A former dentist in Woking, Surrey, who was involved with the BDA and several organisations, has died at 98.

John Lawrence 'Lawrie' Hayes, hailed from Darlington. He qualified at Edinburgh and initial work included locums in Carlisle and Bradford.

As a dental inspector of schools in Northumberland he met Irene, an assistant pharmacist in Alnwick. They married in 1942 and after a spell in Sussex and the suburbs of London, set up practice in Woking. That site later became part of the town's redevelopment and so he moved his practice to another part of town. Both before and at the time of his retirement in 1978, the practice had been expanded to the point where there were several dentists and nurses as well as dental mechanics.

He was chairman of the Surrey branch of the BDA, the local Rotary Club and the YMCA and was a churchwarden.

He was a member of Worplesdon Golf Club where he and friends dubbed themselves members of the WAGS (Wednesday Afternoon Golf Society) and the THGS (Tired Husbands' Golfing Society).

After retiring in 1978 he and Irene moved near Trowbridge in Wiltshire before coming back to Sonning Common and Emmer Green near Reading.

For the past seven years he had been in a nursing home in Wokingham along with Irene, who died nearly three years ago. As well as helping to run the practice she, too, had been involved with various organisations in Woking.

At his last main social engagement in August, attending the joint 40th wedding anniversary celebrations of his son and elder daughter, he was reunited with one of the first nurses he employed.

He was transferred, after being diagnosed with pneumonia, to the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, where he died.

He leaves a son and two daughters and their partners, seven grandchildren and their partners and a niece and her husband. He was the last of five siblings and they predeceased him in the order they were born. He and Irene willed their bodies to medical science.