Award nomination, extravaganza and talk
All helping to raise the profile of unsung hero John Grocott
A bid to raise the awareness of one of Stoke-on-Trent’s genuine unsung heroes has been boosted with news of three separate events which could see his profile increase in both The Potteries, and Scotland.
While his name may still be largely unrecognised in his home city, plastic surgeon John Grocott transformed the lives of many hundreds of people, including many WWII servicemen who had been injured in battle and left with life-changing facial injuries.
But his recent nomination in the Civic Award category of Stoke-on-Trent’s 2024 Your Heroes Awards is likely to help change all of that, as the story of Grocott’s working life becomes better known and more widespread.
It is especially fitting, since this year marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day when, from June 1944 to the end of February1945, almost 3,000 servicemen were brought to Stoke-on-Trent. Those requiring plastic and reconstructive surgery were sent to Albert Ward at the Infirmary and placed in the care of John.
During the war, he averaged around 350 plastic operations a year - rebuilding jaws, mouths and cheeks; creating eyelids, noses and ears; and changing lives for the better as well as continuing his general surgery.
Born in Fenton, and a schoolboy at Orme Boys in Newcastle-under-Lyme, John was just 17 years old when he won the Guy’s Hospital Medical School War Memorial Scholarship. He returned to Stoke-on-Trent in 1933 as a House Surgeon at the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary. John was just 23 years old.
Sir Harold Gillies, the father of modern plastic surgery, established the plastic surgery unit at the Infirmary in January 1934, with John as his trainee. It was the first unit of its kind north of London. Sir Harold, along with Archibald McIndoe of Guinea Pig Club fame, would come up from London one weekend a month to see a clinic of patients John had assembled. At that time, industrial accidents in the local coal mines, pottery factories and steel works made up most of the cases.
When World War II broke out in 1939, and after receiving around 60 weekends of instruction, John, then 29, was left to run the NSRI Plastic Surgery Unit singlehandedly, treating servicemen from all over the country as well as local patients.
John’s genius in helping to rebuild the lives of many seriously injured servicemen is now, and at long last, being acknowledged.
John himself eventually retired from the NSRI in 1975 after 42 years’ service to the people of Stoke on Trent and North Staffordshire, without fuss, or fanfare, disappearing into the shadows, and out of the minds of most people - apart from his former patients.
But the story doesn’t quite end there - not without first mentioning that he also somehow managed to find time for another passion: sports cars, which probably enjoyed longer fame that him.
Mostly, he drove Alvis and Jaguar cars, although there was also a Daimler which had once belonged to Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein.
An accomplished engineer, he customised most of them himself. In the mid-Fifties, he went about designing and building his own sports car, using a Jaguar Mk VIIM rolling chassis with a 3.4 litre engine, which he purchased from his friend, Frank ‘Lofty’ England. It was Lofty, who was Head of Racing at Jaguar and later Chairman and Chief Executive, who gave John permission to call the car “The Grocott Jaguar” - which is still lovingly cared-for to this day.
Another vehicle he owned and customised was a 1937 Alvis 4.3 short chassis tourer with coachwork by Vanden Plas. This one was sold in 1970, and found more fame than its creator by appearing in the TV series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The Grocott Jaguar, once seen dashing through the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, and known locally as ‘Johnny G’s batmobile’, is now owned by Peter and Sarah Thomson, who are currently racing against time to get the car in shape to take it to the Strathmore Vintage Vehicle Club’s 48th Scottish Transport Extravaganza in the magnificent grounds of Glamis Castle, over the weekend of 13 and 14 July.
This event is regarded as the premier vintage motoring spectacular in Scotland and is one of the largest of its kind in Britain, bringing together over 1,700 vehicles representing a wide array of transport comprising veteran, vintage and classic vehicles and machinery and offering a variety of parades, pipe bands and amusements as well as a craft village.
Peter and Sarah have booked a place on the Jaguar Drivers’ Club stand at the event, where visitors will hopefully be able to witness another of John’s incredible achievements: The Grocott Jaguar.
Anyone wanting to find out more about the life and work of John, meanwhile, will be able to hear researcher and author Ros Unwin, and a former patient of Grocott, Jane Pugh, give a talk about The Man Who Rebuilt Faces at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery on 10 August, at 2pm. Admission is free, and tickets can be obtained in advance.
[PHOTO-CREDIT: 'The Grocott Jaguar', designed and built by John Grocott Image credit Peter Thomson]