Dr Robert Simpson of Ballymena wore his many achievements lightly. When he and his wife, Dorothy, joined in gardening tours in the early 1980s, most of us from the South who were not closely familiar with Northern politics knew his name mainly through his pithy medical notes contributed over the years to The Irish Times. Gardening had always been one of his interests, and so were trees - he was a founder-member of the Irish Tree Society - but he excelled himself in his later years when, to his own great delight, he planted a small arboretum in the field next to his garden. Like all those who plant for the future, he knew that he would see his precious trees only at the beginning of their lives. But he watched their young growth with the same solicitude mingled with an impish humour - pointing out with satisfaction, for instance, a Serbian spruce nestling next to a Bosnian pine - that he applied in his medical practice.
Robert was born a farmer's son in Ballymena, Co Antrim, where, after graduating from Queen's University, Belfast, in 1946, he spent nearly 40 years as a popular and devoted general practitioner - Doctor Bob. He used his experience in a country practice to write, under the pseudonyms Dr John Barfoot and Dr David Blue, weekly medical columns which were widely syndicated in local and regional newspapers in Ireland and elsewhere.
But medical matters alone did not fully occupy his active mind or absorb all of his sometimes impetuous energies. As a young man he tried conventional sports, describing himself as a "high-handicap golfer and a low-output fisherman", but eventually decided he had the patience for neither. Instead he satisfied his curiosity by travelling widely, using his journalistic skills to write entertainingly about his travels and about farming matters in a variety of publications. He was also deeply involved for many years in the organisation of the Ballymena Musical Festival, helping to bring all sections of the community together in a shared passion.
Most notably, Robert Simpson carved a niche for himself in Northern politics, becoming a member of the Stormont parliament at the age of 30. He served as Unionist MP for Mid-Antrim at Stormont from 1953 to 1972 and as the Minister of Community Relations, a newly-created post, from 1969 to 1971 under Chichester-Clark's premiership, working hard to bridge the religious divide. When he became a Minister he took the bold step of resigning from the Orange and Masonic Orders to show his desire to be non-partisan.
His intense curiosity and interest in fine detail remained with him through his life. Dorothy remembers that in their regular travels they savoured every quirk of the Ulster landscape: which landmarks looked best in sunlight and which were shown up by rain clouds, which were the most distant views possible of the Mournes. The half-glasses - wire-rimmed, since he hated plastic - that Robert wore in recent years became part of his quizzical persona.
He had an attractive, self-deprecating sense of humour, and his was a face that one sought out in a crowd, knowing that one would be greeted with unaffected warmth and made truly welcome; he was, above all, an hospitable, generous man. He continued to work in his community long past retirement age and died, as he would have wished, after a morning's work in his surgery in April this year. Our sympathies go to his wife and to his children, Dermott, Cherith and Guy. M.D.