David Eric Sturdy was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, Wales. He was born in Llanybydder, West Wales on 4 May 1928, the only son of William Frederick Sturdy, a boot and shoe repairer, and Anne Mary Sturdy née Davies, the daughter of a carpenter. There were no medical connections in the family. He was educated at the local village school in Llanybydder and Lladyssul County Grammar School. From 1944 to 1946 he studied the first London MB as an external student at Swansea Technical College and Swansea University. He then went on to Guy’s Hospital Medical School and qualified in 1950. He held house posts at Swansea General Hospital and then carried out his National Service (from 1951 to 1953). He was a regimental medical officer to the first battalion of the Welsh Guards, a junior surgical specialist at the British Military Hospital, Berlin and the RAF Hospital in Rinteln, Germany, and a visiting medical officer to Spandau Prison, which held several war criminals including Rudolf Hess. He maintained his connections with the Welsh Guards: he was an honorary member of the Welsh Guards Officers Club and vice president of the Monmouthshire branch of the Old Comrades Association. He joined the Territorial Army, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel in the RAMC. After finishing his National Service, he gained wide-ranging experience in general and paediatric surgery and in urology. His registrar posts were at the Morriston Hospital, Swansea and the Royal Masonic and the Royal Marsden hospitals, London. He was then a senior registrar at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street and at Preston Royal Infirmary. At these centres, he received expert teaching in urology from Alec Badenoch, David Wallace and David Innes Williams, and in general and paediatric surgery from Clifford Naunton Morgan, Harold Edwards, H H Nixon, D Waterston and Ian Orr in Preston. His MS thesis was based on work undertaken at Great Ormond Street under the supervision of David Innes Williams. In 1962, he was appointed as a consultant general and paediatric surgeon to the Royal Gwent Hospital, with a particular interest in urology. He had the ability to perform per-urethral prostatic resection which, at that time, was the yardstick for recognition as a urological surgeon. The only flaw in his CV, he felt, was a lack of experience in vascular surgery and this was rectified in the early sixties by in-post experience and by attendance at vascular surgery meetings and seminars. He felt himself extremely lucky in his appointment at Newport in that he was able to maintain all these branches of surgery. During his consultancy, he always had a great interest in surgical training and especially in the development of surgery and surgeons in Wales. He served as a surgical tutor to the Royal Gwent Hospital, was a surgical adviser to South Wales and was a member and founder secretary of the Welsh board of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was president of the Welsh Surgical Society and a founder president of the Welsh Surgical Travelling Club. He wrote papers on, among other topics, the management of extroversion of the bladder and the surgical management of carcinoma of the oesophagus. He also wrote *Essentials of urology* (Bristol, J Wright, 1974) and *An outline of urology* (Bristol, John Wright,1986), and contributed to *Pelvic pain in women* (Springer-Verlag, 1990). On his retirement, he reflected that he had enjoyed his clinical practice at the Royal Gwent Hospital, felt fortunate to have been able to practise surgery in his native country and to have had the privilege of working with a harmonious band of colleagues. He was also proud of playing his part in influencing and developing surgical practice and organising surgical training in the Principality. Outside medicine, he enjoyed salmon and trout fishing, particularly on the Teifi in West Wales and on the Usk in Gwent. He also played golf and was a member of Newport Golf Club for 30 years. As a medical student, he played football for Guy’s Hospital, United Hospitals, London University and Harrow and Wealdstone. From 1950 to 1962 he played rugby for Swansea, London University Vandals and Preston Grasshoppers. He was later a surgeon and medical officer to Newport Rugby Football Club. In 1954, he married Meriel Griffiths, a nurse. They had three children: Sian Alana, David Huw and Cerys Anne.