|
|
 |
| |
Dr Ruth Seifert |
Psychiatrist with a voice ‘that will remain forever’
Family and colleagues remember a woman ‘always in your face... Everyone loved her’
WITH her lack of pomposity, irrepressible charm and boundless humour, Dr Ruth Seifert managed to make people laugh at her own funeral on Tuesday.
There were smiles and guffaws of recognition from many who knew and loved Ruth as anecdotes from her extraordinary life were shared – often including her generous deployment of swear words.
More than 200 mourners packed Golders Green Crematorium for a final farewell to the retired Bart’s consultant psychiatrist who lived in Canonbury. She died of cancer aged 65.
Husband Dr Charles Clarke, an honorary consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Bloomsbury, described her as a remarkable mother, a faithful wife, an irreplaceable medical colleague, a fabulous cook and a “woman whose voice, whose turn of phrase and whose opinions will remain with us forever”.
Dr Clarke told how even as a young medic his wife had a healthy and fearless contempt for officialdom. She would refuse to certify “natural causes” on the death certificate of those who had died of respiratory disease. Her cousin, Lord Justice Sedley, had told Dr Clarke: “She insisted that they had been killed by avoidable pollution. The local coroner went nuts at the number of inquests that resulted.”
Addressing mourners, Dr Clarke said: “Naturally, I have my instructions, scribbled like most things in Ruth’s life on a rather dirty scrap of paper a few weeks ago.
“They are firm, brief and to the point. ‘Make sure the music is turned up. Get Brian [Brian Block, a family friend who gave the eulogy] to speak and no one else. Make sure there is enough food.’ Oh, and underlined: ‘and don’t forget my ashes’.”
One of the many anecdotes related by Mr Block concerned a time when Ruth’s children were young and behaving badly in a refined West Country tearoom. As the genteel clientele sipped their Earl Grey and nibbled their cakes, Ruth barked: “If you don’t stop that, I’ll tell your father when he gets out of jail!”
Ruth was born into a well-known radical Jewish family in Highgate. A recent newspaper profile described the family as not religious, but strongly culturally Jewish – “we did Passover”.
Her father, Sigmund Seifert, born as his family fled from Polish pogroms, founded the left-wing law firm Seifert Sedley, joined the Communist Party and was libel lawyer for the Daily Worker.
Ruth, her sister and two brothers – one is the well-known radical lawyer Michael Seifert – had “a wonderful childhood” in Highgate. Their large house accommodated Communist meetings and played host to famous radical figures of the time, including singer Paul Robeson and actors Vanessa Redgrave and Alfie Bass.
Ruth’s sister Sue is the inspirational headteacher at Montem School in Holloway.
Dr Clarke thanked the medical and nursing teams at Bart’s, the Royal Marsden and University College hospitals who helped ease his wife through illness.
He said: “Many of the doctors and nurses caring for Ruth felt able to reciprocate Ruth’s directness. And, above all, they helped her to retain her distinct humour and themselves played off it.”
He described how the palliative care team felt they had come to know her so well that on her 65th birthday they sent her a card with a caption reading: “Hilda was an incontinent, flea-ridden old bitch. But on the positive side, her dog had a lovely temperament.” And it was signed: “This card was only for you. Dr Chi-Chi Cheung and Nurse Bridget Clarence-Smith.”
Trevor Turner, distinguished psychiatrist and colleague of Ruth, wrote quite simply at her Bart’s retirement party in 1998: “Remember, Ruth, phrases like you f****** w***** don’t go down too well in Harley Street.”
He added: “She was always in your face. Everyone loved her and teaching was simple, to the point and laced with the f-word.
“She spent a lot of time looking after consultants’ wives who came to her suffering from depression. She would say: ‘Married to that w***** who wouldn’t be?’”
The Internationale was played at the beginning of the service and later daughters Rebecca and Naomi read Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale. And Gracie Fields’ Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye was heard loud and clear over the sound system at the end of the service.
As well as husband Charles and daughters Rebecca and Naomi, she is survived by two grandchildren. |
 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
