Alan Fowler was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Glamorgan, Wales, at the Bridgend General Hospital and subsequently at the Princess of Wales Hospital. He was born on 18 June 1920 in Chesterfield, the son of William Charles Fowler and Nora Fowler née Barker. His mother was a hospital social worker, while his father was a medical officer at Chesterfield TB Sanatorium; he subsequently became superintendent of Pinewood Sanatorium in Wokingham, where Alan Fowler spent his childhood. Alan then studied medicine at Reading University and University College Hospital. Owing to the war, the college was relocated to Cardiff, where met his wife to be, Margaret Watkins, then a student of classics. He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War. He held a house physician post at the General Hospital, Weston-super-Mare, in 1943 and was then a house surgeon at Chester Royal Infirmary. In 1945 he was a resident medical officer at Portway Hospital, Weymouth, and then a house surgeon in general and ENT surgery at Wrexham Memorial Hospital. Between 1946 and 1947 he was a resident surgical officer at the Royal Halifax Infirmary. He remained in Halifax for another year, as a senior orthopaedic registrar. His final training post was at Winford Orthopaedic Hospital, Bristol. In 1953 he was appointed as an assistant orthopaedic surgeon to Bridgend General Hospital, becoming a consultant in 1965. He moved to the new Princess of Wales Hospital in 1985. During his time at Bridgend he worked almost single-handedly until a second surgeon was appointed in 1975. His colleague until then was based in the adjacent Neath General Hospital. As was customary at that time, in addition to the orthopaedic surgery, he was consultant in charge of the then casualty department. These commitments gave rise to a demanding amount of work on-call. A district general hospital orthopaedic surgeon, in those days, was a generalist, dealing with most aspects of the specialty. There were specialist neurosurgical units in Cardiff and Swansea, but the primary care of head and spinal trauma was essentially based at Bridgend, half way between these centres. Before the days of specialist imaging, this added considerably to the trauma workload and responsibility. In spite of this, Alan was comprehensively well-read, keeping up with both specialist and general medical publications. Though committed to a workload incomprehensibly heavy to his successors, he developed his own interests in various aspects of orthopaedics, with significant published contributions to forefoot surgery. Fowler's procedure for forefoot reconstruction in rheumatoid disease was in current practice until a decade or so ago. It might be argued that his observations on ingrown toenails still bear considerable influence. He dealt with all aspects of orthopaedic and trauma surgery, frequently adding his own acute and insightful glosses to hallowed procedure. He carried out the first hip replacements in south Wales, certainly ahead of a teaching hospital 20 miles away. To the surprise of a colleague, it was often the case that a new procedure to be found in the current edition of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery* would be encountered in Alan Fowler's next operating session. He remained staunchly faithful to conservative principles of fracture treatment, particularly those of Hicks and John Charnley. Latterly in his career, he conceded to the techniques of the AO (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Osteosynthesefragen) system of implants, though, typically, he was not prepared to accept all of their tenets uncritically. His life was driven by his adherence to the Christadelphian Church and he achieved a prodigious knowledge of Biblical studies. This was shared by his wife, Margaret, of 66 years, herself an accomplished teacher and linguist. A significant aspect of this marriage of two busy people was the adoption of no fewer than seven children, who were brought up within their religious principles. The denizens of Bridgend were regularly treated to the sight of all nine going about their many activities in a small minibus. After his retirement from NHS practice in 1986, he applied his energies to working as an orthopaedic surgeon in the Third World. In the mid-1990s he was appointed as visiting professor of surgery at the University Hospital in Lusaka. Both here and in previous missionary work in Guyana he brought his extensive knowledge and skills in the conservative treatment of trauma; often there was little available surgical metalware. He remained mentally and physically active after even this post retirement activity. He regularly attended postgraduate activities, usually making cogent contributions from the floor. He was particularly expert at asking unanswerable questions of the speaker. He was often to be found, surrounded by books and journals, in the hospital library. He wrote, during and after his hospital career, frequent letters to the medical and lay press. His own written output remained copious. This included material reflecting both of his consuming interests; he published small volumes relating to the interface between science and the Bible. The last of these was published in 2011 (*Essays in a search for truth* Hyderabad, Printland Publishers), at a time when his vision had become seriously impaired. Undeterred, he used modern technology to read text; an abiding memory is of him devouring words on a device producing magnified print, at a speed comparable to that of one with normal vision. Throughout his life he maintained a lively interest in the natural world, especially birdlife and tended quite a large garden, along with Margaret. He pressed the apples from his orchard and froze the juice to accompany winter meals. In his latter years he cared for his ailing wife; after her death he steadfastly lived alone with help from his family. He died, surrounded by many of his family, on 21 January 2013, at the age of 92.