Raymond Alexander King was born on 5 January 1918 and his early education was in China where his father and grandfather were medical missionaries. He entered the London Hospital Medical College for clinical studies and qualified in 1939. Within a few months he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. He passed the FRCS in the following year and was appointed surgical specialist with the rank of Major. He subsequently served at El Alamein and in the Sicily landings and at the end of the war his services were recognised by the award of MBE. After demobilisation he was surgical first assistant and later orthopaedic first assistant surgeon at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, in 1948. Throughout twenty-five years on the hospital staff he was an enthusiastic worker and teacher, who disliked any semblance of pomposity or inefficiency. He retired from the hospital staff in 1983 and pursued his interest in gardening and goat farming. He zealously restored a run down three acre garden and, before retirement, would rise at 4 a.m. to clip the lawn edges. His wife Katie died 1984. He continued to maintain his professional interest by participating in medical appeal tribunal work until shortly before his death on 2 April 1989 aged 71, survived by his son Tom and his grandchildren.