Florence Bigland remembers puffing and panting up the fifty steps to the clinic above Dalton Library. The year was 1946 and Mr. Stoneham had returned from war service "Have you waited for me to come back?" he asked Florence.

Denise Barker cried on Mr. Stoneham's shoulder when she was so desperate to have a baby. Without Mr. Stoneham, who soon diagnosed her problem, she says she wouldn't have had any children. After being married seven years, she gave birth to a son and later to two more children. She regards her children as "gifts from Mr. Stoneham" as well as "gifts from God". When Mr. Stoneham died, she felt as though part of her had died too.

After the birth of her second daughter, Winifred Wilkinson was seriously ill. The doctor was sent for, and he immediately contacted Mr. Stoneham who stayed with her from 10p.m. till 2a.m. after giving her live saving blood transfusions.

Betty Osliffe was a doctor's maid; she looked after Mr. Stoneham's dining room, making sure he was well supplied with his "creature comforts". Although he was a great disciplinarian, Betty remembers he also had a good sense of humour, and "He radiated confidence — confidence that 'rubbed off on his patients .He did so much for Barrow-in-Furness women, a street should be named after him".

Maureen Gulkowski, formerly of Millom, had to go to Risedale Maternity Home three months before the birth of her son; after a difficult breach birth, she had to have blood transfusions. If it hadn't been for Mr. Stoneham, who had attended her before, throughout, and after her confinement, both Maureen and her baby would have died. "No doctor could ever come up to him, he was brilliant. He explained everything and comforted me, telling me I would be all right. He gave of his time. He was gentle in himself and a gentleman. That was my Mr. Stoneham. When he died, I sat down and cried ."

Lucy Ann Helm had to go for implants after her operation. She remembers how Mr. Stoneham was always jolly. "He made me feel so comfortable, I was happy with him and I felt I wasn't afraid of anything".

Marianne Muddiman was fifteen years old when she was told she had to have an operation in the Gynaecological Unit of Roose Hospital. The permissive society was in its infancy and sex education was not normally taught in schools in the early sixties. For Marianne, a genuine young innocent, this could have been a terrifying experience, anxious as she was at the thought of being thrown into the company of strange older women who had mysterious illnesses! The expected traumas were averted through the foresight of Mr. Stoneham, who arranged for another young girl to be admitted on the same day as Marianne, and for the girls' beds to be placed side by side, so that the teenagers could comfort and help each other. Marianne has since been in hospitals in many different parts of the world, but nowhere has she witnessed or received such consideration as was shown to her all those years ago by Mr. Garth Stoneham.

Norah Clegg remembers Mr. Stoneham with gratitude; he prescribed the Indian drug curare to be given to her twice nightly and her baby was saved. Grateful for Mr. Stoneham's care she named her son Garth. Today she looks at her children, (now adults), and thanks God for Mr. Stoneham, as do Ella Thompson, Irene Fearn and hundreds of other women from Furness.

Mr. Garth Stoneham retired in 1970 and in that same year, his wife, Nancy, officially named the Gynaecological Unit at Roose Hospital, The Garth Stoneham Gynaecological Unit', and unveiled a plaque in the entrance hall.

When this highly respected consultant died in 1985, he was mourned and missed by many people in Furness, but most especially by his wife Nancy, to whom he had been married for nearly 50 years, and by his daughter Phillipa, and his son, Marshall. Although Garth had been in his life time a 'workaholic', his wife and family had always come first.