Peter Smith was born in London on 14 September 1916, the son and grandson of a general practitioner. His father was Dr Frederick William Weekes Smith and his mother, a bank clerk, was Elise Marie, née Schuckmann. He was educated at Epsom College and at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. Qualifying with the London MB in 1939, he joined the RAMC soon after his house jobs. He served with distinction in North Africa and Southern Italy and having been promoted major he was posted to a field ambulance attached to the 1st Parachute Brigade in the Airborne Division. He was dropped at Arnhem in September 1944 where his deeds on those dreadful days earned him a mention in despatches but he was taken prisoner and sent to Stalag 11b in Germany. He returned to St Thomas's in 1947 and became resident assistant surgeon but in 1951 he was appointed consultant surgeon to the District General Hospital in Eastbourne, a post which provided him with a rewarding career for 25 years. On 19 February 1944 he married Ella Isaac, a nurse, by whom he had three children - Jane, a nurse midwife, John, a teacher, and Susan, who became an Anglican priest. Ella died on 25 November 1983, and on 8 August 1986 he married Janet Aldridge, also a nurse. Unhappily she died on 29 September 1990, but the years after his retirement in 1976 were fully occupied with tennis, golf, swimming and prawning, with his collections of butterflies, moths and stamps and of course with bridge. He died on 7 March 1995, survived by his children.