Douglas Bennett was born on 18 July 1918, the son of Geoffrey Bennett, an officer in the North Somerset Yeomanry who subsequently took to ranching in Argentina and his wife Elizabeth Elsa Müller, who was Swiss. He was educated at Minehead Grammar School and at University College Hospital in London, where he qualified in 1942. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps very soon afterwards and served in South Africa, India, Burma and Singapore, where he was one of the first to enter the Changi gaol prisoner of war camp. He returned to University College Hospital for two years and then went as registrar to Mr Robert Cook in Bristol, where he worked until 1951. Having by then married Marjorie Dunster FRCS, a gynaecologist, he spent a year with her in the USA. On return she was appointed as a consultant in Bristol and he determined, with his DRCOG and FRCS behind him, to enter general practice in Keynsham. It was to provide him with a most satisfying career. With beds in the Keynsham Hospital he was able to practise midwifery, with a clinical assistantship at the Bristol Royal Infirmary he kept in touch with the consultants, with a cottage in Porlock he was able to follow the stag hounds and was a familiar figure at shoots and point-to-points. He was an accomplished artist, and produced some beautiful pictures of the scenery he loved so much. He retired from practice in 1985 to continue his country pursuits but died on 21 May 1992. He was survived by his wife and their daughter Sally, a solicitor in Bristol. He was a devoted husband and father and his widow remarked that he was 'a wonderful man who led a very full, balanced and happy life'.