David Hollis was an ENT surgeon in south London. He was born in Northwood, Middlesex, on 16 June 1924, the elder son of Frederick James Hollis, a priest and university lecturer, and Christina Mary née Hanbury. Educated at Ovingdean Preparatory School, Brighton, and Lancing College, David Hollis read medicine at King’s College, London, and King’s College Medical School. Here he was influenced by those two ENT giants, Sir Victor Negus and Sir Terence Cawthorne, which, coupled with his own childhood experience of otitis media, led him to choose ENT as his specialty. He was a house surgeon and later a registrar in ENT at King’s College Hospital and senior registrar at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital. He was subsequently appointed consultant ENT surgeon to the Lewisham, North Southwark and Greenwich Health Authorities. He married Barbara Moore, a radiotherapist, later to become a consultant, in 1947. They had two sons, one of whom became a child psychiatrist, and two daughters (the eldest of whom became a state registered nurse and later a chiropractor). His principal interests outside his work were campanology, horticulture and cycling. He died on 28 September 2006.