Alfred John Drew, known as ‘Jack’, was a former consultant general surgeon in Walsall. He was born in Ceylon on 17 February 1916, the son of the chief pilot for the harbour at Colombo. He was educated at Nuwara Eliya, and was then sent to Ipswich School at the age of 11. He became head boy and rugby captain. He went on to study medicine at Guy’s, qualifying in 1939. At medical school he swam and played rugby for the first XV. After house appointments at Guy’s and with the south east sector of the Emergency Medical Service during the war, he went to Preston Hall, Maidstone, as a surgical trainee. He then moved to Pembury, where he became a senior lecturer in anatomy, living in a baronial house with many others from Guy’s. After obtaining his FRCS in 1941, he moved to Sheffield as resident surgical officer to Sir Ernest Finch. Drew then joined the Navy, initially as a specialist with the First Submarine Flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean, managing to survive the sinking of the *Medway*. He was transferred to *HMS Zulu*, and ended up in Beirut. He then spent a long period at the Massawa Naval Base on the Red Sea. He returned to the UK, as a senior surgical specialist at Chatham, having asked to be posted to the Pacific, where the fighting was continuing. Following demobilisation, he returned to Guy’s as a senior surgical registrar, working under, among others, Brock, Slessinger, Ekhof, Grant-Massey, Stamm, Wass and Kilpatrick. He also worked at St Mark’s as a clinical assistant to Gabriel. In 1951 he was appointed general surgeon to the Walsall Hospitals (the Manor and the General), where he worked for the next 30 years. A true general surgeon, he taught trainees from all over the world, spending time visiting them during his retirement. He loved to sail, and, once he had retired to Lymington in 1981, he was able to devote more time to sailing along the south coast and to France. He was also able to tend his garden and watch rugby on television. He died in Lymington on 29 February 2004, and is survived by his wife, Patricia, his daughter, Sally, and his sons, Richard and Peter.