Graham was one of the founder members of the ICDC and recent Chairman and sadly passed away after a short illness on the 21st February this year (2016).

Graham & Margaret Skelding have been involved with ICDC since it started in 2006. They enjoyed attending meetings, social events and discussions and made a lot of new friends. Graham found it very helpful to talk to people who have similar experiences and to offer support to their partners and carers. He was committed to developing ICDC services.

Graham and Margaret were married for nearly 60 years.  Graham trained as an engineer and spent a considerable amount of time working overseas in the oil industry particularly in Europe, the Middle East & Japan. In 1969, Margaret and his two children joined him in Japan where they lived for over 5 years.  Margaret became involved in teaching English as a foreign language. Upon her return to England she established a very successful language school in Woking.

On 2nd August, 2004, Graham had a Sudden Cardiac Arrest in the garden of their home. Fortunately, their daughter was present and they were able to successfully give him heart resuscitation for 5 minutes before paramedics arrived. Margaret completed a Heart Start resuscitation course a few months earlier which was obviously invaluable in saving Graham’s life. He was rushed to St. Peters Hospital and was in Intensive Care for some time. The professional care he received enabled him to live a normal life and he greatly appreciated all the medical care that he received from the Cardiology Unit at St. Peters.

Graham was committed to developing ICDC Surrey because he felt he wanted to support both the hospital and patients in return for all the care he received.
 
Graham had been the treasurer and took on the role of Chairman in 2014 for the newly restructured ICDC Surrey and worked passionately to develop the support group amongst ICD patients in Surrey. As Committee members we worked with Graham on many key programmes including the Patients booklet and developing an ICDC website with Brian Hall.  Graham led on widening this ICDC Network to include all patients from Surrey and developed good links with local Hospitals.  We are very grateful to Margaret for the funeral donation of about £2000 to be  used to benefit ICD patients as a legacy to Graham’s memory.  

Our thanks go out to Graham for the hard work, diplomacy and passion he generated - he will be missed by all of us.  Our thoughts are with his family and friends and may he rest in peace