Bruce Douglas Leckie was born in Australia on 5 June 1927 and qualified MB, BS at Sydney University in 1950. On travelling to the UK, he was living in Bromley when he passed the fellowship of the college in 1956 and the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in the same year. He then worked as a surgical registrar at the Rochford General Hospital in Essex. When he returned to Australia he was appointed assistant thoracic surgeon and eventually consultant at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and then honorary consultant thoracic surgeon to the Balmain and District Hospital also in Sydney. A pioneering heart surgeon, he advanced valve replacement techniques and, with the cardiologist John Uther, he performed the first electrical heart operation in Australia to treat Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome in the mid 1970s. He died on 21 May 2012 and was survived by his wife Doreen, his children Ruth, Anne and John, son-in-law Billie and grandchildren Rebecca, Michael, Sarah, Faith, Robyn and Jane.