In front of a montage honouring his grandfather, Richard Woods expresses the family’s deep interest in Goulburn and the ANU’s commemoration of Dr R G Woods. He acknowledged Leon Oberg’s black and white photograph (top left) in the montage, taken in 1966, and how the family relocated ‘Kantara’, their former home’s nameplate (top centre). Photo: John Thistleton.
He was the doctors’ choice for a second opinion, a child’s favourite because of the jelly beans he handed out, and the nurses’ friend because of his gentlemanly ways.
Coming to Goulburn in 1920, Dr Robert Grieve Woods’ influence spread from the medical profession into all corners of Goulburn’s civic life and lingered for years after his death in 1967, aged 78, after practising for almost half a century.
Last year the library in the Australian National University’s Rural Medical School, adjoining the Goulburn Base Hospital was named in his honour. Previously, the library in the base hospital was named after him, but was redeveloped when the hospital was upgraded.
On Thursday a montage with the highlights of Dr Woods’ distinguished tenure in Goulburn was unveiled. South East NSW manager, Regional Training Hub Rural Clinical School, ANU Medical School, Jennie Gordon invited key people to reflect on his legacy.
Dr Woods’ grandson Richard, former Goulburn nursing sister and hospital historian Marlene Eggleston, retired surgeon Tom Lyttle and historian Jennifer Lamb shared personal reflections of the eminent medico. His 103-year-old son Dr Bill Woods watched proceedings via a video link, as he had done so last year when the school was opened.
Mrs Gordon said Dr Woods served in World War I and lived in ‘Kantara’, his family’s home that was also where he practised. (While serving in Palestine, he was hospitalised at Kantara in Palestine, where Australian nurse Minnie Crawford cared for him. After the war they returned to Australia and decided to marry.)
Jennie Gordon, Tom Lyttle, Richard Woods and Jennifer Lamb in the R. G. Woods Library, where they recounted the long-serving doctor’s contributions to medicine and Goulburn. Photo: John Thistleton.
A foundation member of the Goulburn Medical Clinic, talented musician and accomplished cricketer, Dr Woods belonged to numerous organisations including the Lieder Theatre and Returned Servicemen’s League.
Ms Lamb recounted her parents relocating from Sydney to Greenwich Park near Marulan, and being told Dr Woods was equal to any metropolitan doctor. So they chose him to help deliver Jennifer in 1946 when according to her mother, she was born in a Nissan hut.
“I do recall visiting Dr Woods in a surgery on the corner of Bourke and Verner streets,” Ms Lamb said. “I remember him as being a gentle, dignified person, the sort of man you would expect to be your doctor back in those days. After you had been you always got a jelly bean when you wrapped up.”
Mr Woods said by allowing his grandfather’s name to be given for the library, the ANU was helping historical links and the means to commemorate Dr Woods’ commitment and sacrifices.
He remembered Dr Woods as a warm, open man who could be very stern which probably came from that generation of people who came out of World War I.
He had contracted malaria while in Palestine, almost died and took medical advice to move to a dry climate, which brought him to Goulburn.
He acknowledged a Goulburn Post article by Louise Thrower in more recent times had revealed the whereabouts of a brass plate, ‘Kantara’, that adorned Dr Woods’ homes where he practised. After one of those homes, on the corner of Bradley and Bourke streets changed hands the family was unaware of where the nameplate had gone, but following the article, was offered it back. They then decided to display it permanently in the library, in the centre of a montage of Dr Woods’ life in Goulburn.
“I hope the students, when they come here doing their hard studies and look up and think well, gosh, times are tough now, but gee they were a lot harder in those days, no doubt with limited resources and so forth,” Mr Woods said.
Speaking on behalf of Goulburn nurses, Marlene Eggleston said she was a student nurse in 1961 for four years, while Dr Woods was one of the doctors caring for patients.
Ms Eggleston said Dr Bruce Coombes had once written about the Goulburn Medical Clinic and said the doctors, including Mr Lyttle and Dr Woods, gave lectures to the nurses and their payment was used to buy books for the hospital’s library.
“He was a great guy, a real gentleman, he would never let us carry the clinical charts. He said that was not a lady’s job,” she said.
Mr Lyttle remembered Dr Woods as a kindly, pleasant gentleman.
“He did some house calls at my place,” he said.
Although his father was a general practitioner, he had reasoned that his son Tom would never pay attention to his own father, and so sought a second opinion from Dr Woods, who the retired surgeon called ‘Bertie’.
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