Jack Slorach, Golspie
John Joseph “Jack” Slorach, who died in Bonar Bridge on December 13 last year, was born on June 5, 1931, in Dumbarton.
NHS Community Dental Surgeon for Sutherland, the biggest practice area in the UK, who used to tow a mobile clinic by Land Rover to treat patients at ‘remote’ West Coast villages and hamlets.
John Joseph ‘Jack’ Slorach, who died in Migdale Hospital at Bonar Bridge in Sutherland on 13th December at the age of 86, was a member of a prominent West of Scotland medical family who served the biggest practice-area in Britain for over two decades as NHS Community Dentist covering the whole of the sparsely-populated County of Sutherland: an area of more than 2,000 sq. miles (5,250 sq. kms).
Jack, as he was known throughout his long life, will be remembered for towing the mobile dentistry clinic behind his Land Rover as he treated school-children, mothers-to-be and latterly old-age pensioners at ‘remote’ villages and hamlets set amongst the mountains and sea-lochs of Sutherland’s Western fringes.
He was born as the second in a family of six in June 1931 to Dr Charles Slorach, who rose to become Chief Medical Officer of Health for Dunbartonshire and whose kin had been clinicians for several preceding generations, and his wife Mary. Her Sea Captain father was appointed Harbourmaster at Bombay (now Mumbai) at a time when the ‘Gateway to India’ was a key communications sea-port link in the then-mighty British Empire.
Jack’s older brother Cameron became a doctor whilst his nursing sister Joan was midwife in attendance to Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Kennedy when John Jr. was born to her and the US President elect in 1960. Another sister Joan was married to a Glasgow native GP, with a surgery qualification, who served Australian ‘outback’ communities in that country’s famous ‘Flying Doctor’ service.
Jack’s links with the Highlands began when he was enrolled as a boarder at the Benedictine Abbey School in the village of Fort Augustus, at the southern end of Loch Ness.
In 1949 he was admitted to the University of Glasgow’s Dentistry School, but a National Service spell with the Royal Army Dental Corps at several bases in England, meant that he was not formally qualified to practice with a BDS ... Batchelor of Dental Surgery .... degree until 1958.
He had got to know Inverness quite well during his days the Abbey School, and he moved to the Highland Capital to commence his professional career at the Ness Bank practice there. He spent a total of 15 years in what was to become Scotland’s Millennium City, including running his own practice in its Crown area.
Whilst there he met his wife Ann, (nee Ross), originally from Dornoch, Sutherland, who pre-deceased him in 2005.
Jack was an active sportsman during his time in Inverness; he was an early skier on the Cairngorm Mountain slopes, played hockey for the Highland Club in the Scottish National League and often relaxed on the golf course where he played off a low handicap. He was a lifelong folk and traditional music enthusiast, having been a founder-member
of The Corbie Club while studying at Glasgow University.
In 1975 Jack and Ann moved to Golspie, Sutherland, when he took up his NHS Community Dentistry post for the County.
This was to be his home for the rest of his life, till he was admitted to Migdale Hospital in nearby Bonar Bridge during the second half of last year. It was in Golspie that their now grown-up family of five was raised: John, Charles, Duncan Siobhan and Andrew.
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After retirement in 1996, he suffered various health problems, having a heart by-pass operation in 1997 while he had a leg amputated in 2005, but even the latter impairment did not keep him away from the golf-course.
His daughter Siobhan, whose husband is a nurse at Raigmore Hospital, has a career as a dental therapist and she lectures on the subject to students in Inverness.
Grand-daughter Sinead qualified from Glasgow University as a dentist in the 20i7, while her younger sister Niamh (pronounced Neave) is also upholding the family medicine tradition as she is now studying dentistry, also at Jack’s old ‘alma mater’.
He leaves a total of seven grandchildren, whilst on the day after his death, an infant who would have been his first great-grand-daughter, arrived.
Jack Slorach’s well-attended funeral service was held on Wednesday, December 20th 2017, at Christ the King RC Church in Brora, Sutherland.
