Michael Nelki
Michael’s obituary published in the BMJ on Nov 4, 2022
Michael Fenner Hermann Nelki was born on 19th March 1944 and died on 27th October 2022 from complications of secondaries from (a grade 1) renal cancer. He graduated in 1969 from St George’s medical school, married Jo, a Jewish American nurse from New York and they travelled across Africa in their land rover to Tanzania where they worked for 2 years. He then took up a GP partnership in Yatton group practice for 32 years until he retired in 2006. Yatton was their home and where they had their 3 children – Emma and Anita in 1974 and Benjamin in 1978.
Michael was a family doctor as the term was envisaged, with continuity of care and knowing your patients. The partners worked well together as a team, with home visits day or night as required. He was much loved in the community, especially for his dry humour and calm noninterventionist approach. He was sad at how much general practice had changed by the time he retired.
For many years he wrote medicolegal reports for Freedom from Torture, the Helen Bamber foundation and Medical Justice. He was highly respected for his expertise, later supporting doctors in Bristol to continue the work.
He & Jo moved to Bristol in 2001 and supported their daughter when her child, their first grandchild, Jake, died of a neurodevelopmental disorder at the age of 4 in 2010.
In retirement he worked as a volunteer for Legs4Africa and loved their blog headline ‘retired GP turns to dismantling legs’ and for the Clifton Rocks Railway, now saved for posterity.
He managed to keep his humour and concern for others, even through his illness. Until he was 70, he had never had a day’s illness, but after then he had a very difficult few years interspersed with some lovely events, such as the weddings of his children and the arrival of his 4 grandchildren, Shayla, Isaac, Mannie and Blake. He was able to die at home due to the wonderful care and love from Jo and his children.
Dr Julia Nelki, Michael’s sister
Michael’s Obituary published in the Guardian on Nov 15, 2022
My brother, Michael Nelki, who has died aged 78, was a family doctor who had a GP partnership in Somerset for more than 30 years, and worked for many refugee charities.
Michael was born in London, to Erna (nee Liesegang), a primary school teacher, and Wolf Nelki, a dental surgeon, who were political refugees from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Wolf was also Jewish. Michael grew up in south London, without speaking German and without any religion.
In 1962, after attending Emanuel school in Wandsworth, and before starting at St George’s hospital medical school (now St George’s, University of London), he went on a three-week journey by ship to the US to attend a progressive secondary school run by a refugee friend of our parents in Baltimore.
On a Greyhound bus to visit some relations in Mexico, he met his future wife, Jo Eisenhandler. Their relationship flourished across the Atlantic and, after Michael had qualified as a doctor, Jo, a nurse, moved to London. After marrying in 1970 in Lasswade, Scotland, they then drove in their self-adapted Land Rover across Europe and Africa to Tanzania.
Michael and Jo were keen to work in Africa, but they did not want to go with a religious charity. Fenner Brockway, the MP and campaigner, had befriended our parents when they came to the UK as refugees, and Michael was named after him – his full name was Michael Fenner Hermann Nelki. In 1970, through his connection with the then Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, Brockway arranged for Michael and Jo to work in Dodoma government hospital on local salaries.
After two years they returned to the UK and Michael took up a GP partnership in Yatton, Somerset, where he stayed for 32 years, and he and Jo brought up their three children.
Michael loved his work as a doctor and, in return, was much loved by his patients and partners for his dry humour, warm manner and careful approach. Although he moved to Clifton, Bristol, in 2001, he continued to work as a GP in Yatton for a few more years.
Michael was a longtime volunteer for the Freedom from Torture charity, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Medical Justice, writing medicolegal reports for people seeking asylum, carrying on some of this work after he retired in 2006.
He was also a volunteer for Legs4Africa – he loved their blog headline “Retired GP turns to dismantling legs” – and on the Clifton Rocks Railway. He and Jo went back to Africa many times, always with a Land Rover and often to the Sahara (“dune bopping”).
Michael is survived by Jo, their children, Emma, Anita and Benjamin, their grandchildren, Shayla, Isaac, Mannie and Blake, and by me.
Dr Julia Nelki, Michael’s sister
