Steven Robert Huddart was born in Cumbria on 18 September 1949. His father, Johnathan William Huddart was a schoolmaster and his mother, Dorothy, a nursing sister. He was educated at Wellingborough Grammar School and subsequently qualified from Westminster Hospital Medical School. His resident hospital appointments included Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, Guildford and St James's, Balham, where he came under the influence of Norman Tanner and J S Kirkham. His hobbies included rugby football, amateur dramatics and motor racing. When he qualified in 1973, he married Evelyn Weller who subsequently qualified MB BS London in 1974. In early 1978 they were living in married quarters at Cuckfield Hospital but when Huddart obtained his Fellowship and became an orthopaedic registrar at the Royal Northern Hospital the family moved back into their home in Bromley where Evelyn continued with her general practice under her maiden name. Only a few weeks after the birth of his third child, a few months after obtaining his Fellowship and six weeks after his appointment as orthopaedic registrar, Huddart was returning from the Royal Northern Hospital when he fell from his motor cycle, sustaining severe internal injuries from which he died within a few hours of admission to Bromley Hospital. He left Evelyn with three young children, Melanie, William and Sam, who were all under five when he died on 11 November 1978.