Kodituwakku Gnanapala Jayasekera was a distinguished surgeon in Sri Lanka and Australia. He was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). He travelled to the UK, where he became a Fellow of the College in 1948. Soon after, he returned to Sri Lanka. In 1954 he was appointed as honorary surgeon to the Queen, during Her Majesty’s visit to the country on her coronation tour. In 1970, alarmed by the prospect of political violence in Sri Lanka, he emigrated to Australia with his family, with the help of his good friend Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop. At the time of his departure he was the senior consultant surgeon at the General Hospital, Colombo, and President-elect of the Sri Lanka Society of Surgeons. In Australia he practised general surgery in Melbourne for a further 20 years. When he finally retired from surgery, he continued to practise general medicine until his death on 26 September 2001.