Edward Synge COOPER [2422]

   Cause of his death was prostate cancer.

   Other names for Edward were Ed and Arthur Edward Synge COOPER.

  General Notes:

Edward graduated from London University (Kings College Hospital) in 1968 as a paediatrician, he has lived in the Carribean for 20 years and is a citizen of St. Lucia. An interesting family reconnection with the Caribbean from the past, he is familiar with St. Kitts. The family have now (2006) settled in London.

Very sadly, Ed died prematurely in 2019 aged 74, he is sorely missed by his family and many others.
Below is a moving eulogy by his eldest daughter Aretha, the complete celebration of his life is shown below in words and pictures.

EULOGY
BY ARETHA COOPER
My father's blog entry: September Sth, 2018:
"I do not believe in souls. Iris one belief I am clear about. In fact, I doubly do not believe in souls. 1) I do not believe in a self that survives physical death, which is what I understand as the definition of a soul. 2)1 do not believe in a self even before death, if the self is seen as a nugget within a live being, encompassing the person's essence. I believe only in the self as a word for the totality of the person, their current being, their growth, their layers of experience, their defects and disease, and deterioration, everything, not as an immutable something inside':
These are my father's words, which ironically capture part of his essence as a fiercely logical man. We may not all agree with his assessment of the self but nevertheless, today and forever more we will mourn the loss of his whole self, his physical self and the different layers of his personality we encountered over the course of his life. His kindness, humour, and intellect reached us all no matter what time and place we knew him.
Here is the story of his remarkable and beautiful life. Told with excerpts from his own writing and tributes from his friends and family.
Biography
My father was born in Oxford, England on November 10th 1944. The family moved to Australia when he was a young boy and returned to England in 1953. They made their home in the village of Cranham, in the South Cotswold hills, eight miles south of Cheltenham near Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ Chelten-ham, Gloucestershire, where his father worked.
My father attended boarding school in Dorset and then went on to King's College Hospital Medical School in 1968. He completed his paediatric residency in 1971 at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Washington DC, USA. In 1974 he began work for the Ministry of Health as the first consultant paediatrician in St. Lucia. He was affectionately known as "The Father of Paediatrics': During his time in St. Lucia he also concurrently worked as a lecturer in Child Health at the University of the West Indies, and a consultant paediatrician at the University Hospital. In 1992 he joined the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit of the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica as a Wellcome Trust senior research fellow in clinical science. While at UWI,
he conducted extensive research in parasitology and nutritional disorders, and published over 100 articles.
On returning to the UK, he worked as a consultant paediatrician at Homerton and Newham hospitals, and numerous other hospitals across the UK. He retired from the National Health Service in 2007, but not content to sit back in retirement, he served as a tribunal judge of the Social Security Tribunal until 2014, where he had been a highly valued and respected member since 1999.
After retiring from medicine he went on to gain a master's degree in counselling and worked for the charity Relate with families from across North London. As a lifelong learner he took numerous online courses in Spanish, mathematics and astronomy. He was a diligent student, and truly found joy in mastery of his favourite subjects.
My father was a lifelong advocate for child health. He was a member of societies, associations and royal colleges across the world, such as the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Children's HIV Association and Child Advocacy International. He engaged in many volunteer programs over his lifetime, the most significant of which was as a paediatrician and clinical consultant to the Partnership for Child Development of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College, London. During his tenure he made many trips to Africa to work with local and international teams on HIV programs. His colleagues during that time praised him as "an incredible man and so very kind", and "knowledgeable, kind, caring and fun".
Perhaps his appetite for international service came from with his very first posting on the island of St Lucia. My father loved St. Lucia, he had a special connection to the land and the people. I know he pined for St. Lucia at times, a feeling most St. Lucians know well He became an official citizen of St. Lucia in 1983, and though his path to citizenship was not by birth it was certainly by heart.

Blog Entry: December 17th 2014. "During my second two-year tour in St. Lucia, 1976-1978, the US export television series "The Invisible Man" was popular on our single channel of television. It was popular with children - some lucky ones with a set in their house, others who could crowd round an open window in a village. When I was slim and had my brown hair bleached by the sun I had a facial resemblance to David McCallum, remarked on by others, but even I could see it. I was not displeased by the resemblance: McCallum had a female following....The children seemed to see my resemblance to the actor - they followed me or ran up to my car, shouting together: "Invisible man! Invisible man! Take out your face!" This reinforcement to my self-esteem was naturally welcome....The series passed beyond the horizon of repeats and I passed beyond the horizon of St. Lucia - to England, to the sea as a ship's surgeon and to Jamaica as a lecturer.
It was only a few years later that I returned to St. Lucia, to my old job as the paediatrician. I was a bit older, a bit coarser in features, substantially bigger. Once again, I was driving round the beloved roads and lanes and tracks, visiting health centres, ban, friends, trouble. To my surprise, there were times when children ran up to the car, shouting. It was just like a few years before, but what could they be saying? They could not be the same children who used to cry: "Take out your face!"Those would now be older. The TV series was defunct. And yet, children still called out to me. I was suffused with a certain satisfaction. Here I was, the father of paediatrics in the island, a benign, perhaps avuncular but still slightly dashing figure, surrounded by laughing children. I must draw closer and hear what they're saying. I did, perhaps without fully appreciating the latest US TV export series. I heard the children's words: "Incredible hulk! Incredible hulk!"

Like his father before him, my father had a keen interest in languages. He spoke Spanish and French fluently and at one time St. Lucian creole well. He recognised that to reach all St. Lucians, especially those in rural communities, he would need to learn the local language. As a foreigner, this bold move endeared him greatly to St. Lucians because they saw him as a humble man who valued their language and culture. In our time of sorrow, remembrance and celebration, I will share Dad's blog entry on this beautiful creole word to help to describe our loss.
Blog Entry: February 28th, 2019.
"There's a St Lucian Kweyol (Creole) word, "chagwen; and here's the standard kweyol dictionary entry for it: chagwen n. depression, sadness, chagrin. 1.< Fr. chagrin] ni chagwen to be unable to do without Fanmi'y to ni chagwen'y Ip i ale I& peyL His family couldn't do without him when he went overseas." ...
"This does not reach the full range and depth and subtlety of this word. Chagwen is a beautiful word that is deeply related to John Bowlby's ideas on attachment or 'affectional bonds': Chagwen is the breaking of the bond. Its beauty is in the ambiguity of sharing the grief across the bond to belong to both people at either end of it: this is an evolution of chagrin, the French word for sorrow, extending its meaning through projection. There is always the idea that a bond of attachment is a risk. This is why a word that can be used as one for love is derived from a word meaning sorrow: to love is to risk heartbreak."

Ed, Dad, Nous ni (we have) Chagwen, our hearts are broken, all because we love you deeply and always will
My earliest memories of my father, are of my brother and I sitting next to him, listening to him tell stokes and us hanging on his every word. He was a brilliant storyteller, voicing all the characters differently, and energising the pages and our imaginations. He always smelled crisp and clean, like soap and light aftershave. I used to love digging my chin into his shoulders, which annoyed him while he read. It was because I loved the way he smelled and wanted to be as close to him as I possibly could. My father was a bit of an enigma to me as a child, perhaps still. When he moved away, he left many books of poetry and medical texts, which I flipped through with fascination, gawking at gruesome pictures of rare diseases. He was the smartest man I knew, I wanted to be like him.
Thank you Daddy for allowing me to stand on your shoulders, and live a life in service of others. Thank you for living your life with compassion, humility and gratitude. Thank you for your wisdom, and wit. I will never be able to fill your shoes, but soon you'll be among the stars, always inspiring me to reach you.
Love always Aretha and Shesh


DONALD BUNDY remembers "Doc's" medical contribution in Jamaica in the late 70s and 80s.
There is a reason why folks in Jamaica and beyond know Ed as "Doc': Ed was one of the most complete paediatricians and caring doctors one could ever hope to meet. Working then beyond the easy reach of a modern laboratory, he learned to rely on his eyes, his hands and his knowledge as his main diagnostic tools. Ed's old-school skills in clinical medicine showed generations of young (and not so young) doctors how they could get children onto treatment, and well on the road to recovery, long before the test results arrived. These were important skills for doctors working in rural Jamaican communities in those days, and also an important lesson for those smart modern doctors visiting from the UK and US who were otherwise immobilized without their sophisticated laboratories. But Ed was not only an exceptional clinician, he was also a real medical scientist. Working at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica he provided the first modern description of the harm caused to children by trichuriasis dysentery syndrome, and the ease with which that harm could be reversed, and the infection prevented. The recognition of the importance of "Cooper's Syndrome" has become recognized as a major contribution to the global efforts to keep children free of worm infection. Ed's medical work in Jamaica then continues to benefit lOs of millions of children world-wide today.
Ed and I were each other's wing man during those times in Jamaica and in the 14 other Caribbean territories served by the University of the West Indies. We had both completed our professional educations by then, and had begun to grow into ourselves. Our interests in science and the arts, and our individual comprehension of the practice and theory of life grew alongside each other. There is probably no better or surer way to arrive at true friendship. We worked together, and also had fun and not a few adventures together. I watched Ed's affection for Anne grow - it wasn't only Gregory Isaacs who loved a "night nurse" - into what became a life-long love, and the basis of an exceptional family. Ed and I have each lived richly textured lives, and we have remained friends throughout. In my heart he is my friend still.

  Medical Notes:

Ref: https://syngecooperconstrux.wordpress.com/

  Other Records

1. Edward's Farewell: 01 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

2. Edward's Farewell: 02 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

3. Edward's Farewell: 03 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

4. Edward's Farewell: 04 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

5. Edward's Farewell: 05 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

6. Edward's Farewell: 06 The Celebration of the life of Edward Synge Cooper, 7 Nov 2019, London.
Eulogies to Eds life and a photographic record, (six items).

Edward had a relationship with Living

Edward next married Living