Raymond Cragg Farrow was born in Peterborough on 17 May 1920. He was educated at his father's old school, Bishop's Stortford, and in 1939 he went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read medicine. He went to Westminster Hospital for his clinical work, gaining the Bulkeley Medal in 1944. He qualified from Oxford in 1945 and after house appointments at the Westminster he was commissioned in the RAMC, serving for two years in Palestine. After demobilisation he held registrar appointments at the Westminster Children's Hospital, St Helier, and the North Middlesex Hospitals. In 1956 he was appointed orthopaedic registrar at St Bartholomew's Hospital, with promotion to chief assistant in the orthopaedic department in 1959. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the North Middlesex Hospital in 1962, and at the same time tutor in surgery at St Bartholomew's. This latter post he relinquished in 1965. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge with a gift for exposition which made him an able and popular teacher. Added to this he had a flair for writing with a simple lucid polished style. His publications included *The surgery of childhood for nurses* (1956) which ran to four editions. He was associate editor of the *Journal of bone and joint surgery*. His later years were dogged by ill-health and he was forced to retire prematurely in 1975. He will be remembered by his many friends as a careful and fastidious surgeon, an entertaining raconteur and a distinguished writer. His family life was particularly happy. He died on 13 May 1979, survived by his wife and three children, the eldest of whom is training to be a surgeon.