John Ogg (Archibald John Ogg (1921 – 2005), and wife Doreen, lived in Woodgreen for more than 40 years. They were popular members of the community, helping with many local fundraising activities.
John and Doreen Ogg outside Clearbury Cottage in 2000
John Ogg was born on 19 November 1921 in Oxford, where his father, David Ogg, was the Regius professor of history. John was an enthusiastic student, who was unusually focused on his future, deciding early on in his career to become an ophthalmic surgeon. He went to the London Hospital for his clinical studies. After house jobs at the London he completed his National Service in the Royal Navy and returned to specialise in ophthalmology, training in Oxford and at Moorfields Hospital in London. John and Doreen met at Moorfields where he was senior registrar and Doreen was a theatre sister.
The couple married in 1953 and moved to Salisbury, where John took up a post at Salisbury Infirmary and Odstock Hospital. They initially lived in the Close in Salisbury but moved to Woodgreen in 1962. John remained at the hospital as a consultant ophthalmic surgeon until his retirement in 1985.
When John came to Salisbury Hospital, the eye department was under-resourced and under-equipped but over the years he steadily improved matters so that finally an independent outpatient department ward and theatre were established. In the 1980s, John spearheaded a campaign to raise £30,000 to buy an eye laser and ancillary equipment for treatment of diabetics with eye disease. He published a cook book to raise money for the appeal, attracting recipes from the Bishop of Salisbury and British Embassy wives in Washington, among others. John contributed a recipe called Edible Fungi – he had a passion for foraging for mushrooms.
John had many interests: he was a keen radio ham, a member of the Magic Circle, and an avid collector of antique corkscrews (he was a member of the exclusive International Correspondence of Corkscrew Addicts!). He was a skilled cabinet maker who designed and made miniature dolls’ houses and automata. John was also a keen gardener with a fine collection of orchids, and he brewed beer and made wine.
In 1987, he worked alongside harpsichord-maker Jim Mogford, constructing an accurate scale model of Salisbury Cathedral, to raise money for the Spire Appeal. The model, showing the cathedral’s construction, is on display in the cathedral to this day. In retirement he became a skilled painter.
John and Doreen bought a near derelict croft on the Hebridean island of Coll in the 1960s. This formed the focus of many family holidays and John wrote a book about their love for the croft at Port Na Luing, its restoration and their associated adventures, “House in the Hebrides” (Salisbury, Cowrie Press, 2004).
Introduction by John Ogg: “Very often when I tell people that my family and I, with the help of friends, rebuilt a ruined croft by the edge of the sea, on a small island called Coll, they say:’How marvellous – I wish I could do the same’. But they never do, for they are much too stuck in their ways to take a risk, and for them it is the same sort of routine every day, and the same sort of orthodox holiday every summer.
This is a true sequential account of our adventures: if it seems light-hearted, it is because the whole business has been such enormous fun. No character mentioned is fictitious, and everyone has been called by their true name, since on no occasion have I ever had cause to write anything unpleasant about anyone on Coll. That is why we like the place so much.”