Obituary: Dunstan Gallery

OT is sad to report the death of optometrist and dispensing optician Dud (Dunstan) Gallery (pictured) who passed away at his home on the Isle of Islay, Scotland, on 25 October.

Mr Gallery was born in 1950 in Manchester where he grew up. From 1973 he studied dispensing optics at Glasgow College of Technology, joining his childhood friend, Ian Murray, who was studying optometry there.

Mr Gallery always said he was going to Scotland “to get an education and a wife.” He met his wife, Trish, there through Mr Murray, who married her sister, Clare.

Mr Gallery did his pre-registration year in Birmingham and opened practices in the city. His Lozells practice was destroyed by arson in 1985 and he moved to Islay in 1987, running a hotel at Glenegedale.

Due to demand, he restarted his career in optics from a hotel outbuilding and in 2003 he opened a practice in Port Ellen. He had sold the hotel by then, partly because he said he felt he was becoming “too much like Basil Fawlty.”

In 2004, he joined the University of Bradford's Optometry Career Progression course for dispensing opticians, qualifying in 2006. He then opened another practice on Islay and his wife worked in both of the practices with him.

Mr Gallery played in the Islay-based band, Contraband, for 20 years. His Bradford career progression friends and cohort told OT: “Dud used to entertain us superbly with his guitar playing and humour. Dud thank you for the memories.

“He leaves behind his wife Trish and their children, Kirsty and John, to whom we pass our sincere condolences.”