Alan Wardle Bone was born on 17 April 1910, and educated at Felsted School, Essex, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He received his medical training at the London Hospital qualifying in 1936. He then decided to take up surgery and held a number of resident posts at the London Hospital and obtained his Final FRCS in 1940. Soon after the outbreak of war he joined the RAMC and served in the Middle East until the cessation of hostilities. He became a surgical specialist with the rank of Major. Bone then spent three years at the London Hospital working first as a demonstrator of anatomy and later as registrar in the surgical unit under Professor Dix. At the same time he was honorary consultant surgeon to East Ham Memorial Hospital. In 1950 he was appointed consultant surgeon to the North Teesside Hospitals, a post he held until his untimely death. He served as Chairman of the Stockton Division of the British Medical Association and for several years was a member of Sedgefield Hospital Management Committee. He was a gentle cultured man with a subtle wit and keen eye for the ridiculous and was a splendid conversationalist and raconteur. His interests included skiing, sailing, gardening, literature and European travel. He had two sons, one of whom has become a doctor, having followed his father to Caius College, and the London Hospital. Alan Bone died after a long illness on February 28, 1974 at the age of 63.