Edward Walter Leslie Fletcher

Edward Walter Leslie Fletcher—known to friends and colleagues as “Wattie”—was a kind, considerate, and mild mannered man. Although he was ambitious and driven for causes close to his heart, he was always the perfect gentleman. He will be remembered for his association with the founding of Green College, Oxford, and his major role in the formation of the British Society of Interventional Radiology. Wattie’s father, Leslie Fletcher, was a GP and came from a large medical family (Leslie’s father and five brothers were all doctors in Cumbria). Leslie joined up at the outbreak of war in 1939 and he was sent to York to receive wounded soldiers. His wife later joined him there. Wattie was sent to live with an old lady in Brassington, a small hilltop village. He went to public school in Repton, where he made lifelong friends and became a fine athlete as a runner, hurdler, and cross country runner. In 1953 Wattie went up to Cambridge to read medicine and geology as a half subject at Emmanuel College. He had a lifelong passion for rocks and fossils and a great love of the outdoors, walking and climbing in the Lake District and Peak District. In 1956 he went to St Thomas’ Hospital in London. At his final examinations in 1959 he was awarded the All England Hancock prize for surgery. In 1960, as part of his house …