Alexander Ironside Littlejohn Macdiarmid was a general surgeon at the Cook Hospital, Gisborne, New Zealand. Born on 25 January 1911 in Hawara he was the son of James Breadalbane Macdiarmid, also a surgeon and a fellow of the Edinburgh college. He was educated at King’s College in Auckland and then attended Otago Medical School qualifying MB ChB in 1936. During the second world war he was attached to the emergency medical service in the UK from 1940 to 1942, working at the old Hollymoor Hospital in Birmingham. After various other war duties he returned to New Zealand and became a consultant at the Cook Hospital. He had two daughters and two sons, one of whom studied medicine. Outside medicine he enjoyed playing golf, gardening and fishing. He died on 12 March 1986, aged 75.