Dr Ray Seidler was a hero to GPs, a larger-than-life figure caring for the community in Sydney’s Kings Cross when it was an underbelly — a red-light world of drugs, organised crime and sex work.

He was also a long-time AusDoc columnist who appeared as the star turn on the medical conference circuit to talk about the unspoken realities of life as a GP.

He was frequently dark but always bitingly funny. The measure? The belly laughter erupting from his audience.

But as the following excerpts make clear, behind all this Dr Seidler was also deeply troubled, battling severe mental health problems throughout his life, in times before the recognition that the medical profession needed to dismantle its taboos and care for its own.