Derek Gordon Lambley was born on 8 May 1918 and was educated at Parmiter's School in Bethnal Green and University College, London, where he took a first-class BSc in anatomy. He continued clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital and won the Brackenbury Scholarship in medicine, graduating in 1942. He was rejected for military service on health grounds and held resident appointments at St Bart's and the Royal Northern Hospital before becoming resident surgical officer at the Miller General Hospital where he was much influenced by the late Cecil Joll. After passing the Final FRCS in 1945 he became resident surgical officer at Northampton General Hospital in 1946 and was elected honorary assistant surgeon there in the following year, to become consultant surgeon on the inception of the National Health Service. Despite ill-health in his youth and later severe cardiac disease he gave more than 25 years of hard service to his hospital. His clinics were exceedingly crowded as he had no waiting list for appointments, and his theatre lists were long and busy. He was a keen traveller, a frequent visitor to the USA, and was elected FACS in 1964. He was Chairman of the Northamptonshire branch of the BMA in 1970 and President of the Northampton Medical Society in 1976. Serving on the hospital management committee in his later years, he was active in the early planning of a new district hospital. He was a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, a member of sundry other surgical societies, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. Despite having had severe osteomyelitis at the age of 13, when he spent more than a year in hospital, and early discouragement of athletic activities, he was able to play tennis and cricket. However, he had a passion for mountaineering and did much climbing in the Swiss and Austrian Alps as well as the Dolomites. He was a member of the Alpine Club and also the Swiss Alpine Club of which he was President of the British section 1972-74. He also had an abiding interest in his old school, serving on the board of governors for many years and as its chairman from 1974 until his death. During that period he played a leading part in getting the school moved from Bethnal Green to Garston, Hertfordshire. Derek Lambley survived three cardiac arrests within two years, all taking place in hospital, on the third occasion in the operating theatre. Forced by ill-health to retire from the NHS in 1974 he later had cardiac surgery with such improvement that he was able to undertake temporary appointments in Iraq, Iran, Norway, Canada, Australia and the UK. When he died suddenly on 13 December 1982 he was survived by his wife and three sons, one of whom is a general practitioner at Milton Keynes.