James Muir Mumford, known as ‘Jim’, was professor of operative dental surgery at the University of Liverpool. His career was not only very distinguished but very nearly didn’t happen. He was born on 10 March 1923, the son of James Montgomery Mumford and Elizabeth Mumford née Muir. During the Second World War he lived with his parents and two sisters at 37 Bianca Street in the Bootle area of Liverpool, just a few hundred yards away from the Liverpool docks and large railway sidings. The house next door received a direct hit, which destroyed both it and the Mumford residence. His father, two sisters and a friend who had been staying overnight were all killed outright. Jim and his mother were buried in the rubble but were rescued and survived; they lived at his mother’s cousin’s house for the rest of the war. After this personal trauma, he was persuaded to enrol at the Liverpool Dental School and was accepted, remaining there for the rest of his career except for a short spell as a surgeon lieutenant in the Royal Navy and a year out in Michigan, USA, where he gained the degree of master of science in conservative dentistry. He passed his FDSRCS examination in December 1950 and it was awarded in 1951. While he spent the majority of his career in conservative dentistry in Liverpool from 1949, his interests ranged much further than teaching clinical techniques. His research into facial pain led him into collaboration with the neurology department at Walton Hospital and the Pain Relief Foundation, of which he was the only dentally qualified member and undertook the responsibility of being chairman of the scientific committee. He lectured internationally on his research interests. He was a member of several professional bodies, including being a past president of the British Endodontic Society (from 1970 to 1971) and serving in the International Association for the Study of Pain. I still have my 1973 first edition textbook copy of *Toothache and related pain* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone) by J M Mumford, published in the year I entered Liverpool Dental School. This work on facial pain was the definitive work on the subject at that time and was translated into several languages. Jim set very high standards and did not suffer fools gladly. For me he was one of those lecturers that you pretended not to notice when you wanted a clinical procedure stage checked and signed off. Appearing ‘busy’ until a more ‘user friendly’ clinician becomes available is, I suspect, a scenario familiar to generations of clinical students. I did, however, see another side to him during a final practical exam of a student two years ahead of me. I was the examination patient and had a badly decayed tooth as the result of a misspent youth due to a lamentable lack of preventive advice, i.e. ignorance. The pulp was cariously exposed as opposed to iatrogenically exposed (I hope) by the very nervous final year student during the operation. A decision was made by the student and Jim to extract the offending tooth. The student was shaking as it was a final exam, and I was shaking as my only previous extractions had been performed under a general anaesthetic by my general dental practitioner in the front room of his house. Jim could clearly see everyone was stressed and held my hand and supported my head and was very reassuring and kind. The fact that both trainee surgeon and patient were shaking maybe facilitated the whole removal process! Jim also served as a senior tutor dealing with the pastoral welfare of students. Jim’s interests were eclectic, and his standards were high in everything he did. He was a member of the staff golf team and was a regular feature in the staff versus student golf matches. Living ‘around the corner’ from Warrington Golf Club may not have been a coincidence. Jim met his wife Enid McFarland via a route that may not have been allowed to occur today. A fellow student was treating a patient who made such an impression on him that he engineered it so that he ended up treating her himself and not his colleague! Enid was the patient, and they were married in July 1947. She went on to become professor of organisational behaviour at Manchester Business School. Jim Mumford died on 27 October 2019 at the age of 96. Predeceased by his wife, he was survived by their two children, Colin and Michèle.