Anchored in faith and love: Dr Jim Villiers’ 101-year adventure

In June, Dr Jim Villiers—the oldest parishioner of St Ignatius’ Parish in Richmond—celebrated his 101st birthday, marking another year of life and ‘reasonably good health’ at a ‘fantastic’ celebration with life-long friends. He shares with us some of the stories that have shaped a long and rich life, in which faith and service have sustained him professionally and personally, along with the enduring love of his late wife, Audrey.

James ‘Jim’ Villiers was born in Ulverston, in the north of England. His mother was a nurse, originally from County Cork in the south of Ireland, and his father a medical doctor, originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland. His parents met while both working at the large Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin. When the First World War erupted, his father joined the British Army and fought in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), while his mother remained in Dublin, where she tended to the wounded during the 1916 uprising of the Irish Republican Army against the English forces in the streets of Dublin. She was known for her courage and care for the wounded, Jim says, with even the Irish Times paying tribute to her efforts to ‘succour the wounded’ in the streets while there were bullets and rooftop snipers all around.

I just decided on the spot I wanted to join the navy. I received my vocation just like that.

Following the war, in search of a fresh start, the family moved to England, where his father became superintendent of the Anti-Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Ulverston. Later his father’s profession and encouragement would influence Jim’s decision to study medicine at university, although, from the age of 14, he had always felt more drawn to the navy. In about 1936, on a family holiday in Whitby, Jim had the opportunity to visit the Nelson, a battleship anchored off the coast nearby.

‘As soon as you got aboard, you were allocated a grizzled seaman to look after you and take you around. He showed you the ropes, took you down to the mess, where they ate meals and you had the smell of hot bread cooking. They gave you tea or coffee, and the seamen spun tales of being all round the East and West. And I just decided on the spot I wanted to join the navy. I received my vocation just like that.’

Jim entered Manchester University in September 1940, a year into the Second World War. He was living at home with his family in Eccles, to the west of Manchester, close to the Manchester Ship Canal, a prime target for German bombers. As a medical student, he was exempt from military service but was required to join the Home Guard, where he learnt how to use a rifle and trained as an officer. He also joined a first aid post and street fire watching parties. ‘When an air raid came, I’d get on my bicycle in the blackout and cycle 6 miles to the nearest first aid post,’ he says.

Fortunately, Jim and his family survived the blitz, with the ‘nearest encounter’ coming on 20 May 1941, when his family were bunkered down in the reinforced cellar of their three-storey home. ‘I heard this noise like an earthquake and the whole building shook. I came upstairs gradually and the whole thing had been blasted. Windows had been shattered; glass was everywhere. In the attic, there were six incendiary bombs blazing away. We had buckets of sand nearby, which helped extinguish them; otherwise the whole house would’ve burnt down. Out on the street, we saw our neighbours house demolished. And you could still hear the bombs coming down all around us.’ Jim still has several ‘souvenirs’ from that evening, including one of the incendiary bombs and bits of bomb casings and anti-aircraft shells.

Following this, his family moved to the seaside town of Southport, where he continued to travel in and out of Manchester. At university, he met the love of his life, Audrey, who was studying at the School of Domestic Science. They both attended a dance, and ‘as the old story goes,’ says Jim, ‘from across the crowded room I saw her. She was always smiling, and very friendly. Greatly daring, I asked her for a dance. At the end of the evening, I escorted Audrey through the gloomy wartime blackout to the railway station, where she boarded the train home to Glossop. Thus began a romance that only ended with Audrey’s recent passing, 70 odd years later.’

I asked Audrey if she’d be interested in having a look at Australia before settling down in the UK, to which she responded with enthusiasm. So our fate was sealed.

When Jim had completed his studies and hospital residency, they became engaged. One weekend, while on leave from the hospital, he was staying with his parents in Southport, and Audrey was visiting. Leafing through his father’s copy of the medical journal The Lancet, he saw an advertisement asking for doctors to join the Royal Australian Navy on a four-year commission.

‘I was already subject to National Service in the British Armed Forces on completion of my hospital employment. I asked Audrey if she’d be interested in having a look at Australia before settling down in the UK, to which she responded with enthusiasm. So our fate was sealed.’

Upon his successful application, Jim completed an introductory course with the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and then married Audrey on 8 February 1949 at Holy Name Church in Manchester, with Jim in full navy regalia. Following a short honeymoon in Cornwall, they boarded the Orcades as first-class passengers for the six-week voyage to Australia, bound for Melbourne, starting their long life together.

During his four years of service in the navy, Jim was appointed to various posts as a medical officer, including in Melbourne and Sydney, on the warship HMAS Warramunga for six months during the Korean War, and in Vietnam, which he visited on three occasions as part of medical aid to civilians. In addition to this, he spent time with the Australian Army First Field Hospital, as an anaesthetist.

His says his first post at the HMAS Cerberus (Flinders Naval Depot) is where his long career in anaesthetics began. ‘I reported for duty the first day down at the Cerberus, entrusted to the care of Surgeon Lieutenant Pat Littlejohn. I was appointed Senior Medical Officer in charge of a medical ward. He asked had I given any anaesthetics, and I made the fatal reply that I had been the house physician and anaesthetist. That little word had effects on the whole of the rest of my life virtually, because he promptly said I was also to be the anaesthetist here. From then on, I was in charge of giving the anaesthetics, and there were a good many operations that took place during my time.’

During his service, Jim also established himself as an anaesthetist for surgeons working at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Working with anaesthetist Dr Norman James, who had worked under pioneering surgeon and anaesthetist Sir Robert MacIntosh at Oxford Hospital, Jim was able to learn and introduce various modifications of anaesthetics technique and apparatus to his naval medical postings.

Following his service in the Royal Australian Navy, Jim decided to pursue a full-time career in anaesthetics, though he continued to serve in the Navy Reserves until he retired. He says, ‘I had an opportunity of going into private anaesthetic practice with an older and more senior consultant in Melbourne. So that seemed to me the way to go at the time. But I’ve always had a great respect and affection for the navy, and I went on to have virtually a parallel career in the Navy Reserve within my civilian life.’ He went on to become the Principal Medical Officer of the Victorian Reserves until they ‘threw me out at an advanced age!’

Throughout his long and distinguished career, he was grateful for the support of his wife. ‘Audrey catered for my irregular hours and accepted my absences, which was hard on her when our son Francis was young and a teenager,’ he says. ‘But she accepted the fact that that was what I thought I needed to do.’

Reflecting on his career as an anaesthetist, Jim says his first visit to Long Xuyen, Vietnam, with a surgical team from the Royal Melbourne Hospital was among his greatest achievements. The team spent four months at a civilian hospital in Long Xuyen, in the Mekong Delta region, where Jim administered and taught local nurses how to use new and improved anaesthetics techniques accessed through his naval connections, and which would become ‘the mainstay practice’ there.

‘My essential role was to help the Vietnamese,’ he says. ‘They had a Vietnamese doctor who was the one surgeon for about two million people in that province. I had a very good nurse, who became a competent anaesthetist. When I visited a year later with an American medical team, she was giving the anaesthetics for them.’

Jim enjoyed his time in Vietnam and built a strong rapport with the people. ‘I could speak only a little Vietnamese,’ he explains, ‘but fortunately we had French—which I’d always been keen on and was relatively fluent in—as the medium of interchange between myself and the hospital staff.’ Jim was to have another three spells of duty in Vietnam, including one as anaesthetist to the Australian Army First Field Hospital.

We were married for 72 years, just one year shy of the Queen and Duke, who were married for 73 years.

Jim’s faith has sustained and nurtured him throughout his life, and he says that receiving the sacraments had always been important to both him and Audrey. When it was evident Audrey wasn’t getting any better in hospital, he called for a Catholic priest to provide the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. Within no time at all, says Jim, Fr Trung Hoang Nguyen SJ, the parish priest at St Ignatius’ Church in Richmond, was by her side. ‘And of course, Fr Trung being Vietnamese was another help because I had a great relationship with the Vietnamese people in Vietnam,’ Jim says. Fr Trung also conducted the funeral service for Audrey at St Ignatius’ three years ago, and since then Jim has attended Mass there each Sunday.

When asked to name his greatest personal achievement, he points to a portrait of his wife Audrey that hangs in the living room. It was painted by the wife of a renowned Vietnamese artist, Tri Minh. ‘We were married for 72 years,’ says Jim, ‘just one year shy of the Queen and Duke, who were married for 73 years.’

He is deeply grateful for all the years they had together, saying, ‘It was a good ration, a good ration.’ When he looks back on his life and all the things that have happened to him, there is much to be thankful for, but being married to Audrey, he says, ‘was the best’.