Christopher Anders was born in Umtata, Transkei, on 28 December 1927. His mother, Lilian, née Westell, had been a London Hospital sister and was doing missionary work in South Africa. His father, Henry Daniel Anders, was a school inspector. Christopher was at the Dragon School in Oxford and on his summer holidays in South Africa when war broke out. His passage was cancelled and he was educated at the Diocesan College in Cape Town. There he matriculated with first class honours in Latin and physics, before going on to study medicine at the University of Cape Town. His first house job was in the Transkei at Umtata Hospital, where he was expected to do everything, from pulling a tooth to oesophagectomy. After junior posts in Cape Town, he came to London to specialise in surgery and was a registrar at the Hammersmith Hospital under Ian Aird and R H Franklin. He was later surgical first assistant at St George's Hospital under Sir Rodney Smith and Sir Ralph Marnham. He spent a year, from 1964 to 1965, at the Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital, California, doing cancer research under Tom Nelson. He was appointed to St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, in 1966 as a general surgeon, at first particularly dealing with the upper abdomen, but later he took a special interest in the breast, for which he inaugurated a specialised breast disease service. He was a member of the British Association of Surgical Oncologists and a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He travelled widely and was a keen yachtsman. He and his wife were very active in the charitable field, notably in the Hospital League of Friends and the RNLI. He married Patsy Harris, a nurse at the Hammersmith, in 1960. They had three daughters. The eldest predeceased him. Of the surviving daughters, Lizzie is a charity worker, and Kate is a specialist nurse at King's College Hospital. There is one grandson, Joshua. Christopher Anders died from carcinoma of the prostate on 7 June 2002.