Ardeshir Shiavax Khambata (known as 'Eddie') was a consultant ENT surgeon at West Hill and Joyce Green hospitals in Dartford, Kent, and Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, and chief laryngologist to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the English National Opera and the Royal College of Music, London. He was eagerly sought after for an opinion when opera singers had problems. Born in Bombay into a devout Parsee Zoroastrian family, he was educated at the Cathedral Boys' School there (where he sang hymns) and went on to qualify in medicine from Grant Medical College. He moved to London, gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1966 and secured a senior registrar post at the London Hospital. He was subsequently appointed as an ENT consultant in Dartford and Sidcup. His publications included chapters in *Music and the brain: studies in the neurology of music* (William Heinemann Medical Books, 1976), *Scott-Brown's diseases of the ear, nose and throat* (London, Butterworth, 1979) and *The voice* (London, Souvenir, 1983). He was a close friend to several singers, including Rosalind Plowright, Victoria de los Ángeles, Ghena Dimitrova, Carlo Bergonzi, Jamie MacDougall, Bruce Ford, Vladimir Chernov, Felicity Lott and Dame Eva Turner. A *bon viveur*, he was an expert in French cooking, fluent in several European languages and even drew a portrait of his beloved paternal grandmother. In his retirement he returned to his roots in Bombay, but was always to be seen on the European festival circuit each summer. He also indulged his hobby of travelling frequently to the Far East, the temples of which fascinated him. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, to which he ultimately succumbed on 2 June 2015.