Samareswar Bhattacharyya, known as ‘Samar’, was a general surgeon for the West Wales Regional Health Authority. He was born in Calcutta, India on 5 August 1919, the son of a radiologist, and studied medicine at the R G Kar Medical College in the city, qualifying in 1945. The same year he went to England on the liner *Mauretania*. He worked at several hospitals in London, including at the Royal Free and as a senior house officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital. He then moved to Exeter, where he was a resident surgical officer at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, and subsequently to Hastings, where he worked as a surgical registrar and then as a locum consultant in general surgery and urology until 1968. In his later years he worked in the west Midlands and then for the West Wales Regional Health Authority. He retired to Hereford, where he enjoyed his love of physics and music. He died on 26 April 2010 at the age of 90 from a stroke and was survived by his wife Sheila, three sons (one a neuroradiologist) and two grandsons.