Former general practitioner Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland (b Omagh 1914; q St John’s, Cambridge, and Queen’s University, Belfast, 1940; squadron leader Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 1940-6), died from myocardial infarction on 7 October 2005.

After serving in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR), Sam Millar entered general practice in Newtownards in 1947, just before the establishment of the NHS. He was a kind, caring, old fashioned general practitioner and a shrewd clinician with an encyclopaedic memory of the generations of patients he looked after. He was instrumental in the foundation of the early group practices in the 1960s and retired from general practice in 1974, then working as a medical officer in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board until 1979. He had a long and wonderfully happy marriage of 63 years to Eleanor (née Wilson), who predeceased him in 2004. With her he created two magnificent gardens, and he served on the Gardens Committee of The National Trust for Northern Ireland for many years. He took great pleasure and pride in his family and leaves two daughters and a son. [John Millar]