Heart Research UK: Man who founded charity in Leeds turns 100

“I'm very surprised to have reached this age because when I first retired an actuary friend of mine told me that my expectation of life was probably three or four years and here I am, 30 years on and rather surprised to be fairly fit,” he says. “I proved them all wrong.”

He credits Maureen, his wife, with helping him reach his centenary.

But Mr Watson has not only beaten his own odds - he has bettered them for countless others.

As founder of what is now Heart Research UK, he has been involved in the development of life-saving breakthroughs which have improved the survival chances of many patients.

He first qualified in 1945 after training at various hospitals in London, and moved to what was then the regional cardiothoracic centre in Killingbeck, Leeds.

Mr Watson says: “There was, really, no heart surgery at all. As a student, it was considered a thing of the future. I always wanted to be involved in this new surgical adventure into heart disease, which was initially considered very dangerous. However, with the advent of artificial circulation, it opened up this whole new field of heart surgery.”

It still carried risks, however, and was seen as a last resort for people who were very ill.

In 1967, Mr Watson founded what was then the National Heart Research Fund with the aim of making surgery safer. It was an effort born out of frustration following the death of a young patient after a long heart operation.

He launched an appeal with the Yorkshire Evening Post to raise funds to research ways of improving the safety of heart surgery at a time when only one in five children born with congenital heart disease lived to see their first birthday, and 70 per cent of heart attacks ended in death.

“The high risk was something I felt needed research,” says Mr Watson, who now lives in the Cotswolds, and he “tried desperately to get money” for it, but says other organisations at the time thought such surgery was too dangerous.

“So I decided to found a new charity, specifically to try and reduce this risk of heart surgery. Now, of course, from a small beginning it has grown considerably and I'm very proud that at the present time they contribute something like over £2 million a year to research, development, education and treatment of heart disease.”

The early days of the charity was “a very stressful time, and very exciting,” says Mr Watson.

In 1976, he developed an artificial heart valve which became the prototype for those used in heart surgery today. It was one of the most durable and reliable valves created and was used for 30 years.

Then in 1979 Heart Research UK funded six of the first eight successful UK heart transplants, carried out by Sir Terence English at Papworth Hospital, breaking the moratorium on UK heart transplants after being deemed too dangerous in the late 1960s.

“I supported his programme at a time when he couldn't get funding from either the NHS or the British Heart Foundation. It was our support that enabled him to proceed,” says Mr Watson.

And in 2000, the charity funded the implantation of the world’s first artificial heart pump for permanent use, carried out at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, as a treatment for severe heart failure.

Heart surgery is now safer than ever.

Around 31,000 heart operations are carried out every year in the UK, with mortality rates steadily falling since the 1960s.

Mr Watson says: “Between 1967 and when I retired, which was 1987, the mortality had fallen from something like 50 per cent to one per cent. There was a great success, I felt, in that. However, we must remember that when it was first used in the early days, it was only as a form of desperation - people who were very ill and dying - so it was clear there was going to be a high risk. So anyway, great progress has been made over that period of time and of course it remains the same now, it’s very low.”

The most common heart operation is heart bypass surgery with around 14,000 carried out every year in the UK and a mortality rate of less than one per cent for non-emergency operations, according to the charity.

Mr Watson remained a trustee and chairman of Heart Research UK, as his charity is now known, for a number of years after retirement and, at 100 years old, is still its president. He has three grown-up children: Graham, who is also a surgeon (a urologist), Candy and Susan.

The charity relies on fundraisers, and one such person is Mr Watson’s granddaughter, Phoebe Watson, the daughter of Graham.

She has run the London Marathon twice - first in 2019 and again at the latest event earlier this month - to raise more than £4,000 over the course of both occasions.

Having battled an injury the first time around, this year she finished at around four hours and 45 minutes in the effort for the charity of her grandfather, who she affectionately calls ‘Popples’.

Phoebe, who is 26, says: “He's incredible. He's so kind. He's so lovely. He's more with it than me.I told him about the marathon, I gave him a call (after) and he was just so enthusiastic and so excited for me.

"He's not just a granddad, but he's also a great-granddad. He is worshipped by all of us.”

To learn more about Heart Research UK, visit https://heartresearch.org.uk/