Ian Cast was a versatile and dedicated neurosurgeon. He was born in Gidea Park, Romford, Essex, the younger son of John David Cast, an executive officer with the Port of London Authority, and Doris Eliza Cast née Bones. Ian was educated at St Mary's High School, Romford, Gidea Park Preparatory School and at Brentwood School, where he joined the 'lower sixth medical' stream, sang in the choir, became an accomplished classical pianist, represented his school at athletics, rose to the rank of company sergeant major in the Combined Cadet Force, and won a county major scholarship. He went on to satisfy in full Brentwood School's aim that its old boys should 'emerge as intellectually curious, resilient, enterprising and independent lifelong learners'. Ian began his professional training at University College and Medical School, London. It was there that his career in neurosurgery was stimulated and fostered by his admiration of Bernard Harries and Kenneth Till. He won several further scholarships, including the Atkinson Morley, the Marshall and the Waite. After residencies at University College Hospital and in Nottingham, he joined the registrar circuit rotating between the Guy's-Maudsley neurosurgical unit, Denmark Hill and Brook Hospital, Shooter's Hill, London. At the Guy's unit, he absorbed fundamental principles of meticulous history-taking, precise clinical and operative technique, and the then relatively invasive discipline of neuroradiology under the rigorous but friendly tutelage of Murray Falconer, Peter Schurr and Richard Hoare. At Brook Hospital, he relished and learnt much from the very different styles of Geoffrey Knight, John Gibbs and George Northcroft. In 1970, in consequence of the untimely death of Donald Provan from aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, Ian filled an unexpected neurosurgical consultant vacancy at Morriston Hospital, Swansea. He quickly came to appreciate the tradition of superlative quality of ward and theatre nursing at Morriston. His post also entailed regular and busy outpatient clinics in Neath, Bridgend and Aberystwyth. Ian was instrumental in the setting-up in 1975 of one of the first purpose-built and dedicated neurointensive care units in the country, named in memory of Donald Provan who had conceived it several years before his death. With the hospital's League of Friends, he was one of the prime motivators in the construction of the dedicated spina bifida unit that finally opened at Morriston in March 1977. Ian was party to the energetic lobbying in Swansea for both a CT scanner in 1976 and a magnetic resonance scanner in the early 1980's. Himself a sound clinical opinion and excellent operator, Ian was also an effective and very generous trainer of junior staff. His dry and impish sense of humour did not wholly conceal his instinctive dislike and mistrust of medical politics. Ian was a senior member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS), a member of the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida, and a member of the International Medical Society for Paraplegia. To the latter Society, he presented the Swansea experience of lumbar canal stenosis, its treatment and prognosis, at their 1981 Stoke Mandeville meeting. In 1985, he was joint host of the SBNS scientific meeting in Swansea. As well as his whole-time commitment to his NHS duties, Ian attracted a thriving medico-legal involvement in both personal injury and alleged medical negligence litigation. This he continued well into his post-retirement years despite failing health. Ian's leisure interests included DIY and the piano. His collection of single malt whiskies was the envy of his many guests. Another activity that he most enjoyed was his local Probus Club, of which he was president for a year and a continuing member until his death. From 2010 onwards, the insidious progression of a severe form of Parkinson's disease, complicated by a disabling loss of balance and allied to symptoms referable to aortic stenosis, compelled him largely to give up these pursuits. Nevertheless, when the writer spoke to him only a day before his sudden agonal collapse, he found him as alert, articulate and well-informed as ever and to have lost none of his old sense of humour. After a short period of cardiorespiratory support in Hereford County Hospital, Ian Cast died on 8 November 2017. He was 81. By an ironic coincidence, during the same week the bulldozers moved in to demolish all that was left of the original ward 14 in the 'spider' complex, set up under the aegis of the Emergency Medical Services in 1940, that had housed the first neurosurgical department in Wales. In 1965 Ian had married Joy Attfield, a specialist nurse. They had a very close and happy life together. Joy fell victim to spinal lymphoma in her middle years, but survived it resolutely and in effect became her husband's carer towards the end. They had two children, their son, James, is an interventional neuroradiologist in Hull, while their daughter, Sarah, is a food, health and safety adviser to a large restaurant chain. There are one granddaughter, two step-granddaughters and five step-great grandchildren.