Henry Le Brun was a general surgeon at Lewisham Hospital. He was born on 28 January 1918 in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, in the heart of the mining country, where his father was a mining engineer. His second name 'Ieuan' (Welsh for 'John') and the fact that his mother's maiden name was Thomas reveals his Welsh ancestry. His maternal grandfather was a GP in Hirwaun, a village near Aberdare in the Rhondda valley. His paternal grandfather was vicar of Alderney, the name Le Brun being not uncommon in the Channel Islands. In due course the family moved to Yorkshire, where no doubt his father's experience in mining had led them. Henry went to school at Barnard Castle, but his schooling was interrupted by a severe ear infection, which led to a number of operations to drain the infection in the mastoid bone at a time before antibiotics were discovered. He was left with a profound facial nerve paralysis on one side of his face, together with hearing loss, a burden he bore with great fortitude throughout his life. Despite this severe disability, he clearly rose above it and in due course went up to Sheffield University to study medicine, qualifying MB ChB in 1942. He remained a benefactor of his former university until the end of his life. Clearly he would have been unfit for military service; he continued his studies during the Second World War and after, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1948. Following registrar appointments at Lincoln and Ashford in Middlesex, and after obtaining his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1952, he went as a senior registrar to St Mary's Hospital. Here he worked with two leading surgeons of that era - Arthur Dickson Wright and Sir Arthur Porritt. He published in the *British Journal of Surgery*, although he did not write widely, preferring to teach by example. In 1959 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Lewisham and Greenwich hospitals, and in later years his work moved entirely to Lewisham. At Lewisham Hospital Henry quickly established a rewarding relationship with J S Staffurth, who was in charge of endocrinology there. These two clinicians had a common interest in the management of thyroid disease and more often than not on a Saturday morning Henry would carry out a partial thyroidectomy. He and Staffurth were part of a small group of clinicians who helped transform the hospital from a former London County Council institution towards the modern era. Over the years Henry, as chairman of the hospital management committee, became a leading figure in developing the link with Guy's Hospital, which led to the introduction of undergraduate teaching at Lewisham. He was assisted in this by a close personal connection with Guy Blackburn at Guy's, and in 1974 was appointed RCS surgical tutor at Lewisham. To assist Henry at a thyroid operation, or indeed any other procedure, was an experience that filled his registrars with admiration. It would not be inappropriate to compare his work to that of a great artist of the past addressing a canvas. Few surgeons reveal the delicacy of touch, the sense of spatial awareness and the knowledge of surgical anatomy which he displayed as he went about his work. He was truly a master craftsman. Henry loved music and opera, and his Bechstein grand piano was a source of great joy to him. He studied Italian to further his enjoyment of opera and later developed an interest in French literature. When he retired and he and his wife moved to Seaford in Sussex he took up cooking with the help of the Cordon Bleu Cookery School, becoming an accomplished chef. Many memorable dinner parties followed at their home. Henry, in the words of his former colleague J S Staffurth in a letter to his widow, was 'a modest and shy man'. Those of us who had the privilege of working with him at a stage of our careers when our early skills were being refined owe him an immense debt of gratitude. Henry did not suffer fools gladly and, like many, could be exasperating at times, but those of us who developed long and lasting friendships with him over the years will remember him as a kind and generous man, who overcame adversity against great odds to become a master surgeon of a type too rarely seen today. Henry Le Brun died peacefully on 6 October 2013 in Eastbourne District Hospital, where he had been admitted from his home after a fall. He was 95. He was survived by his wife, Jennifer.