A RETIRED GP whose career included 36 years of service at a Pickering practice has died, aged 84.

Dr Kenneth Heap qualified at Leeds Medical School in 1940, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1941 and served throughout the Second World War.

He met his wife, Berry, while in Kenya, on leave from the Army Medical Corps.

They married in 1946 and moved to Pickering, where he achieved his ambition to be a country GP. Dr Heap told the Evening Press after his retirement in 1982, that he had plenty of enjoyable memories from Pickering and that there was nothing he would rather have done.

He was a good all-round sportsman and played cricket and football. He was a founder member of the Pickering Rotary Club, and almost until the end an active member of the Wry Writers Group.

Dr Heap leaves a widow, Berry, a daughter, Isobel, sons, Peter and Michael, and six grandchildren.

Updated: 08:33 Wednesday, March 26, 2003