Eustace Victor Hope, the younger son and second of three children of Herbert Ashworth Hope, a barrister and company chairman, was born on 3 June 1914 at Church Stretton, Shropshire. He was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before entering St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and qualifying in 1940. He was then house surgeon and surgical registrar at Botley's Park War Memorial Hospital (in the St Thomas's Hospital wartime sector), later serving in the RAF medical service as a Flight-Lieutenant from 1945 to 1947. On demobilisation he was senior surgical registrar at West London and Westminster Hospitals, 1948-54, and also an outpatient registrar at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, 1947-51. He then moved to Paignton, Devon, where he became one of the last of the GP surgeons, giving robust and cheerful service to the local hospital for 26 years. A keen athlete in his youth, he had represented Cambridge University in the one mile and half mile events for three years. He had a great interest in vintage cars and some of his colleagues have happy recollections of their conscription into the hilarious events of his beloved Rolls Royce and Bentley Clubs. He lived life with a boundless and cheerful enthusiasm and became a keen golfer in his later years. In 1942 he married Anne Powell and they had a son and a daughter. He died on 11 July 1982 after a six months' illness, borne with cheerful equanimity. He was survived by his wife and children.