John Sinclair Calder, a trainee plastic surgeon, died tragically in a road accident at the early age of 36 years. He was born into a Leicestershire farming family in 1960. He was educated at Robert Smyth School, Market Harborough, before proceeding to the Royal London Hospital. He qualified in 1985. Calder then went to Mount Vernon Hospital, to learn specialist plastic and reconstructive surgery, after which he became a research fellow at East Grinstead. There he initiated studies of synthetic and autografted materials for gaps in peripheral nerves. Within a year of commencing this innovative work, his first wife, Kim, by whom he had two daughters, Tara and Cassie, died of an overwhelming infection in her third pregnancy. John Calder cared for and nurtured his two young children and continued his academic work, until he married again in 1995. His second wife, Karen, herself widowed after a car accident, had two children by her first marriage, Lily and Mark. They had a son, William, towards the end of 1995. His sudden death occurred within two weeks of being appointed into higher surgical training in his chosen career at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge. Indeed his research work was being submitted for a doctorate in medicine. Always imaginative and with an abundance of strongly expressed and often rebellious ideas, he had earned sufficient respect to be appointed to the editorial board of *Microsurgery*. He died on 4 February 1997.