Tony Dyde was a cardiothoracic surgeon at Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry. He was born in Plymouth on 30 May 1935, the son of John Horsfall Dyde, chairman of the Eastern Gas Board, and Ethel May Hewitt, and was educated at Rugby, where he excelled at cricket, hockey and rugby football. He then went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he gained a blue for hockey and had an England trial. During a long vacation he worked in the dining room of the Devon Coast Country Club. His duties included the entertainment of guests, mainly London Hospital nurses, in the evening. From Cambridge, he went on Guy’s Hospital for his clinical studies. He was an outstanding student both academically as well as on the sports field, and on qualification he became a house physician to the dean, E R Boland, a rather daunting physician who wore a black monocle. After a spell in the accident department, he was a house surgeon to Sam Wass, the most sought-after post in the surgical department. While doing this job he fell ill with a stomach bug during an epidemic that had swept the hospital, perhaps the ‘winter vomiting virus’. The epidemic was so big that medical wards had to be used to cater for the volume of sick staff, mostly nurses. The resident medical officer of the day Maurice Lessof (later professor of medicine at Guy’s) was not happy with Tony’s condition and obtained a second opinion from the senior physician – Arthur Douthwaite. After his usual brusque assessment of the case, acute appendicitis was diagnosed and an acutely inflamed appendix was duly removed. The next week, when the great man arrived in his Rolls Royce at the front entrance of Guy’s, he was met as usual by Lessof, the senior registrar, junior registrar, two or three house men and a ward sister or two. As the cavalcade passed into the hospital Douthwaite asked “…by the way Lessof, how is that house surgeon I saw last week with appendicitis?” “Dyde, Sir?” replied Lessof. “Oh, I am so sorry” said the great man. Tony recovered and continued his job with Sam Wass. During the summer of that year Dyde married Shirley Priestley, who had been inspected by Sam Wass as a suitable girl to marry his house surgeon. The stag party was memorable: the best man took a dislike to the coloured lights that summoned junior doctors and beat the set on the wall in the residents’ common room to a pulp, fusing the system. The hospital was without a call system until the electricians replaced the mangled piece of steel and wires. A furious superintendent John Blaikley sent for Tony the next morning. Tony could not remember the incident: the superintendent asked in a concerned way “I believe Dyde that they put something in your beer.” Nothing more was said. Tony and Shirley then went to Bristol, where he worked with such surgical giants as Bob Horton, Bill Capper, Milnes Walker and Ronald Belsey, who may have kindled his interest in cardiothoracic surgery. He then went to Sheffield as a registrar, passed the final FRCS in 1963 and went back to Guy’s as a registrar to the thoracic unit, headed by Russell Brock and Donald Ross. It was a very stressful time at Guy’s when the third heart transplant in England was performed and Tony took the brunt of the postoperative care. During this period he went to work for Phil Ashmore in Vancouver. They remained firm friends for many years to come. As a senior registrar to Lord Brock and Donald Ross, Tony was a rapid and competent cardiac surgeon. On one occasion Brock was late. Tony, working with a very slick anaesthetist, had opened the chest and placed the patient on by pass – but still there was no Brock. Tony did what was necessary, replacing a valve or two and was just sewing up when the great man appeared in the theatre. “How are you getting on, Dyde?” “Just closing up, sir” said Tony. At which Brock turned on his heel and left the theatre. When Brock retired, Alan Yates took his place and he and Tony made a great team. By this time Robert Brain, a thoracic surgeon, joined the unit, which now provided a complete training programme in all aspects of the specialty, including a formal rotation with St Thomas’ and the Brook Hospital. In 1972, Tony was appointed to Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry, joining Roger Abbey Smith and Bill Williams, where he spent the rest of his surgical career and together they made Walsgrave one of most productive and efficient training programmes in cardiothoracic surgery in the UK. They started the biennial Coventry conference, which became one of the best postgraduate discussion groups in the specialty to which world experts were invited. They would introduce the subject under discussion in presentations of about 30 minutes, which were followed by 90 minutes of free ranging discussion with all attendees contributing to the arguments. A tremendous amount of ground was covered and a lot was learned by all attending. Tony took over the last couple of these conferences on his own until he realised that some degree of repetition was occurring, and decided to call it a day. In addition to being an extremely busy cardiac surgeon, Tony found time to travel to Lahore and helped to establish their cardiac unit, which entailed patience and tolerance of a medical culture very different from his own. The unit he set up is named after him and continues to save lives in Pakistan. In the latter years at Walsgrave, Tony became the clinical director of cardiothoracic surgery and medical director of the hospital and played a part in devising a magnificent new Walsgrave Hospital. He retired in 1997 to continue his love of fishing and golf, becoming captain of his local golf club, which gave him great pride and pleasure until ill health put this to an end.