Notices
Miss Teresa ("Tessa") Elizabeth Ann Addenbrooke
In College 1950-1954 St Helen's and St Bridget's
Former general practitioner who understood the difficulties of disabled people from experience and championed their rights
Tuberculosis of the hip in 1938 was not a good start for a 2 year old. Tessa Addenbrooke spent seven of her first 11 years in hospital, often immobilised on a frame. Parental visits were discouraged at that time—as upsetting to the child—and the hospital regime, while not deliberately cruel, was horrifying to a modern understanding of a child's needs and feelings.
The range of actions hampered by a crumbled (later fixed) hip, from walking to washing, is not easily appreciated by those who are able bodied—even doctors who tell the patient to "sit up." Neither is the longer term effect of this imbalance on the whole skeleton. To this physical disability were added the effects of Tessa's deprived, almost absent, childhood: she battled throughout her life against depression, anxiety, and anger. Her most remarkable achievement in medicine was to use her disabilities to help others.
Teresa Elizabeth Ann Addenbrooke was the eldest child of an Anglican priest. Her mother taught French while bringing up their six children on his small stipend. Tessa obtained a foundation scholarship to Cheltenham Ladies' College, becoming deputy head girl. A Cheltenham retreat conducted by Christopher Evans, then chaplain of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, provided the first opportunity to pour out the emotions she was struggling to contain. From this unlikely beginning stemmed a deep and lifelong friendship. On her arrival at St Anne's College, Oxford, he became her doughty supporter and adviser. She once burst into his room in fury and despair, having been advised by a well meaning woman, "Swallow your pride and get a wheelchair." Evans recalls, "For once in my life, I was inspired by the Holy Spirit. I said: ‘Bugger her! Get a car.'" Over the next half century Tessa made a succession of cars her legs.
After house jobs in Oxford and elsewhere, she went into general practice in Epping and Highgate, later becoming medical officer for the John Lewis Partnership. She then joined Tony Haines and Raanan Gillon in starting a new college health service at Imperial College. Thanks to Gillon's and her appeals to the secretary of state, the service was eventually opened to all in the locality.
She had a wealth of stories from these years in London: reaching a drug crazed man up three flights with no hand rail; coming at night upon a man in the road surrounded by an angry crowd and telling them that she must help him but that they would have to protect her, which they did; being approached by a huge Rastafarian in a lonely street to be told that her coat was caught in the door. The bigger stories, however, were often told by others. Patients and friends with physical problems—whether musculoskeletal or neurological—sensed a fellow feeling. The mind blowing determination and ingenuity with which she had achieved such an active life encouraged others, as well as giving them practical tips. Many have cause to be grateful, too, for her trenchant comments to providers of lifts and toilets for disabled people.
Tessa's emotional disability required at least as much courage, as well as support from others. Depression and anxiety dogged her to the end, despite psychoanalysis. She therefore understood the desperation of others similarly afflicted. One tribute at her funeral read, "She saved my life." Her great gift for friendship extended to those of all ages, notably including young people and anyone having a hard time: a gay lorry driver (before homosexuality was acceptable), an Iranian Muslim seeking peace in the Church. The Church remained central to Tessa's life, too, an abiding source of strength and direction.
When increasing pain forced her to retire, Tessa served on disability appeal tribunals, bringing to them her medical knowledge and personal experience. The care with which she studied the huge files of each appellant, moreover, gave her a detailed knowledge of disability law.
Retirement also allowed her to indulge and develop other interests. She and Christopher Evans, now widowed, discovered a passion for Romanesque churches which took them all over France. She learnt the cello, inventing a double spike (published in The Strad) for anyone similarly unable to grasp a cello between the thighs. This took her to friends' houses for quartets and to workshops in France. Going to concerts gave her great joy.
However, she no longer enjoyed a general practitioner's parking rights outside Haringey. Her rage at parking fines sometimes produced more stress than success, but she certainly brought the problems of disabled Londoners to the attention of charities, councils, MPs, ministers, and the mayor. There were kinder incidents, too: the Asian traffic warden who tapped her on the shoulder in the bank to tell her that she was parked illegally but to take her time as a colleague was guarding her car.
Tessa never married but became a deeply loved member of several families as well as her own. A recurrent sadness for her friends was that someone with such ability to love found it so hard to believe in her own lovability. She was enormous fun to be with and brought a sense of excitement and celebration. Her disability was forgotten in the warmth of her friendship. The most abiding memory for many will be her faced creased with laughter, culminating in a helpless snort of amusement.
Teresa ("Tessa") Elizabeth Ann Addenbrooke (b 1935; q Oxford 1962; DRCOG), died from ischaemic heart disease on 9 October 2006.
[ Paul Snell - Taken from the BMJ website]