My father, Arthur Ancell, who has died at the age of 95, was one of the administrators who played a key role in developing the National Health Service in the early postwar years.
Born in Swinton, Greater Manchester, son of John, a pattern-card maker, and Sarah, he was the only child in a modest but loving home. He enjoyed a typical childhood playing football (in the same school team as the future commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme) and cycling (he had the dubious honour of being stopped for speeding in the Mersey tunnel), and left school at an early age with a basic education.
Determined to better himself, he studied accountancy and administration at night school, but all hopes of embarking on a professional path were brought to a halt by the second world war. By then a committed Christian, and having embarked on his remarkable 70 years as a lay preacher, he declared himself a conscientious objector. While that presented him with many challenges and difficulties in his local community, he was supported by his Independent Methodist church, his family and, not least, his future wife, Bessie Johnson, whom he married in 1944.
Having undertaken service in a reserved occupation at Salford Royal hospital, he soon realised that was to be his vocation. Following a move to Exeter, and then Northwood, London, he was appointed assistant secretary at Staffordshire General Infirmary and soon afterwards became the hospital group supplies officer, as the NHS came into being. He went on to hold senior positions in Nottingham and Leicester, and for many years he was national honorary secretary of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. A particular feature of that period in hospital administration was the introduction of computerised processes, in which Arthur was heavily involved.
For 24 years he was a magistrate in Nottingham and Gloucester. At various times he was president of the Nottingham North Rotary Club, a Methodist church circuit steward, and in retirement he helped to form the Gloucester Probus Club.
His retirement years were a whirlwind of overseas visits, to family and friends in New Zealand, the Bahamas, the US and Switzerland. With abundant energy right up to his final months, he played golf and continued driving into his 90s.
Bessie died in 2000. Arthur is survived by my sister, Pam, and me, and by four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
