Kshiti Ranjan De (Kit) was born on 1 March 1930 into a family of eleven children in the Eastern province of India and had to walk five miles to school each day. When India was partitioned in 1947, his family migrated to live in the Eastern Punjab. His father died fairly soon after the migration and his uncle, then in his late 20’s, paid for his education. He graduated MB, BS Calcutta in 1953 and spent five years doing house jobs before travelling to the UK and commencing his surgical and gynaecological training. After a spell as a surgical registrar at Clayton Hospital, Wakefield, he became an assistant in accident surgery to the United Leeds Hospitals. Eventually he commenced working as an assistant to John Goligher, an outstanding coloproctologist, at Leeds General Infirmary. He moved to the General Hospital in Jersey as a registrar, then senior registrar and, in 1982, he was appointed consultant with a special interest in breast and bowel cancer. Simultaneously he also developed a substantial private practice. A keen golfer, he had a holiday home in France bordering the local golf course. He died of a heart attack on 23 September 2020 aged 90.