A DEVOTED couple passed away within a week of each other after the husband died following a collision in a Chipping Norton car park.

David Mond said his mother Phyllis “gave up” after losing husband of 65 years Nathaniel, known as Peter.

She was 92. Great-grandfather Mr Mond, 96, was knocked over by a reversing Ford Ka at the Co-op, Albion Street on Thursday, April 4.

The retired GP died at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital on Wednesday, April 17, and his wife, who had dementia, passed away on Tuesday.

They retired to Charlbury in the mid-1970s. He moved to Chipping Norton when she went into Beech Haven Care Home eight years ago. Mr Mond said: “It seems to us that although her response wasn’t at all obvious, when we told her, she just decided to give up.”

The couple will now be buried together at a date to be announced. He said of his parents, who met on a blind date: “They were extremely close. They had a happy life together.” He visited his wife – with whom he had three children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild – every day, Mr Mond said. The son of poor Polish Jewish immigrants, Mr Mond grew up in the East End of London and won a scholarship to University College Hospital.

As a communist who fought marches by Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts, Mr Mond volunteered as an Army doctor at the outbreak of war, regarding fascism as “uniquely evil”. His roles included treating PoWs and tending frontline casualties in North Africa and Italy, including the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino.

Returning to work as a GP in Kingsbury, Middlesex, Mr Mond said: “He was there when the NHS was formed and he was an avid supporter.

“He hated the commercial aspect of treating patients, who often couldn’t afford to pay.”

Mr Mond said: “He was very happy to have gone up in the world and in Charlbury they were incredibly happy. They made a tremendous number of friends.”

Mr Mond, a keen gardener, was active in the Campaign to Protect Rural England and worked part-time for the NHS for home visits. He also worked as a volunteer for a meals-on-wheels service and celebrated his 90th birthday with a parachute jump in Bicester.

He said a post mortem examination recorded his father’s cause of death as bronchopneumonia. Maggie Watson, a neighbour in Shepard Way, said: “He was the most wonderful neighbour you could ever have.”

No arrests have been made concerning the car park incident, but police are appealing for witnesses to call them on 101.