The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7257 p69
12 July 2003

Society summary

Tribute

Madge In a tribute to the late Archibald George Mervyn Madge (PJ, 5 July, p32), DOUGLAS SIMPSON writes:

As a young sub-editor on the PJ, one of my first assignments was to report a meeting organised by the Plymouth branch of the Society, where Mervyn Madge was the secretary. I cannot remember what the meeting was about, but I do remember the pot of clotted cream that was presented to me for taking the trouble to be present. Some years later, I mentioned to Mervyn how glad I had been to receive the cream, and he promptly sent me another pot.

But it is for more than his contribution to my dinner table that Mervyn was noted. The contribution he made to the profession through his 46 years of branch secretaryship was outstanding. He held many other posts, but that one was the most important.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is, in my view, first and foremost a professional association of pharmacists. People like Mervyn are its most important servants.

ROGER ODD writes:

I was saddened to learn about the death recently of an old and trusty colleague, Mervyn Madge. In his passing, pharmacy has lost one of the truly great and colourful characters in the profession of recent years and many will have cause to reflect on the numerous delightful moments that Mervyn has left us.

He will be remembered in so many ways — for fighting the corner of the underdog, for supporting those he believed were being discriminated against and, above all, for promoting his beloved Devon and Cornwall whenever possible. Indeed, many of us will remember his expert treatise about the "Treacle mines of Cornwall", which he exalted across the country, tongue in cheek and to the incredulity of many.

I first got to know Mervyn while sitting next to him around the table of the Society's Council. I was a new and raw recruit and he offered me help and support in his own inimitable way. Our paths continued to cross frequently from that time onwards through a number of organisations in which he just happened to be involved — often supported by his delightful wife and constant companion Christine.

I know that his world was never complete after Christine's death several years ago — but he continued to plunge himself into so many activities. As one door shut, so several more opened and I was never surprised to find Mervyn arriving in my office at the Society's headquarters in Lambeth asking searching questions on some intricate practice issue which was effecting his local colleagues.

My wife Marion and I will miss the occasional telephone calls in his lovely Devonian brogue and the many letters received enclosing "Madge miscellanies" of various kinds — each with details of the current initiative into which he had just launched himself.

Mervyn was a colossus of a West Country man, unique in so many ways. He will be sorely missed by so many who had had the privilege of knowing him.