Gaston Arthurs was a consultant neurosurgeon and general surgeon who worked in Australia and Zambia. He was born on 10 March 1917 in Fulham, the son of an Italian father, Guiseppe Nunzio Artuso (the family name was anglicised to Arthurs in 1926) and a mother with a French background, Lilian Blanch Baker. His father was a rubber engineer; a researcher and pioneer who developed ebonite. The young Gaston was fluent in Italian. He attended Brentwood School as a boarder from 1926-1934, excelled in gymnastics and mathematics and played the violin, continuing with a local orchestra. He was awarded the Brentwood School Leaving Scholarship and the Essex County Exhibition. He studied medicine at London University and worked at the Royal National Ear Nose and Throat Hospital. During the second world war he served in the navy, firstly on the cruiser HMS Caradoc for three years from 1940 and then on a submarine depot ship based in Ceylon. After this he served for a month at sea in submarines and later in a "small ship". Honourably discharged in 1945 he returned to England to complete his surgical training, passed his FRCS in 1950 and continued his neurosurgical training in England and Wales. Returning to Australia in 1953 he took up specialist posts at the Sydney Hospital (1953-1971) and St George Hospital (1959-1976). He lectured at the University of New South Wales in Sydney (1960-1965) and at the University of Sydney (1971-1975). He decided to study for his B Ed "in order to become a more effective teacher" and enrolled at the University of New England in Armidale NSW at the same time as his daughter, Patricia, began university. He retired from St George Hospital at the age of 60 and moved to Zambia where he worked as a general surgeon at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka (observing that there was very little elective neurosurgery during a time of great unrest) and lectured in anatomy and surgery at the University. Due to his wife's ill health, they returned to Australia in 1979/80 and he assisted in various branches of surgery at Darwin Hospital in the Northern Territory for seven years before returning to Sylvania, New South Wales to teach at the University of Sydney. During his time in London, Gaston married Mary Breda Roche (always known as "Maureen") on 6 July 1940 at Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church in Stepney. They had three children Paul, Ann and Patricia. Maureen predeceased him and he married Violet becoming stepfather to her sons, Simon and Mathew. He died on 8 June 2010 aged 93, survived by Violet, his children and stepchildren, seven grandchildren and a great grandson.