Helen Noblett, the first female paediatric surgeon in Australia, was a pioneering and innovative surgeon in Melbourne and then in Bristol, UK. She was brought up in Roma, Queensland and made an impression at Roma State School as a sporty, bright and hard-working scholar who won prizes and a scholarship to medical school in Brisbane. She qualified in 1957 and then held junior posts at Brisbane General Hospital. She went on to general surgery training and then paediatric surgery at Brisbane Children’s Hospital. In 1963, she moved to the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne and continued her training as a registrar under F D Stephens, E Durham Smith and others. She was awarded her FRACS in 1964 and rose through the ranks to a senior position in 1972. During her time in Melbourne she pursued research interests in gastrointestinal diseases in parallel with her clinical work, working with Ruth Bishop’s pioneering group, which was the first to describe rotavirus in 1973. She also spent time doing research at Columbus Children’s Hospital in Ohio, USA. It was during this research that she invented a device for sampling ganglion cells in rats, which she later developed into the instrument for use in babies and children, which bears her name to this day. Helen developed her own method for managing babies with oesophageal atresia postoperatively: at the time of repair she fashioned a gastrostomy with a transpyloric feeding tube to enable immediate enteral feeding without the complications of gastro-oesophageal reflux. She continued to use this technique throughout her career. For cases with a long gap she used the reversed gastric tube, though latterly she endorsed jejunal interposition, which was developed in Bristol. In 1969, Helen published two landmark papers, both in regular use worldwide today and associated with the name of Noblett. The first was on a method for the non-operative treatment of meconium ileus by Gastrografin enema (‘Treatment of uncomplicated meconium ileus by Gastrografin enema: a preliminary report’ *J Pediatr Surg*. 1969 Apr;4[2]:190-7). Up to that time, most babies were treated surgically. Helen realised which physical properties of the enema fluid were important. The second paper described the rectal suction biopsy device of her own invention used in the bedside diagnosis of Hirschsprung disease (‘A rectal suction biopsy tube for use in the diagnosis of Hirschsprung's disease’ *J Pediatr Surg*. 1969 Aug;4[4]:406-9). In 1976, she left Melbourne to become the first paediatric surgeon to be appointed at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in Bristol. She had to establish by her expertise and strength of character that she was taking over the care of all children with surgical conditions. Helen was a very strong character and she needed to be resilient. The entrenched views of some senior surgeons and paediatricians in Bristol and the district general hospitals in the south west ran very deep and the task would have been all the more difficult for a woman in the 1970s. However, within a short time she had demonstrated that her outcomes were as good as any centre in the country. She worked single-handed until 1982. It is difficult to understand how one person coped for six years with the workload generated by a population of four million, but she did, and to an extremely high standard. The first attempted operation for oesophageal atresia in the world was carried out in 1888 at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children by Charles Steele. Successful primary repairs were achieved internationally in the 1940s, but in Bristol children were either referred to other centres or treated by colonic interposition by a Bristol adult thoracic surgeon until Helen was appointed and performed the first primary repair of oesophageal atresia in Bristol in 1976. Helen was a scholarly and cerebral surgeon. She published 22 papers on a variety of topics after 1976 and was always innovative and up to date. She served as an examiner for the newly-introduced FRCS (paediatrics). She had little taste for managerial or administrative duties, and concentrated on her patients, who were the driving force behind her extraordinary energy and stamina. Her patients and their families appreciated how fortunate they were to be under her care and spoke of her with affection and respect. Helen had exceptional technical expertise and clinical judgement. She cherished the concept of a strong team and glowed in the company of her favourite colleagues and trainees. She took her responsibility as a trainer very seriously and many distinguished surgeons from a variety of countries regard her as the formative figure in their careers. These connections live on in Bristol with an arrangement for a registrar exchange with Australia. There was a steely side to Helen, which was apparent whenever anything threatened to interfere with patient care. ‘Tough but fair’ was how one trainee described her. Other comments from trainees include ‘a hard taskmaster’, ‘did not take any nonsense’, ‘had no time for sycophants or weaklings’, but all emphasise how supportive she was to those who she assessed as sensible, competent and hard-working, though they could be sharply corrected when necessary. She was free of prejudice and was a shrewd judge of trainees. She was uncompromising: if a trainee did not come up to her high standards, she made sure they went into a different branch of medicine. Away from work, Helen was cultured and sociable, warm and humorous. She could discuss art, literature and music knowledgeably. Mozart was a particular favourite. Her annual Christmas party was eagerly anticipated; the food and drink were lavish, and we gathered round the piano (Helen playing) to sing carols. Her relaxation often centred round her canal narrowboat, *Katkin*, and she had many amusing anecdotes concerning boating mishaps to tell between operations in the theatre coffee room. Helen was proud but reticent about her achievements, not given to self-promotion. Robert Carachi, in his book *A history of surgical paediatrics* (World Scientific Publishing, 2009), makes no mention of Noblett or Bristol in his 14-page chapter on Great Britain, but in the chapter on Australia, E Durham Smith does however give her credit. She was much revered in other countries. In a paper by D K Nakayama from 2020, ‘Vignettes from the history of pediatric surgery’ (*J Pediatr Surg*. 2020 Jan;55S:1-37), which almost entirely concerns USA surgeons, she merits a full section devoted to her achievements. Helen Noblett deserves to be remembered as a great character and a paediatric surgeon of the highest calibre. Her legacies are her innovations in her field, the many departments around the world which she inspired, the large number of children (now all adults) who owe their lives to her exceptional abilities, and the large and thriving department of paediatric surgery in Bristol today. Helen died on 25 December 2020 at the age of 87 and was survived by Maria Spyt, her friend and companion for over 30 years.