Norman Lake was born in Plymouth in July 1888. He had a brilliant undergraduate career in the University of London, taking a BSc degree with honours in anatomy and morphology, and also honours in anatomy and physiology in the second MB, and passing the final MB BS in 1910. Next year he won the gold medal in the MD examination. His clinical studies were undertaken at Charing Cross Hospital, and after house appointments there he became a demonstrator of anatomy at King's College, and took the FRCS in 1913, and the MS in 1914. In the early part of the first world war he worked in a French Hospital, where he undertook successfully the novel method of plating gunshot fractures of the long bones. Later he returned to England to undertake, under the Medical Research Committee, the investigation of the effects of cold upon the body which had a direct bearing upon the problem of trench foot; for this research he was awarded the DSc degree. After the war he was appointed to the surgical staff of Charing Cross Hospital where his outstanding gifts as an operator and a teacher earned him the warm regard of his colleagues and the gratitude of many generations of students. He distinguished himself in the use of spinal anaesthesia, in major gastric surgery, and in the surgery of the sympathetic nervous system. In his younger days he had thought of being an engineer, and his enduring interest in mechanics not only provided him with a fascinating hobby, but also prompted him to make a special study of the mechanisms of the human foot, on which he wrote an excellent book. He also published a textbook of surgical anatomy and physiology. In addition to his appointment to Charing Cross Hospital, Lake served as surgeon to the Queen's Hospital for Children, Hackney, to the Bolingbroke Hospital and to Hendon Hospital. He was always faithful and untiring in fulfilling his hospital duties, but being characteristically shy and retiring he never collected a large private practice. As an individualist he was suspicious of many of the changes caused by the introduction of the National Health Service, especially the notion of working for fixed hours on a sessional basis, and he became Vice-Chairman of the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine. Lake was an Examiner in Surgery for the Universities of London and Manchester, and later served on the Court of Examiners of the College. His own scientific bent sometimes led him to expect a higher standard in basic science than many of the candidates possessed, yet he was not a "hard" examiner. His popularity as a teacher at Charing Cross was demonstrated by the establishment of a Norman Lake Prize, the money for which was subscribed by former students at the time of his retirement in 1953, after serving the Hospital and School for 34 years. His remarkable versatility was shown in his gifts as a pianist and a polished actor. He was always interested in the stage, and it was through the hospital dramatic society that he met his future wife, the daughter of T J Rees of Swansea, who also qualified from Charing Cross. It was a truly happy marriage, they had one child, a daughter, and when Lake died on 5 April 1966 his wife survived him.