Wartime surgeon and peacetime GP, Margaret Fleming, aged 101

Margaret Fleming, whose surgical skills in the operating theatre were crucial to the maimed and wounded returning from D-day has died at the age of 101.

She graduated during the war and worked as a doctor at Edinburgh’s Gogarburn wartime emergency hospital when she was called up by the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Her father, Dr William Walker, was a doctor and dentist, and her mother Jessie was a nurse.

Dr Fleming attended St Denis School where she became head girl before graduating with an MA from Edinburgh University in 1938, after which she studied medicine, graduating in 1941.

She married John Fleming in 1946 and they moved to Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne where she worked as a doctor for Marks and Spencer and as a medical expert assessing the health issues of retired miners.

By the 1960s she was working as a GP, combining the job with the role of mother to their son Charles.

She had many interests outside work, including Scottish history, and was a member of the Saltire Society.

Philosophical about her limitations as she aged, she remained determined but adaptable

Dr Fleming was predeceased by her husband John and is survived by their son Charles.