Alexander James Spence was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Fife, Scotland. He was born in Aberdeen on 23 March 1921. His father, also Alexander James Spence, was head of telegraphs at the GPO (General Post Office) in Aberdeen and part owner with his brothers (all North Sea fishermen) of a fleet of coal-powered steam trawlers. His mother, Florence Spence née Ballard, was a housewife. His love of the sea began at the age of five when he was taken out on fishing trips with his uncles for his holidays on board the trawlers to Iceland and Norway. He attended school at Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, and was accepted into the medical faculty at the University of Aberdeen, where he graduated MB ChB in 1943. He was the first member of his family to attend university. During his time at university, he paid his way as a taxi driver and a telephone switchboard operator and represented the university at water polo. Within a few months of graduation, he joined the Royal Navy as a lieutenant surgeon and served on *HMS Deveron* (K265), an anti-submarine frigate, until 1946. The ship escorted convoys in the North Atlantic, calling in at Liverpool, where he met his future wife, Audrey (née Porter), who was serving in the Wrens. The ship then saw service in the Indian Ocean, where he remained until the end of the war, returning and serving in the Clyde until demobilisation. He was keen to become a surgeon and worked as an anatomy demonstrator under Robert Douglas Lockhart, who encouraged his training as a general surgeon before switching to his love of the restorative techniques of orthopedics, particularly managing the deformities of polio and tuberculosis. After gaining his FRCS in 1950, he became resident surgical officer at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital, Stanmore, and also travelled to work with John Charnley to learn to perform the first total hip replacements. He was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 1961, becoming the senior trauma surgeon for Fife. He worked there until his retirement. His papers included work on osteoid osteoma, congenital vertical talus, intertrochanteric osteotomy and finger amputations. He was awarded the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh without examination in 1964 for his services to orthopaedics. He was an honorary senior lecturer in anatomy at the University of St Andrews and, in addition, had a healthy private practice. He was a member of the Scottish Committee for Hospital Medical Services and of the Central Committee for Hospital Medical Services. After retirement from the NHS, he was invited by former trainees to develop an orthopaedic training program in Abha, Saudi Arabia, as an associate professor in orthopaedics and then as chief of orthopaedics at the King Khalid Hospital in Jeddah for the next five years. He was never happier than when sailing his yacht (which in many places sported repairs involving high-quality plates and screws of stainless steel and later titanium). Indeed, in the days before pagers and mobile phones, his wife would be required to run up a flag depicting two crossed femurs with a saw to call him back to the house and telephone! He bitterly regretted having to give up sailing at the age of 96. He died peacefully, still living independently in his own home on 31 October 2023, at the age of 102. His wife, Audrey, to whom he was married for 62 years, passed away a decade before. He had two sons, Andrew Gordon Spence (director of intensive care, Bermuda) and Michael Gordon Spence (a markets analyst), who sadly predeceased him by one year, and four grandchildren.