Popular doctor Jim Canney dies at the age of 87
A popular doctor who ran a practice for 26 years and helped to deliver hundreds of babies has died at the age of 87.
Dr Jim Canney moved to the Black Country from Wrexham in 1958 and originally ran a surgery adjoining his family home in Kitchen Lane, Wednesfield. He then took over a practice in Griffiths Drive, Ashmore Park with Dr Derek Dudley, which he ran until 1985.
Darlington-born Dr Canney was also a qualified obstetrician and in his early days in Wolverhampton would deliver up to 20 babies a week at families' homes.
Though he always advocated home births, when hospital births became more common he helped out on wards at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital.
He also specialised in diabetes treatments and caring for the elderly.
Dr Canney studied medicine at Manchester University, where he met his future wife, Joan, who he married in 1950. After graduating he did his national service in the Army, based at Maidstone, Kent.
He and Joan lived at the army base in Maidstone where their first child, Peter, was born in 1952. While at Maidstone he qualified as a glider pilot and instructor.
After his national service they moved to Ripon, Yorkshire, where he was a GP.
He joined a general practice in Wrexham in 1956 and spent two years there.
The couple took in a teenager called Andre who had survived a First World War's concentration camp.
The doctor leaves son Peter and daughters Paula, Barbara and Diana. He had nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Paula, aged 58, said: "He was a gentle giant and quite a character. He never wore shoes, only flip flops and sandles, and never wore a tie. He was a very caring man."
