Martin Crosfill was a consultant general surgeon at Lewis Hospital in Stornoway, Outer Hebrides and then at West Cornwall Hospital. He was born in Leeds on 8 January 1930. His grandfather, John Crosfill, was a chemist and a leading light in the temperance movement, and his father, also John Crosfill, was a surgeon in the Royal Navy. His mother was Majorie Crosfill née Martin. Martin’s career was mapped out for him at a young age when he was sent to Epsom College, which specialised in producing the next generation of doctors. He passed his first MB at school and then studied at St Bartholomew’s Hospital from 1948, the first year of the NHS. He competed for entry with returning soldiers at the end of the war, who were given priority for training places. After completing house posts at Barts, he took a post as a physiology demonstrator/lecturer before going to Egypt with the RAF to carry out his National Service. On returning to the UK, he ‘re-met’ my mother, Jean (Stewart), who had been a staff nurse on his first ward, and they married in 1960. Martin worked with a variety of surgeons in hospitals in London, Bath, Chertsey and Leeds, among others, before finally applying in 1969 for a post as a consultant surgeon at Lewis Hospital, Stornoway. There was one consultant physician and one consultant surgeon. Between them they had two junior doctors, one senior house officer and one preregistration house officer and served a population of 25,000. Surgery was as general as it gets! My father covered all specialties except neurosurgery and ophthalmic surgery, and he was on call 24 hours every day unless on holiday away from the island. During his time working as an isolated surgeon, he became concerned that he and others in a similar position could become deskilled, so he started the Viking Surgeons Club as a peer support network to meet and help other surgeons in the same position. In 1977, Martin moved to the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, chiefly for a better work-life balance. Here, he had a partner and worked a 1:2 rota instead of 1:1. Both were still general surgeons, but my father developed more of an interest in urology. Outside work, he loved his books, dogs and garden and entertaining (and would have been a great disappointment to his teetotal grandfather). He collected all sorts of things and played tennis into his eighties. He retired in 1990, continuing to live in Penzance until his death on 9 September 2024 at the age of 94.