My father, Ron Hughes, who has died aged 86, was diagnosed with Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare cancer, at the age of 50, and as a result had to cope with health complications throughout his life. He was a keen supporter of the NHS and, in his working life, a technical translator from German to English.
The NHS was important to him. In May 1970, while living and working in Germany he wrote to the prime minister, Harold Wilson, on behalf of a “small group of Englishmen” there, urging the government to make a greater effort to improve the tattered image of Britain in Europe.
