Dick Berkin was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Hull and East Riding Group of Hospitals. He was born on 20 March 1920 in Hastings. Both his parents were missionaries of the temperance movement in China, where his father John Berkin was a surveyor, and his mother Catherine (née Coad) was a gymnast. Charles was brought up in China, where he attended the English School in Kuling, the Cathedral School in Shanghai, and the American School in Kuling. After a period in the Aireborough Grammar School in Leeds he studied medicine at Leeds University, qualifying with distinction in 1945, and winning a blue for water-polo. After junior posts under Professor Moir and Leslie Pyrah, he became an anatomy demonstrator, and passed the primary. Heart disease, the legacy of rheumatism, debarred him from military service. He then became a senior house officer, registrar and then senior registrar at the Leeds General Infirmary, followed by a year at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He then went to Mount Vernon to gain experience in plastic surgery and to the Middlesex. He later returned to Leeds to be a tutor in orthopaedic surgery. In 1957 he won a scholarship to visit the United States, and was then appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Hull and East Riding Group of Hospitals. He developed a special interest in scoliosis, conducting the monthly scoliosis clinics in Leeds, and making a special visit to Texas in 1963 to learn spinal procedures from Paul Harrington. In 1963 the orthopaedic unit at De La Pole Hospital was opened, and soon became the centre for the treatment of scoliosis in the north of England. He was a skilled silversmith, and when he became the first President of the British Scoliosis Society in 1981 he made the presidential badge of office. He was an enthusiastic skier, undeterred by fractures of tibia and fibula. He dug his own swimming pool in his garden. In 1949 he married Mary Swanson, a physiotherapist. They had three sons, Robert, Ticker and Philip, and two daughters, Jane and Liz, who became a consultant cardiologist. He died from carcinoma of the prostate on 31 August 1998, survived by his wife, children and seven grandchildren.