VETERINARY surgeon Digby Milwright, pictured, died surrounded by his family at home on Sunday July 1 after a long illness. Digby retired in 2002 from his practice on Forehill, Ely, which he started in 1979 after two years at a veterinary hospital in King

VETERINARY surgeon Digby Milwright, pictured, died surrounded by his family at home on Sunday July 1 after a long illness.

Digby retired in 2002 from his practice on Forehill, Ely, which he started in 1979 after two years at a veterinary hospital in King's Lynn. He studied veterinary medicine at Cambridge as a mature student after flying in the Royal Air Force for 12 years. He loved the excitement of maritime flying and travelling all over the world. Indeed, he never tired of this enthusiasm for travel and realised a lifetime's ambition in 2005 when he spent a month in the Antarctic (including a brief dip in the Antarctic Ocean) soon after he retired.

He will be remembered by many in Ely as the city's vet, caring for farm animals and pets throughout the local area. As well as his love of animals, his passion was the study of birds; he was a licensed ringer with the British Trust for Ornithology, from his Cambridge days, mist netting and banding thousands of birds at Wicken Fen, other bird reserves and his own back garden. The BTO published the papers he wrote on bird migration and in 1998 he won the Trust's Boddy and Sparrow prize for personal research for his paper on Golden Orioles in East Anglia.

A generous and amusing host, who loved company but was equally at ease in solitude, he will be much missed by his many friends and most of all by his wife Mary, sons Toby and Marcus, their wives and grandson Loukas.

Frederick Haig Watson (Fred).

FRED Watson of Prickwillow Road, Ely, died at the Princess of Wales Hospital on June 13, aged 87. He was born on August 29, 1919 in Soham. During the Second World War, Fred served with the Queen's Regiment in Burma, where he fought in the Battle for Kohima.

The family moved to Littleport in 1949, where he began a long association with Littleport Cricket Club. Here, Fred held many offices and after he finished playing continued to umpire. He also arranged cricket tours to Kent and Yorkshire.

Fred worked as a printer with his brother George in Victoria Street, Littleport, until 1978 when he worked as a groundsman with Walthamstow Cricket Club and Ilford Cricket Club until he retired.

Fred married Muriel at Leominster Priory Church, Herefordshire on January 8, 1942. They were married for 65 years, and in 2005 they moved to Ely to be closer to their family.

Fred's funeral took place on Monday June 25 at St Mary's Church, Ely, led by the Rev John Ransom followed by a private cremation. Fred is survived by his wife Muriel, sons Anthony and Rod and their wives Pat and Christine.