Gordon Rider was born at Ivy Croft is Darlington on 26 April 1925 and attended Darlington Grammar School. ln 1942 be joined the Royal Navy Fleet Air Ann, as he wanted to serve our Country during the 2nd World War as a pilot and they would give him training a year earlier than the RAF. He then trained in Canada and flew in various parts of the world, especially in the Far East.
In 1946 be left the service and went to the University of Edinburgh Medical School, to gain his degree -M.B.C.H.B. He qualified as a doctor in 1951 and 3 days later on 21 July married Ann.
After this he did the Diploma of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynocology at The Simpson Memorial Hospital in Edinburgh, during which time thier daughter Sue was born.
In 1954 the family moved south to Hatfield Doncaster, where he was in general practice in a mining area and also began a new training scheme for young doctors. Their son Alistair was born in in 1956 and Donald in I960. And in Doncaster Gordon was also an Elder of the Church of Scotland Presbyterian Church.
In 1971 he and Ann came to Hatton Rudby, where he regenerated the medical practice of Dr. Bennett. He established his new surgery in East Side and served there for the following 21 years.
He and his wife lived for a while ‘over the shop’, then in a house across the A19, then at Ravesseroft in Button Rudby, in the appropriately named Doctors Lane. In 1975 he started a training scheme for GPs, based on the Friarage Hospital in Nortaallerton and his own and other local surgeries. His influence on people’s health needs was therefore seen not only in his own work in Hutton Rudby, Swainby, Crathorne an other villages, but also in that of the men and women he trained, including Dr. Bruce Davies, who followed him in leading the Hutton Rudby practice.
Soon after establishing the scheme he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Around 1980 he and a local committee established a weekly Day Centre in Church House, for the elderly and housebound.
He retired in 1992 but continued to live in the village and develop his family life and leisure interests which included a well loved M45 Lagonda (1934) and two E-Type Jaguars (plus a new one). He was also involved with Rotary, the Royal British Legion and the Spitfire Society – a full and happy retirement!