Kenneth Roddie was an ENT consultant surgeon in Bristol. He was born in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on 30 August 1923, the son of John Richard Wesley, a Methodist minister, and Mary Hill Wilson. The family had a strong medical tradition – over three generations there were 23 doctors, and all three of Kenneth’s brothers studied medicine. He was educated at the Methodist College, Belfast, and at Queen’s University, Belfast. He received his early training in ENT surgery at the Royal Victoria and Belfast City Hospitals. He was often the only junior doctor in a large and busy unit, having to cope with an enormous throughput of patients requiring various ENT procedures, mainly tonsillectomy or mastoidectomy. This huge workload gave him the clinical acumen and surgical skill that later characterised his work. He was appointed senior registrar at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, London, in 1957 and in 1960 was appointed consultant ENT surgeon at Southmead and Frenchay Hospitals, Bristol. He was later head of the department of otorhinolaryngology at Bristol University and consultant in charge of the Bristol Hearing and Speech Centre. He was also a consultant aurist to the Civil Service commissioners. He retired from the NHS in 1990, but continued in private practice at St Mary’s Hospital. His hobbies were golf, travel, painting and his garden. He married Anne née Mathews, also a doctor, in 1957 and they had a daughter, Alison, who has followed her parents into medicine, and two sons. There are five grandchildren. His wife predeceased him in 1997, a loss from which he never fully recovered. He died on 29 February 2004, from a heart attack.