Born in Barbados on 21 September 1911, the son of Sir George Laurie Pile CBE, President of the Legislative Council of Barbados, and Emily Elizabeth Lyall, he was educated at Winchester, Caius College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital. After qualifying in 1936 he held house appointments at the Middlesex Hospital including that of surgical registrar. During the war of 1939-45, being precluded by illness from joining the forces, he worked in the Middlesex sector at Harefield Hospital, where he took up thoracic work under Holmes Sellors and Vernon Thompson, and also acted as senior assistant in the thoracic department at the Middlesex Hospital. In 1946 he was appointed surgeon at Harefield Hospital under the London County Council, but in 1947 he moved to Oxford on being appointed thoracic surgeon to the United Oxford Hospitals, the Oxford Regional Hospital Board and to Beneden Chest Hospital. A humorous and kindly man with an enquiring and critical mind, he was also a keen sportsman, interested in cricket, tennis, golf and sailing. He died in the Radcliffe Infirmary on 8 January 1963 survived by his wife, son and daughter.