AN ALLOA man, who had become one of the UK's leading trauma surgeons, has died at the age of 92.

Robert Bremner was held in the highest of regard by colleagues, following a pioneering career in medicine.

For nearly three decades, he led surgical teams at first York County Hospital and then the York Hospital before his retirement in 1985.

During this time there he carried out ground-breaking operations, including the hospital’s first successful elbow replacement surgery and was known for his expertise in micro surgery, especially in mending badly damaged hand tendons.

Indeed, such was his expertise that his widow suggested he had a "legacy" of mending broken bodies.

Robert was born to two Wee County school teachers and was himself educated at Alloa Academy.

He then went on to Edinburgh University, qualifying in medicine at the age of 21.

After medical school, he completed two years National Service, mainly in Northern Ireland, leaving with the rank of Captain.

In 1949, he began work at a Leeds Hospital before working around the country at several other hospitals learning new surgical techniques with an emphasis on plastic surgery.

He knew he wanted to become an orthopaedic surgeon and spent hours practicing tying knots with his left hand – he was right handed – so that he would be ambidextrous in the operating theatre.

In 1953 he became a surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital in London, a job that was to last five years and include regular work in Harley Street.

It was during this period that Robert was selected as one of the country’s top young surgeons and was given a sabbatical to travel to the US with three colleagues in order to study the latest operating techniques there – he impressed those he was working with so much that they promptly offered him a job at an American hospital.

Robert was astonished by the hospitality the group was shown, remembering how after years of post-war rationing they were lavished with gourmet food and wines while crossing the Atlantic on first the Queen Mary and then the Queen Elizabeth, both flagships of the Cunard line.

He began work at the York County Hospital in 1958 and then in 1977 at the York City General Hospital where he had helped in the planning of the outpatient department.

Robert was often headhunted but never left his York patch.

Colleagues recall one reason he had rejected lucrative offers to work in the US was that "he did not like the thought that money bought you the best health care".

His widow Ruth, who he married in 1962 and lives in Crayke, recalled: "He thought the health service was a wonderful thing and that every patient should be treated with the same care, consideration and expertise.

"His legacy is that he helped mend broken bodies and improved people’s bodies."

Among the many patients to have benefitted from Robert’s expertise was the leading jockey and television racing pundit Willie Carson, who received appalling injuries, including a fractured skull, after a freak accident in the Yorkshire Oaks in which at least six horses are said to have ridden straight over him.

Robert led the surgical team that treated Carson but kept the fact from his own family, only telling of his pivotal role in treating Carson years later.

At Christmastime, Robert, his wife and their four children serve turkey at the wards of York Hospital, with the bird carved by Robert himself while wearing a Father Christmas hat.

Following his retirement in 1985, Robert spent 12 years working on Medical Tribunals.

A grandfather of seven, he is survived by Ruth and his four children.