"Rag", as his friends knew him, was a country doctor for everyone. He was witty, literary, musical, deeply passionate and caring.

Born in Mosman, the youngest child of Dr Harry and Leonore Holmes, he attended Mosman Primary School, the Shore School and Sydney University where, following his two brothers, he studied medicine.

On his 18th birthday his mother gave him his precious cello, made in 1697 and attributed to Andrea Guarneri. This played a central role in his life and he performed on it in many settings, from the Conservatorium as soloist in the Dvorak cello concerto, to an outback campsite, to Bach in the Opera House.

In his final year at St Paul's College, Sydney University, he became senior student alongside the secretary, his close friend, Gough Whitlam. Rag was best man at Whitlam's wedding to Margaret in 1942. Sixty years later these two Renaissance men were still sharpening their wits on each other about a poem Whitlam had written.

Holmes rowed in the college eight and was captain of boats, receiving a university blue in 1940. He played in the college rugby XV. Enlisting in 1942, Holmes served as a medical officer in Borneo and New Guinea where he fell in love with a nurse and young widow, Katherine Stephens (nee Body) and they were married in 1944.

After the war the couple settled into the life of Yass, where Holmes began a 35-year medical partnership with David Graham. These were medically challenging years, especially before specialists and large hospitals arrived in Canberra, and accidents on the Hume Highway were frequent. Required to retire from hospital practice in 1983, he continued to work in the Yass and Gunning surgeries.

The founding of the Yass Music Club in 1953 and its continued success is one of Holmes's greatest legacies. As musical director, he enticed artists such as Don Burrows, Gerard Willems and Isador Goodman to Yass, often having them stay at his home. His cello was always an attraction. Many leading cellists, such as David Pereira, played the cello there, in concert, or borrowed it. Playing often continued late into the night after concerts and Yass became a mecca for artists of high repute.

Katherine Holmes died in 1973. His second wife, Ann, whom he married in 1981, supported him in all his activities, and added a few more.

As well as being a member of the Australian Doctors Orchestra until the age of 80, Holmes worked with war veterans, Legacy, the Spastic Centre, Royal Far West Children's Health Scheme, the Challenge Foundation (later Andalini Services), Council for the Disabled, Freedom from Hunger, Community Aid Abroad and Amnesty International. He was a member in the Order of Australia (AM), a Yass Rotary Citizen of the Year and holder of a Centenary of Federation medal. One of his proudest moments was his invitation from the Yass Aboriginal Community to chair its Sorry Day activities in 1999.

Rag Holmes is survived by Ann; his three children, Mal, Kate and Nick; Ann's children, Tim and Lisa; eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

He had said of both his brother, Tag, and father Harry, quoting Shakespeare's Marc Antony, after the death of Brutus, and it can be said of Rag: "His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up, and say, to all the world, 'This was a man.' "