My grandfather Samuel Samuel was born in Leeds to Rev Jacob Samuel and his wife Fanny (née Aronberg). He won a City Scholarship to Leeds University and graduated in Medicine in 1912, when he opened a practice in the city. When war broke out he wanted to join up immediately, but did not do so until after the death of his mother, who would have been very distressed. Obviously, he joined the RAMC, ultimately becoming a Captain. He was posted to Salonica, where he met his brother, Private Simon Samuel. Simon was a brilliant linguist, and on at least one occasion in his service this talent was put to good use.

Samuel was a talented artist, and made a number of sketches of the soldiers and the camp etc whilst in Salonica.

Unfortunately, whilst in Salonica, like so many others Captain Samuel contracted malaria. This was to plague him for the rest of his life and ultimately led him to be invalided out of the Army in 1917. Before this he was posted to Dublin, where he met Lena Hayman, who became his wife on 18 June 1918. [Also in Dublin he met Rabbi Herzog (father of Chaim Herzog), who became a family friend. Sometime later the Rabbi was offered the post of Chief Rabbi of Salonica and asked my grandfather whether or not he should accept. My grandfather advised against it – fortunately, as the Salonica Jewish community was wiped out in the holocaust.]

Returning to Leeds after his discharge from the Army, Samuel Samuel resumed general practice and was much loved and admired in the city and beyond. [There was a small operating theatre at his home, where he once even operated on himself!] He was still in practice when he died in 1957.

In 1920 he gained his MD at Leeds University - the first Jewish doctor to do so. His thesis was on Diabetes.
When War was declared in 1939, Samuel Samuel was keen to join up again. Indeed , one day when his wife had been out, she returned home to be told by the maid that “Doctor has gone to Gibraltar”. Lena was not surprised. However, it transpired that he had gone to Gibraltar Barracks to carry out some medical examinations!

Alongside his practice, Samuel Samuel was Medical Officer of the Leeds Jewish Herzl Moser Hospital and he died there on 22 March 1957. (There is a plaque in has name at the entrance to St James's University Hospital, which in due course had subsumed the Herzl Moser.)

Sam and Lena Samuel had two children, Thélia Vida and Clive Marshall. Clive followed his father, becoming a doctor and an Army Officer, ultimately as Lieutenant Colonel and Commanding Officer of 144 Para Field Ambulance (V). He was awarded an MBE for gallantry in Aden. In becoming a parachutist and the first doctor to Freefall, Clive followed in the footsteps of Thélia's husband, Major A S Baker RAMC 1st Airborne, who was the second ever doctor to “jump out of” an aircraft, during World War II.

Samuel Samuel's medals, along with those of his son and son-in-law, have gone to the RAMC Museum as a very rare family group. His photograph appears in the British Jewry Book of Honour.

- Samuel's granddaughter, Elisabeth