Elegant English adventurer
OO7 has nothing on Robin Tattersall
Maura Curley
After more than four decades of practicing medicine in Tortola, Dr. Robin Tattersall has performed countless surgeries and forged lasting relationships within the community. Despite his graying, yet still bushy head of hair, this soft spoken English gentleman is anything but retiring.
The mythic James Bond may have lived a bit more dangerously, but the life of the very real Robin Tattersall has been punctuated with Bond like elements of elegance, adventure and the indisputable contribution of kismet. Years of rugby, competitive sailing, high fashion modeling and medicine have imbued him with a youthful vigor that flourishes with new challenges.
Just before he celebrated his 75th birthday Tattersall competed in the 2005 Rolex Transatlantic Challenge. He describes the race as his best sailing experience, despite being at the helm in the midst of an 18-hour storm, which drenched him so badly his life jacket self inflated.
Tattersall, a respected surgeon, specializing in reconstructive and plastic surgery, has run the Bougainvillea Clinic in Road Town for over three decades. Born in England, he studied medicine at Cambridge University, where he played rugby and admittedly liked to party. Acting on a suggestion from a friend he tried modeling in London in the early 1950s. Hearing about the Paris collection, he decided to travel to Paris and see if he might model there.
When he walked into the Paris office of Harper’s Bazaar his timing couldn’t have been better. The legendary photographer Richard Avedon suggested he take model Suzy Parker in his arms. The photo was snapped and Tattersall was hired on the spot. He learned later that Avedon had just decided to incorporate action shots into what previously had been staid fashion photos.After modeling for two more Paris collections Tattersall became New York City’s most highly paid male model, before taking post graduate surgical training back in England.After his residencies he sought a medical job in Africa, but just before he was about to travel there, he discovered the job was no longer available.
A lifelong sailor Tattersall explored working in the Caribbean, but nobody told him about an opening for a government surgeon in the British Virgin Islands until the job was filled. But as fate would have it, the doctor who had been hired, fell in love en route to the BVI and jumped ship with his amour.
In 1965 Tattersall traveled with his young family to the BVI with his 28-foot sloop, as cargo on a banana boat. They launched the sloop in St Lucia, and a month later sailed into Tortola.During the early years Tattersall the only physician on the island also sailed to other islands to provide medical services after devastating hurricanes.Tattersall’s accomplishment during the past forty years in the British Virgins are too numerous to mention. He has won every major sailing race he entered in the Caribbean, including the Rolex Regatta and Antigua sailing week, and represented the BVI in the Olympic games in 1984 and 1992 in Los Angeles and Barcelona.
He has received the OBE from Queen Elizabeth for his medicine, international yachting and community service. Becoming an officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a prestigious honor but, true to his nature, Tattersall takes it in stride, keeping his hand steady and his eye on the horizon.
Robin Tattersall at Bougainvillea Clinic in Tortola. Virginvoices.com photo by D.B. Bostdof
Maura Curley is publisher of virginvoices.com
Print this Article
Click Here to Add a Comment