John Weaver was a cardiothoracic surgeon at the London Hospital. He was born on 7 November 1921 in Wolverhampton and educated at Clifton College, where he boxed for the school. He went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and then St Thomas’s Hospital. After house jobs, he was a casualty officer at St Helier’s Hospital, Carshalton, and Queen Mary’s Hospital, Stratford. He then joined the Colonial Medical Service, where he worked in Malaya. On returning to England, he specialised in cardiothoracic surgery and was senior registrar to Vernon Thompson and Geoffrey Flavell at the London Hospital. In 1962 he spent a year in Kuwait as a consultant surgeon, followed by a year in Ibadan, Nigeria. He returned to the London as consultant surgeon in 1965 and was seconded to New Zealand to learn the latest methods in cardiac surgery under Barrett Boyes. He was a very neat surgeon whose techniques were imitated by a generation of juniors. A delightful, apparently carefree person, he was a popular and highly regarded colleague. He had a passion for driving fast cars and one of his sons became a Formula 1 driver. He died on 7 April 2003, leaving a widow, Mary, and two sons.