{"id":48,"date":"2013-08-28T08:20:15","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T08:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/?page_id=48"},"modified":"2015-07-23T08:02:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T08:02:50","slug":"fiddler-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/fiddlers\/fiddlers-n\/fiddler-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Hoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Biography<\/h3>
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An obituary by Jim Gilchrist was published in The Scotsman on 16 November 2012:<\/p>\n

DEREK Hoy balanced a public life as a fiddle player with the near-legendary Jock Tamson\u2019s\u00a0Bairns and other folk bands with a far lesser known but immensely far-reaching career as an\u00a0innovator in the field of information and communications technology in health care. In his own\u00a0words, he \u201cescaped an early brush with architecture\u201d, going on to become a nurse, nursing\u00a0tutor then pioneer in the field of health informatics, an unflappable, dry-witted presence, as at\u00a0ease in a ceilidh as in an international conference.<\/p>\n

One of four children, Hoy was born and raised in Edinburgh and went to Daniel Stewart\u2019s\u00a0School, where early musical leanings saw him standing in as the school pipe band\u2019s drum major.\u00a0He also learned cello but, according to family lore, one day picked up his grandfather\u2019s fiddle\u00a0and that was that.<\/p>\n

His growing interest in traditional music was intermingled with an appetite for Captain\u00a0Beefheart and Frank Zappa, while his older brother David, already playing drums in a band,\u00a0taught him basic guitar. After graduating in architecture from Edinburgh University, he took a\u00a0post-grad nursing degree course, following that with an MSc in education and working as an\u00a0intensive care nursing tutor. He was fascinated by the advent of internet technology and, seeing\u00a0its applications elsewhere, realised its potential within health care. A scholarship took him to\u00a0the United States in the early 1980s to study information systems and establish enduring\u00a0professional connections and friendships.<\/p>\n

Hoy\u2019s vision was frequently 20 years ahead of his time \u2013 \u201cat the bleeding cutting edge\u201d of health\u00a0informatics, as one colleague put it. Behind quirky acronyms, his innovations provided very real\u00a0benefits. For instance, Agnis (A Generic Nursing Information System), named with\u00a0characteristic wit after one of his bosses, was used widely in a number of countries as an\u00a0educational tool for nursing students. Aliss (Access to Local Information to Support Selfmanagement)\u00a0is making a very real impact on the lives of people with long-term health\u00a0conditions.\u00a0International projects included Telenurse, providing informatics infrastructure for nurses across\u00a0Europe, and WiseCare, uniting computer specialists and clinical experts in the care of cancer\u00a0patients. One collaborator, Peter Ashe of NHS National Services Scotland, remembers Hoy as\u00a0\u201ca maker as well as a visionary. He built the systems at the heart of all these innovations.\u201d He\u00a0worked variously with the National Health Service in Scotland and with the Scottish\u00a0Government, then spent several years as a senior researcher with Glasgow Caledonian\u00a0University. In 2009, with Professor Nick Hardiker of Salford University, he formed\u00a0Snowcloud, continuing his visionary work and collaborating with colleagues in Scotland, the\u00a0Netherlands and Switzerland (a suggested alternative company title was MIP \u2013 Men In Pyjamas,\u00a0reflecting frequent Skype conversations at all hours).<\/p>\n

Hardiker agrees that few people understood exactly what Hoy did outwith his fiddler\u2019s chair,\u00a0but, he says, \u201cDerek quietly made an enormous contribution to the field of health informatics,\u00a0in Scotland and internationally.\u201d Hardiker acknowledges Hoy\u2019s ability to use mind maps and\u00a0other paper-and-pencil sketches to put over complicated ideas: \u201cI have yet to meet anyone who\u00a0matches Derek\u2019s ability to make really complex things so easy to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among online tributes from across the globe, one lamented the passing of \u201chis out-of-the-box\u00a0thinking, quick wit and love of good single malt\u201d. And malt as much as music helped oil the\u00a0development of healthcare informatics. A seminar might end with Hoy producing his fiddle,\u00a0while many Edinburgh meetings were held in the Scotch Malt Whisky Society \u2013 where, he\u00a0blogged, he found his newly arrived iPad useful as a tray. \u201cBut it\u2019s just the 16GB wfi model,\u201d he\u00a0reported, \u201cso only holds four drams at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoy\u2019s progress in health care computing was paralleled by his commitment to traditional\u00a0music, with early groups during the 1970s, including Wee Willum and Chorda. There was also\u00a0the short-lived Harry and the Helmets, for whom Hoy advertised for a girl singer. A girl did\u00a0indeed apply, failed the audition but evidently made an impression as Derek and Christine\u00a0married in 1977.<\/p>\n

Largely self-taught in the days before summer schools and workshops, he developed a very\u00a0personal and versatile style and a formidable repertoire, honed in the informal conservatoire of\u00a0Sandy Bell\u2019s bar, as well as visits to the Glasgow-Donegal fiddler Jimmy McHugh and playing\u00a0with the Edinburgh Highland Reel and Strathspey Society and the Edinburgh Shetland fiddlers.\u00a0At the beginning of the 1980s, he joined the ranks of Jock Tamson\u2019s Bairns, playing on their\u00a0second album, The Lasses Fashion, as the band established a reputation for an authentic yet\u00a0individualistic approach to Scottish music that lasted long after they dispersed in 1983. They\u00a0reconvened, to widespread delight, in the late 1990s, recording two more albums.\u00a0Known to his fellow musicians by his school nickname of \u201cHappy\u201d, supposedly due to his long\u00a0face, Hoy played in radio and stage productions with broadcaster Billy Kay, including\u00a0Fergusson\u2019s Auld Reekie, and also in the music-theatre productions of Mike Maran, including\u00a0the Neil Gunn-inspired Atom of Delight, from which Hoy\u2019s winsome title tune has taken on a\u00a0life of its own. He was also a stalwart of Bella McNab\u2019s Dance Band and a long-standing teacher\u00a0with the Adult Learning Project, now the Scots Music Group.His colleague in the Bairns, singer Rod Paterson, regards Hoy as a one-off: \u201cWith Happy, every\u00a0time his bow went near the strings, you got what kind of man he was.\u201d Another Bairns\u00a0member, John Croall, recalls a memorable millennium gig at Disneyland Florida, where they\u00a0were the only adults unaccompanied by children, \u201cso Happy suggested we go watch the\u00a0banjo playing bears \u2013 we thought they were very good and showed potential\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hoy used his IT skills to set up the online audio archive RareTunes, in collaboration with friend\u00a0and fellow-musician Stuart Eydmann, and also set up websites for the Scots Music Group.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Hoys\u2019 Portobello home was a hospitable one, hosting many a ceilidh and house concert. Derek\u00a0took immense pride in the achievements of his immediate and extended family, not least his\u00a0two daughters, Jenny and Sarah, both musicians and teachers. His father-in-law is former\u00a0athlete and And, of course, Derek followed with immense pride the exploits of his fast pedalling\u00a0nephew, Sir Chris Hoy. While feeling the first effects of what would be diagnosed as\u00a0an aggressive brain tumour, he was with the ecstatic family in London to witness Chris\u2019s\u00a0historic triumph on 7 August. His brother David, Chris\u2019s father, recalls: \u201cMy last proper and\u00a0happy memory of Derek is of him standing with a glass of champagne in his hand at around\u00a0midnight, after Chris won his sixth Olympic gold in the keirin. He had\u00a0a broad smile on his face, a tear in both eyes and, as we hugged, he just kept saying, \u2018What a\u00a0wonderful day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He died peacefully, at home, nursed by his family and their support, reflecting the care which\u00a0he gave his parents during their last days, and which he extended to countless others through his\u00a0work. By tragic coincidence, his fellow Bairns fiddler, Ian Hardie, had succumbed to a brain\u00a0tumour a month earlier. From this writer\u2019s point of view, that of a near-neighbour and friend,\u00a0Hogmanays can never be quite the same. Derek was inevitably the last man to leave our house,\u00a0in the small hours of the new year, when there would be a ritual dram and he\u2019d give us a last,\u00a0sweet air on his fiddle. He leaves a rare note indeed, still hanging in the air.<\/p>\n

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Photographs<\/h3>
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Discography<\/h3>
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