Alan Nicholson was born in Belfast on 3 November 1908 and educated at Altrincham County High School and Victoria University, Manchester. He qualified MB ChB in 1932 and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1941 to 1946 in the Middle East and India, becoming a lieutenant colonel. After demobilisation he became consultant surgeon to the Withington Hospital from 1947 to 1973 and to the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute from 1948 to 1973. He was also an honorary clinical lecturer to the University of Manchester from 1948 to 1973. Although he professed to be a general surgeon, his abdominal surgery, particularly of the biliary tract and colon, was widely recognised as excellent. His association with the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute led to his major contribution to parotid gland surgery. At a time when the histological classification was still confused he questioned the use of routine adjuvant radiation in all cases and proceeded to show how, with meticulous techniques, the tumours could be removed by local extracapsular dissection with a minimal risk of complications or recurrence. In his active years he assembled the largest clinicopathological series of tumours of the salivary gland in Britain. Even after retiring he travelled widely to visit patients in their homes to update his unique records. Alan Nicholson was a modest man; like many perfectionists he wrote little. He was an excellent clinical teacher and willingly shared his experience, particularly of successful surgery for most benign parotid tumours, with those who worked with him or visited him. As a young man he was a keen golfer, but in later years he occupied his time with sedentary occupations; he was an avid reader. In 1941 he married Olive, who became a consultant anaesthetist. She died three months after him. He died on 28 June 1993. They were survived by two daughters, Judith and Isobel, and their son, Robert, a consultant surgeon in Blackburn.