Bernard Crymble was born on 6 May 1928, and after early education was admitted to the University of Durham Medical School, qualifying in 1951. After house appointments at the Royal Victoria Infirmary he joined the RAMC for National Service. After demobilisation he returned to Newcastle as demonstrator in anatomy and senior house officer in general surgery. He passed the FRCS in 1959 and then held a series of registrar posts in general, plastic and neurosurgery before being appointed senior neurosurgical registrar at Newcastle Regional Neurological Centre. He moved to London in 1967 to be senior lecturer in neurosurgery and consultant neurosurgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. Two years later he moved to Sussex as consultant neurosurgeon to the South East and South West Thames Regional Health Authority and additionally was appointed to the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton. He had a special interest in occipital pain following whiplash injuries of the neck and the surgery of lumbar disc lesions, and had a considerable medicolegal practice which he put to good use in retirement when he became deputy coroner for East Sussex in 1988. He was a big man with a calm, unhurried manner that inspired confidence. He loved music, and was a patron of the Brighton Philharmonic Society and a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Society. His first wife Ann, the mother of his two eldest children Gavin and Jane, died of breast cancer when relatively young. His second wife Pat died of Alzheimer's disease, and he married thirdly Elaine, by whom he had two sons, Charles and James. He died unexpectedly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm on 17 June 1992, survived by his wife and four children.