Allan Clain was a consultant general surgeon at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham. The son of Louis Clain, an accountant, and Lily Clain née Rose, a housewife, he was born on 21 March 1922 at Muizenberg, a seaside town near Cape Town, South Africa. He qualified in medicine in 1944 from Cape Town University. He moved to England and became a senior registrar at the Metropolitan Hospital in East London and then at the Royal Cancer Hospital, where he came under the influence of Hamilton Bailey and R J McNeil Love (of textbook fame). At this time, he played for Wasps Rugby Football Club, then based in Sudbury, and cricket for South Hampstead Cricket Club. In 1962, he was appointed as a consultant at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham. As usual for his generation, his repertoire was wide, including all of general surgery and urology plus the management of fractures but, as the consultant staff expanded under the leadership of his colleague and the RCS vice president Peter Bevan, he was mainly engaged in colorectal and anal surgery, particularly for cancers, while by no means forsaking general surgery. A particular interest was in the repair of abdominal incisional hernias using stainless steel wire, a material difficult to handle but possessing most of the characteristics of an ideal suture material, later supplanted by improved synthetic materials. He was also a pioneer of day-case surgery, converting a ward for the purpose in the 1970's before the concept became fashionable. He served as a college tutor and was a senior clinical lecturer in the University of Birmingham. In 1971 he established and ran single-handed until his retirement in 1987 the two-week Birmingham FRCS course. Using his personal charm and prestige, he persuaded consultant colleagues from all the Birmingham hospitals and surgical specialties and various national figures to join the faculty, with lectures in the mornings and clinical sessions in the afternoons for up to 32 examination candidates. His acquaintance with Hamilton Bailey, who had worked at Dudley Road in the 1930's, led to him becoming editor from 1954 to 1986 of five editions of the eponymous *Demonstrations of physical signs in clinical surgery* (Bristol, John Wright & Sons). He wrote his own book *Self assessment questions and answers in clinical surgery* (Bristol, J Wright), which went to two editions in 1980 and 1986, as well as more than 20 original articles on surgical subjects and contributions to textbooks. Clain was a kind, honest and plain-speaking man, very fair and generous to junior colleagues. He was popular with his trainees and was regularly mimicked in a kindly manner in the hospital Christmas Show. He was a devoted family man, his wife June (née Akister) being a medical artist. They had two daughters, Louise and Fiona, one of whom became a teacher in computer science and the other a management accountant. At the age of 53 he was proud of making a century for the Birmingham doctors against the clergy at the Edgbaston test match cricket ground. When first in the West Midlands he had played at the highest level of club cricket. He retired on his 65th birthday in 1987 and, moving away from Birmingham, became for 10 years medical officer for Wasps at the time of transition to a professional sport. He also became an umpire for the local club cricket circuit. He died on 23 June 2018 at the age of 96.