John Done was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Preston Hospital. He was born in Urmston, Manchester, on 11 January 1929, where his father, Bertram Done, was a structural engineer. His mother was Annie May née Bateman. He went to Manchester Grammar School with an entrance scholarship and did his medical training at Manchester University Medical School, where he sang in the Hallé Choir. He qualified in 1952 and, after junior posts at Salford Royal Infirmary and Manchester Royal Infirmary, did his National Service in the RAMC, where he served in Lagos for a year. After passing the final FRCS he spent a year as a ship's surgeon on the Bibby Line, sailing to Bombay on one of the first ships to use the Suez Canal after it was reopened. He was a registrar at Salford Royal Infirmary, Preston and Manchester Royal Infirmary, before being appointed a consultant surgeon to Preston in 1966. As an all-round general surgeon, he introduced laparoscopic cholecystectomy to Preston and developed ileo-anal pouch procedures in colorectal surgery. Active in the Association of Surgeons and the International Society of Surgery, he was President of the surgical section of the Manchester Medical Society in 1993 and Chairman of the Preston and Chorley section of the BMA. He was behind the *Lancashire Evening Post* appeal which raised £302,000 to buy the first CT scanner for Preston. He was the College tutor in Preston, regional adviser in surgery since 1985 and the North West organiser of the National Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Deaths (CEPOD). He was a member of the College group that visited India and Pakistan in 1982. He married Bente (Rasmussen), a Danish nurse, in 1962. They had one daughter, Susan, who became a pathologist in Toronto, and a son, Christopher, who became a neuropharmacologist. John was fond of walking in the Lake District and was a member of the Preston Cecilian Choral Society. He died on 25 January 1997, of metastatic adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus.