He graduated from Bristol University in 1973 and was inspired to go into Paediatric Endocrinology by Dr David Grant at Great Ormond Street in 1978. He spent a research year (1979-1980) with Dr Maguelone Forest in Lyon, France, where he worked on steroid biochemistry.
He was appointed Senior Lecturer in Child Health in Glasgow in 1989 and developed endocrine outreach clinics in the West of Scotland, and specialist clinics for children with Turner or Prader-Willi syndrome in Glasgow. From Glasgow, he led a United Kingdom study in Turner syndrome, examining the adjunctive roles of oxandrolone and delayed pubertal induction in increasing adult height of girls receiving growth hormone supplementation. With colleagues from the Newborn Screening Laboratory, he published extensively on congenital hypothyroidism, based on the Scottish Congenital Hypothyroidism registry.
He received the Outstanding Clinician award from ESPE in 2015 and the Tanner prize from the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes in 2023.
Most important to him was his international teaching, both through e-learning and as coordinator of the ESPE Winter School and as Faculty on the ESPE Caucasus and Central Asian School. His love for, and remarkable mastery of the French language, allowed him to coordinate the Maghreb School and to participate in the ‘Programme d’Enseignement en Endocrinologie-Diabétologie Pédiatrique pour l’Afrique Francophone’. His singing, in English and in French, and guitar playing during the evenings were a highlight of the Maghreb School.
He will be remembered as a warm and caring human being. He will undoubtedly inspire the next generation of academic pediatric endocrinologists worldwide.