Julian Neely was a consultant surgeon in north Sussex, working at Crawley Hospital, Horsham Hospital and the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. His father, Geoffrey Cavendish Neely, was of Irish descent. He was a saxophonist who ran a dance band in London. His mother, Dorothy Isobel Bruce née Alexander, was Scottish. She appeared in several West End musicals, counting the acclaimed actress Dame Cicely Courtneidge among her friends. She was an accomplished seamstress, and subsequently became a fashion buyer for Harrods. For most of the war Julian was an evacuee and moved with his prep school to Herefordshire. He later went to Fettes College in Edinburgh, where he enjoyed outdoor pursuits as well as academic life, and spent his last school summer holiday in Iceland on a surveying expedition with the British Schools Exploring Society. He gained a place at St Bartholomew's Medical School and had to find work in order to support himself. On falling asleep during a tutorial, he admitted he was currently employed as a night watchman. Barts came up with a bursary to help him through, and he was forever grateful. As a student, he played rugby for Barts Hospital and went on several tours with the team. He was determined to be a surgeon and duly gained the FRCS. He completed much of his training at St Bartholomew's, working for Sir James Paterson Ross, Eddie Tuckwell, Martin Birnstingl and Percy Jayes, also spending a year each in the burns and trauma units at Birmingham Accident Hospital, and acquired the full range of skills necessary to be a good all round general surgeon. He was a research fellow on the surgical professorial unit at Barts, where he studied aspects of gastrointestinal motility, and was awarded his MS. Whilst a senior registrar, he spent a year abroad, and took a job as a senior surgical specialist to the Libyan government in Tripoli, where the surgical services needed some modernisation. He was faced with conversing in Italian with the resident head surgeon, who had been with Rommel's army during the war, and in Arabic with the patients. Undaunted, he enjoyed the challenge until he was forced to leave when a military coup deposed King Idris. The remainder of his time was spent as a medical officer at an oil field in Iraq. In 1971 he became a consultant to Crawley and Horsham hospitals, and additionally in 1977 to the Queen Victoria Hospital. He was an RCS surgical tutor and was very keen on this aspect of his work. Crawley was a new hospital and junior surgical posts were much sought after by students from Barts, who enjoyed being taught by young, cheerful surgeons. He had written several papers on gastrointestinal motility and one on the management of gangrenous sigmoid volvulus and then turned his attention to peritoneal granulomas, which he believed were caused by the starch on surgical gloves. He wrote two papers detailing his findings, which sparked some debate. He was also carrying out research into various markers of breast cancer, in association with the Royal Marsden and the Marie Curie Foundation, with the help of a research registrar. He set himself high standards and expected the same in others, but always worked with courtesy and understanding, and cared for all his patients. He had a ready wit and sense of humour, and got on well with his colleagues. He was always ready to help, remaining calm in a crisis. His first marriage to Sarah Howard-Jones ended in divorce, and in 1974 he married Sally Arnold, a doctor. He had four children, Kevin, Sean, Stephanie and Catriona, none of whom took up medicine, however he retained the hope that in the future one of his grandchildren might. Away from work, he spent most holidays afloat; on his own boat in France and sometimes as a doctor on a small cruise ship. After retirement, he and Sally took on the family farm and he enthusiastically enrolled in several courses at the local agricultural college. He maintained a strong interest in medicine and was involved in efforts to secure government funding for a new local district general hospital, but sadly this was not successful. Latterly he immersed himself in philosophy. He died on 9 June 2016, aged 82.