Kenneth Chambler was a surgeon in Texas before becoming a general practitioner in East Sussex. He was born in Doncaster on 3 December 1927, the son of Frank Chambler and Mary Chambler née Wilson. His father worked on the railways, as did his maternal grandfather. He attended grammar school and then studied medicine at Edinburgh University. He qualified in 1951 and enrolled in the RAMC, serving in the Middle East and Kenya and reaching the rank of major. He returned to the UK and embarked on his surgical career, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and of England in 1958 and 1959 respectfully. He developed an interest in burns and ventured to America, undertaking research in Galveston, Texas in 1960 into the immunological response in burn patients. He gained his MD in 1961 and established a general surgical practice. In 1967, Kenneth returned to the UK to become the Raynes research fellow at the McIndoe burns unit at East Grinstead. His research culminated in a thesis, ‘The late burn illness’, for his MCh (Edinburgh). He returned to Texas, where he led the English Group Practice in Alvin until 1974. From 1975, in the small town of Tahoka in the north of the state, he worked in a general practice to provide care to the local community, including carrying out surgery at Lynn County Hospital. He retired from surgery in 1977. His interest in medicine continued and, shortly after returning to the UK, he took over a small GP practice in Heathfield, East Sussex. He expanded this over the coming years, taking on four partners and building a purpose-built surgery on the High Street. It was also one of the first pharmacy dispensing practices in the UK. While he was a GP, he mentored several students from the local Heathfield Comprehensive School to successfully gain places at medical school; some have become surgeons. Kenneth finally retired in 1992, the year his youngest son qualified from St Mary’s Medical School, London. During his time in Texas, he established an apple farm in East Sussex and bought a villa in Spain. Ken was an integral part of the local community, being president of both the rugby club and horticultural society. In later years he settled in Eastbourne with his wife, Marion (née Bancroft), and they spent most of each year in Dénia, Spain. Ken first met Marion at the age of seven; they sat together at Park School in Doncaster before their families moved apart. A chance meeting at Doncaster Royal Infirmary some years later, Ken as a surgical registrar and Marion as a physiotherapist, turned into a marriage which lasted 68 years. Ken died on 2 June 2021 at the age of 93 due to the consequences of myeloid sarcoma. He was survived by Marion, their two sons, Jonathan and Andrew (an orthopaedic consultant), seven grandchildren (one an anaesthetic/intensive therapy unit consultant) and two great-grandchildren.