David Ivor Bowen was a consultant ophthalmologist in Harrogate, Yorkshire. He was born on 7 March 1937 and studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He went on to St Thomas’ Hospital for his clinical training. After junior posts, he travelled around the world as a ship’s doctor, before deciding to specialise in ophthalmology. He was a senior registrar on the Cardiff/Swansea rotation, before becoming a lecturer at St Paul’s Eye Hospital in Liverpool. In 1972 he was appointed as a consultant in Harrogate. He was secretary and president of the North of England Ophthalmological Society and president of the Harrogate Medical Society. He was a keen distance runner and enjoyed golf, fell-walking, classical music and poetry. His second wife, Clare, died soon after he retired in 2001. He died from cancer on 5 February 2007. Enid Taylor