Colin Alfred Samson was born in London on 23 October 1936, the son of Kenneth and Helen Samson. He trained at St Mary’s Hospital in London and qualified MB, BS London in 1963. After working as a house surgeon at St Mary’s and as an assistant lecturer in physiology at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, he was appointed a surgical registrar at the National Heart Hospital. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1973 and moved to Kimberly in British Columbia, Canada. Eventually he worked as a general surgeon in Vancouver. He died on 20 November 2018 aged 82. His wife Diane survived him along with their three sons, Piers (married to Karen), Sandy (married to Angela) and Ben; and three grandchildren Nathan, Christopher and Valeria. His sister, Marianne Landau also survived him along with her three children Toby, Jeremy and Zoe and their families in London, UK.