Nigel Carter was born on 3 December 1950. Qualifying from King’s in 1973, he began working in general dental practice in Edenbridge in Kent. He then returned to a hospital career with house jobs at The Royal, Guy’s, East Grinstead, St George’s and Sheffield Dental Hospital. Nigel studied orthodontics at the Eastman and took up a consultant post at Newcastle Dental Hospital in 1988. He was also an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle, a role he took seriously, publishing books and papers. Significantly, Nigel was the training programme director for the orthodontic programme. This programme has produced the majority of orthodontic consultants and specialists from North Yorkshire across to the Lakes, up to the Scottish Border and beyond. Many thousands of patients are therefore benefiting from Nigel's teaching. As an NHS consultant Nigel was a clinician and a team member first, a man who encouraged quiet progress rather than brash, fast achievement. As Senior Consultant he gathered his colleagues willingly around him. This manner made him a diplomat, bringing calm to the committees he sat on – and they were many – notably the British Dental Association Council and Council at the British Orthodontic Society, where he was secretary for the Consultant Orthodontists Group from 1999 until ill health forced him to resign in 2004. Nigel was a born orthodontist: fastidious and a lover of order. When Nigel knew he was dying he said that he had achieved all he wanted to achieve, but his thoughts were for those he would leave behind. He leaves, most painfully, his wife Shelagh and 13-year-old son, James, who continue Nigel’s active passion for choral church music, a deep love they shared together. Nigel died at home on 10 June 2005 from cancer of the kidney. He planned his own funeral, choosing the music sung so beautifully by his choir, accompanied by the Hexham Abbey organ that he so enjoyed playing in life. The packed Abbey congregation was bathed in sunlight streaming through the windows on that gloriously hot summer’s day – true to form, Nigel will have organised that too!