Born on 11 March 1934 in London, Colin Maddox was the son of Edmund Theodore Maddox, a solicitor, and Amy Mary Shaw McLaren, the daughter of John McLaren, an Edinburgh surgeon. His paternal grandfather, Ernest Maddox, was an ophthalmic surgeon in Bournemouth. He was educated at Gresham's School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, going on to Guy's for his clinical work. He qualified in 1959. After junior posts, including that of resident surgical officer at St Paul's Hospital, he became senior registrar at Selly Oak Hospital and assistant on the renal transplant unit in Sheffield. He was appointed consultant surgeon at Scunthorpe Hospital in 1972. In 1979, he underwent partial gastrectomy for benign gastric ulcers. This was followed by post-gastrectomy anaemia, which responded well to standard treatment, but the Yorkshire region offered to fund retraining in what was hoped to be a less stressful specialty, so he moved to Leeds to train in radiotherapy at the regional centre in Cookridge. Unfortunately, he failed to pass the FRCR examination and returned to surgery. He did a number of locum jobs in the West of Scotland and in Northamptonshire, which allowed him to develop an interest in breast and colonic cancer. In 1965, he married Carola Heritage, an orthoptist who shared his love of hill walking in Arran and the Lake District. He was a competent squash player and enjoyed sailing on Ullswater with his family. He died from a Pancoast tumour on 5 January 2001.