Harold Ludman was a highly respected ENT surgeon and neuro-otologist who served as a consultant at King’s College Hospital, London (from 1965 to 1994) and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (from 1967 to 1998). Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, on 23 February 1933, he was the son of Nathan Ludman, a soft furnishing manufacturer, and Fannie Dinah Ludman née Jerome. He attended Bradford Grammar School, where he excelled academically and was awarded a scholarship to study medicine at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and University College Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1957. Attracted by the operating microscope, which was new to ENT, Harold Ludman chose to become an ENT house surgeon to Myles Formby at University College Hospital, followed later by a house surgeon post with William (Bill) Mill at the Royal Marsden Hospital. In 1960 he became an ENT registrar at King’s College Hospital, where he worked for the legendary Terence Cawthorne, who taught him the use of the operating microscope and stapedectomy. Harold assisted him by taking a vein graft in a stapedectomy operation shown on the groundbreaking BBC series *Your life in their hands*. He performed over 2,000 stapedectomies. Harold Ludman’s skills as a reconstructive middle ear surgeon and his expertise in neuro-otology led to his appointments as chairman of the Society of Audiological Technicians (1967 to 1975), the first member with specialised knowledge on the Hearing Aid Council (1969 to 1975) and chairman of the Medical Research Council’s working party on research into clinical and epidemiological aspects of deafness (1973 to 1977), which resulted in the creation of the Medical Research Council’s Institute of Hearing Research in Nottingham. He was president of the section of otology of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1985 to 1986 and in 1987 was awarded the W J Harrison Prize. In 1990 the British Medical Association honoured him with the Walter Jobson Horne Prize. Harold Ludman’s term as chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee of Otolaryngology (from 1988 to 1991) overlapped with his presidency of the British Association of Otolaryngologists (from 1990 to 1993). During this time, he was also a member of the court of examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the new Intercollegiate Board in Otolaryngology. He worked hard and succeeded in preserving the traditional otorhinolaryngology fellowship examination only to find it later swept aside in favour of the intercollegiate examination. His presidency of the British Association of Otolaryngologists came at a time of great change, including the threats of the European directive on junior doctor’s hours, the Calman report (which shortened the overall length of training) and the Tomlinson report on London’s health service, medical education and research (which recommended reducing eight teaching hospitals to four). As all these reports served to destabilise the specialty, Harold Ludman believed that communication was paramount and used the recent adoption of *Clinical Otolaryngology* and the newsletter for this purpose. He was conscious of the formation of subspecialty groups and was keen to give them representation on the Association’s council. Harold published widely, including editing and illustrating *Diseases of the ear* (London, Arnold), originally written by his senior colleague Stuart Mawson, and wrote and illustrated *ABC of ear, nose and throat* (London, British Medical Association, c1981). Apart from his work, Harold was a keen photographer, a member of the Royal Photographic Society, a lover of fast cars and the theatre and a voracious reader. Harold and Lorraine (née Israel) enjoyed 67 years of happy marriage. Lorraine was a research psychologist at the Institute of Child Health, where she subsequently gained her PhD in 1990. Their son, Peter, is a professor of interventional cardiology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and their daughter, Catherine, is now retired from being a consultant radiologist at Nottingham University NHS Trust. Harold and Lorraine had three granddaughters and one grandson. He died on 27 May 2025 at the age of 92.