Born in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916, Simon Smullen was brought up in the area now known as ''little Jerusalem'' with its Jewish shops and poor families.
He was encouraged to study and by dint of bursaries, scholarships, and the few shillings earned by teaching at cheder, the fees for school and Trinity College were paid. With a view to entering the rabbinate, he took a degree in semitic languages then changed to medicine, graduating in 1942. During those years he was a leader in Habonim, then Dublin's religious youth movement, won gold medals for lectures in modern Hebrew, and was chairman of Mizrachi.
Like so many of his contemporaries, he left Dublin on graduation to pursue his career in Britain, first in Leeds, then fate took him to Glasgow when he met and married Fay Links, who was to be his wife for
29 years.
He took a paediatric clinic at Yorkhill Hospital and in 1951 gained his MA MD at Trinity College for his thesis on rheumatic heart disease in young children. He then concentrated on his work as a
family doctor and tended his patients with skilful diagnosis and care for more than 40 years in Govanhill, Glasgow.
Always charitable to many home and Israeli causes, he was particularly interested in Jewish students, giving generously to the chaplaincy board. On retirement he devoted more time to the Jewish male voice choir, the choral society, his masonic lodge, Montefiore 753, of which he was a past master and member for 60 years. Queen's Park, Giffnock, and Newton Mearns synagogue members will remember his perfect rendition of Haftarot. Highly articulate, intelligent, and able, his advice was sought on many subjects. He leaves a devoted wife whose love and companionship he enjoyed for almosy 30 years.
Simon Smullen, doctor;
born March 15,1916, died
July 24, 2003.
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