Norman Henry Birch was a general surgeon at the East Riding General District Hospital, Driffield, and the Lloyd Hospital in Bridlington. Born on 19 November 1932 in Leeds, he came from a working class home. After attending Leeds Grammar School and obtaining his school certificate in July 1940 at the age of 17, he studied medicine at Leeds University Medical School. At the early age of 20 he qualified in September 1945. After National service as a medical officer in Germany he held house jobs in surgery at both hospitals in Leeds, in Grimsby and at Bradford Royal Infirmary. He passed the fellowship of the College in 1954. Due to difficulties in obtaining a senior post after passing his FRCS, he joined the Colonial Service and was appointed a medical officer in East Africa in what was then the British colony of Tanganika. At that time it was not possible to fly to the country and medical facilities were very limited. He had few nurses to assist him and often had to administer his own anaesthetics during operations. Unfamiliar with the tropical diseases he encountered, he would often have to read up about an unknown procedure the night before the operation. Further difficulties ensued as the result of patients leaving it far too late before they sought medical help. After independence in 1961, Norman stayed in the country (now Tanzania) teaching medical staff and helping to set up medical services. He travelled widely including working in Dar es Salam and Arusha. Once he accompanied the new president, Julius Nyerere, as his personal physician on a cross country tour, an action that could have been hazardous if the president had had a medical emergency. Returning to the UK in 1967, he worked as a locum in various hospitals including Addenbrookes. Finally he became a consultant surgeon at the East Riding General Hospital in Driffield and the Lloyd Hospital in Bridlington, retiring in 1984. He then moved from Driffield and settled in Baildon, West Yorkshire. He had met his wife, Elizabeth, at St James’s Hospital in Leeds where she was working as a physiotherapist and they married in 1954. When he died from pneumonia in Bradford Royal Infirmary, he was survived by his wife; four children; seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He died on 16 April 2016 aged 92.