Mortimer Francis Howlett Kelleher died on 23rd June 2006, aged 98. The eleventh of 13 children of a GP he was born in 1908 in Macroom, Co. Cork. He was educated at Castleknock College, Dublin and read Medicine at University College, Cork, qualifying in 1933. He then joined the RAMC, being posted to Palestine in 1936. It was there where troops were attempting to keep peace between Jewish settlers and Arabs in1938 that he rescued two soldiers, shot and critically wounded by supporters of a notorious gang leader. They were lying in an exposed position under enemy fire. He brought them back to safety, at considerable risk to himself, and managed to save one but the other died. For his bravery Kelleher was awarded the Military Cross..
He rose through the ranks of the RAMC, serving in Palestine, Egypt, Klagenfurt in Germany, Korea and then at the British Medical Hospital Kinrara near Kuala Lumpur. In 1955 he was promoted colonel on his posting to MELF in Cyprus as consulting physician. He then went to the Military Hospital at Catterick, Yorkshire as OIC Medical Division before transferring to GHQ Far East and subsequently HQ BAOR.
He gained his MRCPE in 1958, was appointed OBE in 1959, was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in November 1962.and appointed Honorary Physician to the Queen in 1966. He retired from the Army in 1968 to live in a Surrey village
In 1970 he married Dame Joanna Henderson, a former Director Women’s Royal Army Corps. She survives him.