Charles Langmaid was a consultant neurosurgeon in Cardiff from 1951 to 1973. He was born in Cardiff on 29 July 1913, the son of Sidney Langmaid. He attended Cardiff University and did his house jobs at the London Hospital where he qualified in 1935 and won the Hepburn medal for the best student and the John Maclean medal for obstetrics and gynaecology. After passing his FRCS in 1940, Charles spent a year in general practice in Cardiff, followed by a house job at the Royal Infirmary and a trip to the Far East as a ship's doctor. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and served at the Royal Naval Hospital, Devonport, and later at Sherborne, practising general surgery and treating a large number of peripheral nerve injuries. In 1973, just before his retirement, when in London for a BMA committee meeting he called at the offices of the Methodist Missionary Society and asked if he could be of any use in the mission field. The result was a year in Dabou in the Ivory Coast, where he operated three days a week and conducted outpatient sessions in between. In later retirement he edited *Neurochirurgia*, translated medical texts from German into English, and attended neurosurgical conferences. He was also well known in the Welsh Methodist movement and was chairman of the United Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Wales. With a lifelong love of music, particularly that of Bach, he played organs in churches throughout Britain and Europe and sang regularly in choirs. Predeceased by his wife, Olga, he left a son and two daughters and four grandchildren when he died of carcinoma of the prostate on 4 May 1997.