Christopher George Attenborough was born on 25 June 1922 at Farnborough, Hampshire, the son of Wilfred G Attenborough, a medical practitioner. He was educated at Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge, and then went to King's College Hospital where he qualified in 1944. Following war service in the Royal Navy, chiefly in the Far East, he returned to King's College Hospital to continue his surgical training under Sir Cecil Wakeley. He became interested in orthopaedic surgery and in 1952 he became first assistant to the orthopaedic and accident department at the London Hospital under Sir Reginald Watson-Jones and Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke. In 1953 he published an important article on the remodelling of the humerus after supracondylar fractures in children. In 1956 he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Bromley Group of Hospitals, building up a department and large practice. He had sessions at Sydenham Children's Hospital, where he developed a special interest in handicapped children, including the victims of thalidomide. In 1966 he described his operation for congenital club foot, a landmark in treatment. About 1967, inspired by seeing his wife put up some net curtain springs, he adapted the springs in stainless steel for use in lumbosacral fusion and for fixing other conditions such as the fractured olecranon. Christopher Attenborough moved to Hastings in 1970 where his friend M B Devas had established an orthopaedic workshop and continued his research into joint replacement of the knee and elbow joints, in addition to its application to the fingers, wrist and ankle. His professional life was directed to the treatment of congenital deformities, cerebral palsy and, particularly in his last few years, to the surgery of arthritis. In 1975 he was appointed a Hunterian Professor. He was a surgeon of great dexterity and skill and a man of integrity, who inspired his colleagues and staff. His standards were high and he insisted that his juniors observe them. Christopher Attenborough's other great interests were his family and home. He married Sheila M Foulds, a nurse, in 1948 and they had one son. He loved the Sussex countryside where he and his wife established a beautiful home and in its seclusion he worked hard on perfecting his joint replacements. He was much loved by his neighbours, and was captain of the bell-ringers in his village church, where he took a great interest in parish activities. His depth of character was revealed when during an address at a prize-giving he talked to nurses about faith, a quality he showed throughout his long illness which began in 1977, never complaining or giving way to self-pity. He was a man of immense courage, who accepted the inevitable with complete serenity and the faith and courage of his wife Sheila matched his own. Christopher Attenborough died on 13 June 1979 aged 56 years.