engineer and was posted to India, but he stayed at home, lodging with friends, and attended the local grammar school in Dunoon, where he excelled (oddly for a Scot) at cricket. This remained a lifelong passion. He was set on studying chemistry at university, but got side-tracked into medicine and in those days was simply able to switch courses on arrival at Glasgow University.

Armstrong graduated in 1960, now known to all as Rab. This was not related to his ability to recite Rabbie Burns’s masterpiece Tam o’Shanter at will, the result of a bet with his grandmother; he gained the nickname after he ate an unfeasible number of sausages at a party, and was compared to Rab Ha’, the Glasgow Glutton – a real-life character who earned his living by taking wagers on what he could consume.

Rab’s first house job was in the neurosurgical unit at Killearn. This was the forerunner to the Institute of Neurological Sciences, and was an unprepossessing collection of huts in beautiful countryside to the north of Glasgow in the Campsie Fells – it is my eternal regret that I missed out on working there by only a few years. Like so many of us, he became captivated by Neurosurgery, and also by a tall, pretty radiographer. He and Louise married in 1963. They moved to London for Rab to finish his training – notably at Atkinson Morley’s, where he fell under the spell of Wylie McKissock. Their two daughters were born there; Susie, whom many of you will know, was for a long time Executive Director of the EANS. Rab returned as a consultant to Glasgow, in the newly-built Institute of Neurological Sciences, in 1970.

Glasgow was at that time a powerhouse of Neurosurgical research. Under the leadership of Bryan Jennett and then Graham Teasdale there were major advances in head injury in particular, culminating in the Glasgow Coma Scale. Rab took great pride, by contrast, in never having published a single paper, and I remember him being annoyed when someone broke his ‘duck’ by listing him as a co-author. What he was, and excelled as, was a technical surgeon and innovator. To him, surgery was art as much as science, and every step of every operation was important. I remember him glaring at me when I arrived in theatre a few minutes late because I had missed the vitally important skin prep – done in the traditional way, without gloves, the incision marked by a scalpel rather than a pen, Rab dancing around the shaved head like a ballerina.

While being a superb general Neurosurgeon, Rab specialised in paediatric and particularly in craniofacial neurosurgery, then in its infancy. Together with Ian Jackson and later Kursheed Moos, he developed a world-class craniofacial service and taught generations of surgeons from many countries. It was quite extraordinary, in the 1980s, to see the transformation in the lives of the children they treated – without 3-D CT scanning and many of the facilities we now see as essential.

Rab’s passion for Neurosurgery drew him into the SBNS. He was President 1994–96, and his subsequent Presidency of the UEMS made him particularly proud. He maintained rôles in NHS Scotland well into retirement.

I was lucky enough to work with Rab through much of the 1980s. He inspired love and respect in colleagues and patients alike, and was enormous fun at the many parties we had. His laugh and joie-de-vivre were infectious, and his political incorrectness was legendary. But most of all he was the consummate Neurosurgeon: meticulous, precise, confident and caring. If we could all be half the person he was, Neurosurgery would be fortunate indeed.