(Contributed by his son, Peter Thompson)
Lt. Col.Thompson died on 13th September at the age of 74. He had shown great sporting potential in his early years before a distinguished medical career first in the Army and then in the Dutch National Health Service in Schiedam, The Netherlands.
Born on 18th March 1934 in Bristol, he attended the Dragon School in Oxford alongside his sister Barbara, before moving on to Marlborough College. From an early age he displayed a love for sport, setting up a makeshift boxing ring in his dormitory on his first night at the Dragon, and continued boxing throughout his schooldays. However, it was on the cricket and hockey pitches where he achieved his greatest successes, which he carried into his years at Worcester College, Oxford, where he gained a hockey blue each year from 1954 to 1956 and captained the side in 1956. He then went on to represent Dorset in cricket, and both the Army (as captain) and Welsh national team at hockey, and played in the Combined Services' rugby team in his spare time.
He gained his degree in medicine from Oxford, and then continued his medical studies at the Middlesex hospital, where he indulged his passion for the theatre directing several musicals andcomedies, and met his future wife, Tricia. They were married in 1960 at the Lygon Arms in Broadway, Worcestershire.
He chose to pursue his medical specialism as a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Army, serving for 16 years in various locations in the UK and Germany. During this time he was recognised for his work with bomb disposal personnel, becoming an honorary member of the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, and also by his peers, being elected a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
In 1977, he left the Army and went to run a 50 bed Psychiatric Unit in a General Hospital in The Netherlands, starting his work in a foreign language after only three months. He worked there for 15 years, before returning to the Army as a civilian consultant, serving a further three years, before retiring back in the UK to pursue his lifelong passion for golf and to be nearer his family.
He died at the Royal United Hospital in Bath of complications from Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia on 13th September, and is survived by his wife of 48 years, Tricia, his two children, Peter and Claire and his grandson, Thomas.