Alan John Walker was a consultant surgeon in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada. Born in Putney, London on 13 June 1918 he was the son of Arthur George Walker, a dairyman, and his wife Meliora Amelia née Segar, who was a florist. The second of their three children, he was the only son. Initially educated at Wington School in Putney, he then attended Epsom College as an entrance scholar and Ann Hood exhibitioner. He studied at London University and at St Bartholomew’s Hospital with an Epsom entrance scholarship. At Barts, as a registrar in the surgical professorial unit, he was mentored by Sir James Patterson Ross and Clifford Naunton Morgan. He then moved to Leeds General Infirmary as a senior registrar and worked with George Armitage. During the second world war he served in the RAMC from September 1941 to March 1946 and passed the College fellowship that year. In 1951 he took the post of chief of surgery at the Drumheller General Hospital in Alberta, Canada and remained there throughout his career. He was director of the Alberta Medical Association from 1967, chairman of the AMA Committee on Cancer from 1971, member of the General Council of the Canadian Medical Association from 1972 and sat on the Drumheller School Board from 1958 to 1968. He enjoyed attending the rotary and Masonic events and was a past president of the Alberta Music Festival Association. He married Lorna Garven Jack in 1941, she came from a medical family as her father, two brothers and an uncle were all physicians. He died on 10 January 2003 aged 84.