On 27 May 2008 family, friends and former colleagues gathered at St Margaret’s Church, Hapton, Norfolk to say farewell to Geoffrey Cheney. Geoffrey was born in Hampshire in 1935, the youngest of five children. After leaving school he undertook his National Service in the Royal Navy. He then became a Midshipman and was seconded to HMS Ocean. Geoffrey was an officer on one of the support landing craft and amongst his many assignments was to go to the Woomera Rocket Range. He also witnessed the explosion of the American hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll. He retained his interest in the Navy with involvement in the Royal Naval Reserve and was awarded the Reserve Decoration. In 1957 he entered Guy’s Hospital Dental School. He qualified in 1962 and after a hospital post and a spell in general dental practice, he returned to Guy's in 1965 to study Medicine. He obtained his Dental Fellowship in 1967 and qualified medically in 1970. He was a Registrar at the Eastman Dental Hospital and later Senior Registrar on the East Grinstead/Guy’s rotation. In 1974 he was appointed Consultant Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was a most caring, conscientious and highly respected surgeon, who enjoyed a warm relationship with his colleagues. His most celebrated case, which was reported nationally, was the removal of a bullet that had become lodged behind the eye of Tenneh Cole, a little girl from Sierra Leone. Tenneh is now 19 years old, alive and well. Geoffrey was Dental Tutor at Norwich for a number of years. He organised such excellent courses that practitioners travelled from far and wide to attend. In 1993 he was appointed Director of Postgraduate Dental Education in East Anglia, a post he held until retirement in December 2000. Geoffrey was a great raconteur and loved entertaining. He enjoyed cooking and was very knowledgeable about wine. More recently he had taken up painting as a hobby. Sadly, his wife Susie predeceased him. He leaves two step-children, Kate and Jeremy, of whom he was very proud, and four step-grandchildren. I should like to thank Mr G Pell for allowing me to use extracts from his funeral address.