Brian McCluskey was born on 19 January 1936 in Christchurch, New Zealand, the son of Charles Henry McCluskey, a commercial traveller, and Patricia, née Parker. He was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School and the University of Otago Medical School, where he qualified in 1959. After holding junior appointments in Waikato and Auckland and also serving as a Captain in the New Zealand Territorial Army he came to England to take the FRCS, working at Hillingdon Hospital and St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth. He then returned to Australia where he was appointed senior lecturer in surgery at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, and where subsequently he built up a large and successful private practice in general surgery. Brian McCluskey was a man of enormous energy with wide sporting interests, particularly in rugby and rowing in his university days, and later in sailing and skiing. He was an enthusiastic golfer and last played less than a week before his death. He took part in many ocean races, including the Sydney to Hobart race in 1988 where he finished second in his class and ninth overall. He also had a passion for business enterprises including blueberry farming, scallop fishing and second-hand cars, but none of these achieved the success of his surgical practice. He was married twice, firstly to Ann Hargreaves, a physiotherapist, in 1960, by whom he had two daughters, Sarah Jane and Deborah Anne, who both became chartered accountants, and a son, Richard, a pilot. When they divorced in 1991 he married Margot Rodda, a nurse. He died prematurely on 31 January 1992 at the age of 56.