Introducing the amazing Mr Johnny G – an unsung hero of The Potteries

Stoke-on-Trent will be paying tribute later this year to one of its unsung heroes – a leading plastic surgeon of his time who helped rebuild the lives of servicemen seriously injured during the Second World War.

Fittingly, in the year which marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the relatively unknown story of John Grocott, a man who led the first plastic surgery unit north of London, is finally being told.

A new book reveals more about this brilliant plastic and reconstructive surgeon, and later this year his home city will celebrate his achievements with a new exhibition in the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, adjacent to Stoke-on-Trent’s iconic Spitfire.

There is also a growing movement to include him in Stoke-on-Trent’s Hall of Fame, alongside the likes of football’s Sir Stanley Matthews; author Arnold Bennett; Spitfire inventor Reginald Mitchell; and potter Josiah Wedgwood.

Born in 1910 in Fenton, one of the six towns which make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent, he was an undergraduate at London’s Guy’s Hospital from 1928 until 1933, before returning to the Potteries as a House Surgeon at the North Staffs Royal Infirmary.

Unheralded and largely unknown for decades, the amazing Mr Grocott – who was known as “Johnny G” by nurses – honed his skills working alongside the world-renowned father of modern plastic surgery, Sir Harold Gillies.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, he was singlehandedly running the plastic surgery centre in Stoke-on-Trent and was recruited into the Emergency Medical Service soon after. Throughout the war, he averaged around 350 plastic operations a year – rebuilding jaws, mouths, cheeks, and creating eyelids, noses and ears.

Between D-Day in June 1944 and the end of February 1945, almost 3,000 injured servicemen were brought to Stoke-on-Trent. Those with life-changing facial injuries and burns were taken to Albert Ward at the Infirmary and placed in the care of John Grocott.

Now more details about his life, career and skills, as well as the role his plastic surgery unit played in the aftermath of D-Day, will be revealed as part of the new display, which is expected to open in time for Remembrance Day.

Grocott eventually left the North Staffs Royal Infirmary in 1975, retiring quietly to a life of working on his beloved cars, keeping finches and grafting orchids with all the skill and precision which made him such a remarkable figure in the early days of modern plastic. He died in 1992.

Unsung Heroes of Wartime Stoke – How Plastic Surgery came To the North Staffs Royal Infirmary, by Ros Unwin, is priced £12.99; and is available from Amazon and local bookshops.

For more information on Stoke-on-Trent as a destination, see www.visitstoke.co.uk

Photo: John Grocott in the 1930s – credit Anne Owen