Born in Rio de Janeiro on 12 May 1911 the son of missionaries, Charles Sergel was educated at Monkton Coombe School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he gained a rowing blue and became President of the University Boat Club and rowed in the Olympics of 1932. He did his clinical training at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington in 1937. After residency positions he sailed for Uganda as a missionary but when war came he joined the East African Medical Corps, eventually reaching the rank of Major. After the war he returned to Mengo Hospital, Kampala, where he continued to work until he left Africa in 1952. A deeply convinced Christian he participated with Africans in worship in village churches throughout Uganda as an 'ambassador for Christ' (his favourite phrase). He married Betty Stileman in 1947 and had two daughters. After his return he took the FRCS in 1953 and went into practice at Great Shelford, combining practice with sailing and coaching the Clare rowing eights. He retired in 1976 to Milford-on-Sea to be near his boat and had been out for a sail on the morning of his death from a sudden heart attack on 21 May 1980. He was survived by his wife and their two daughters who are both trained nurses, the elder also having a social sciences degree.