Brian Anthony Nicholls was born in Worcester on 3 September 1941. He was educated at King's School Worcester, where he played rugby and rowed for the school. He attended Birmingham Medical School, graduating in 1965. He took the FRCS Ed in 1972 and the FRCS of England the following year. His initial surgical training was at Selly Oak Hospital and the United Birmingham Hospitals. During a period at Wolverhampton Royal Infirmary he developed an interest in orthopaedic surgery and joined the higher training programme in orthopaedics at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Birmingham, in 1973. In 1975 he was promoted to senior registrar. At the time of his death he was working at the Christian Medical College and Brown Memorial Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, having been granted a year's absence to work as a lecturer in orthopaedics. He was a sound and able surgeon whose progress was assured. He was willing to help his colleagues on every occasion and nothing for him seemed too much trouble. It was natural that he should commit himself to service in a missionary hospital overseas. During his time in India he made a deep impression with the high standard of his work. He became especially interested in agricultural injuries occurring in the Punjab and gave a paper on this subject to a conference at the Punjab Agricultural University. In 1966 he married Agnes Mary Hinshilwood Watt MB ChB Birmingham DA, who had been in the same year in medicine at Birmingham and is an anaesthetist. They had two girls and one boy. He died on 7 May 1977, suddenly, of a dissecting aneurysm.