Harry Lawrence Stokes first joined the staff of the Children's Hospital, Melbourne in 1936 as honorary physician to outpatients. He remained on the active staff until 1961 and continued his association thereafter as an honorary consultant physician until his death in 1971. He also had an appointment as consultant physician for diseases of children at the Alfred Hospital.

In 1940 he became honorary physician to the special rheumatic clinic at the Children's Hospital to investigate with Professor Rubbo and Dr Margaret Holmes of the University of Melbourne the prophylaxis and control of rheumatic fever, initially with sulphonamides and later with penicillin. Until that time rheumatic fever had been common, and its cardiac complications devasting, particularly with recurrent disease. For forty years he gave honorary service to the Foundling Hospital and Infants' Home in Berry Street, East Melbourne and he was still a consultant paediatrician there at the time of his death.

He was always the epitome of a gentleman who placed foremost his love, care and affection for his patients, particularly children. He had a long- standing cardiac abnormality which was ultimately the cause of his death. He showed little evidence of it over the years, for he was very keen on tennis, skiing and what today might be called orienteering in sometimes hazardous areas.

All who knew him well at the Children's Hospital noticed that at times he seemed rather forgetful and sometimes a little clumsy. This never showed up in his sporting activities, but a few stories emerged about it. Eric Price, the orthopaedic surgeon, during a speech in Lawrence's honour at his retirement dinner remarked that `he was a very fine gentleman, one whom you would always like bumping into, or be bumped into by'.

Another story goes that when he would visit the operating theatres to watch an operation on one of his patients, the sister in charge would deploy one of her nurses to trail Lawrence around, picking up the articles which inadvertently he knocked over. On one occasion during some function, Madam President - I think it was Lady Latham - who was seated, dropped something on the floor. Always gallant, Lawrence bent down, picked it up and on resuming his position knocked Madam President's hat to an astonishingly acute angle.

He was always interested in military service, and once was in charge of a section of the Melbourne University Rifles drawn up in immaculate lines on parade. He had acquired a horse and took up his position in front of the troops. On the command `Right - DRESS' given by the stentorian voice of the sergeant-major other thoughts entered the equine brain. His mount started to back, and slowly but with infinite accuracy it passed through the middle of the front rank, then the second rank, then the third and finally the fourth, terminating its retrograde motion with Lawrence still in the saddle but situated in the posterior instead of the anterior position. Lawrence secretly enjoyed these legends. He saw the humour of them very clearly and never minded anyone recounting the stories.

At the home of Mrs Stokes is still displayed an ancient penny-farthing bicycle, the wheel about six feet in diameter and the saddle microscopic. It is over a century in age, and the incredible thing about it is that in 1880 Lawrence's father (also called Harry Lawrence) with GW Burston (father of Ginger Burston) who owned a similar bicycle, travelled on it from Melbourne to Sydney and Newcastle, using a compass for navigation. They then travelled by sea to Java, rode their bicycles through South-East Asia, India and Europe to England and through Scotland and Wales before crossing the Atlantic to America. They rode across America from New york to San Francisco and finally sailed across the Pacific to Australia in 1888. It just may be that Lawrence Jr inherited some of his taste for adventure from his father's epic performance.