SIR STEPHEN MILLER

Sir Stephen Miller, KCVO, Surgeon Oculist to the Queen, 1974-80 , and Hospitaller of the St John Ophthalmic Hospital, Jerusalem, 1980-90 , died on April 12 aged 80. He was born on July 19,1915.

unit in London, offering a specialist level of care which would have been impossible to achieve in the general clinics of the time. In later years, he devoted his energies with the same unstinting enthusiasm to charitable work, rejuvenat - ing the St John Ophthalmic Hospital, Jerusalem, a hospi - tal whose policy was to hold its doors open to all in need, regardless of race or creed. Stephen James Hamilton Miller was born in Arbroath, Tayside. The eldest of the family, he was a studious child and to those who did not know him may have seemed a little distant. His headmaster described him in a school

report as "lofty and sour to those who knew him not, but to those who sought him, sweet as summer". He read medicine at Aberdeen University, gradu - ating in 1937. After a series of house appointments, includ - ing one in ophthalmology at the Royal Infirmary, Hull, he was called up in 1939 as a surgeon-lieutenant , RNVR. He had three years of general duties in the Mediterranean before, by an extraordinary act of confidence in view of his limited ophthalmic experi - ence , he was appointed to the position of ophthalmic special - ist at the RN Auxiliary Hospi - tal , Kilmacolm. one of the