Justin Kelly established vascular surgery in Lancaster and south Cumbria; the unit later developed to include Preston and Blackpool. He was born in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire on 7 February 1938, the son of Bernard Kelly, who worked for the company Lamson Paragon, and Katherine Kelly née Hodgson, a teacher who suffered from multiple sclerosis. Justin’s elder brother, Michael ‘Manx’ Kelly, a RAF squadron leader and the founder and leader of the Rothmans aerobatic team, was killed testing a prototype aircraft in the USA in 1976. Justin attended Douai Abbey School, founded by Benedictine monks, and then, in 1956, went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge to read botany and zoology. He was considering becoming a priest and thought he would be able to teach these subjects as an adjunct to his ministry. He completed his degree and then his tutor recommended that he should study medicine. He consulted the abbot, who agreed and Justin returned to Magdalene for pre-clinical studies. Whilst at Cambridge, Justin was a member of the university and British fencing team, specialising in the sabre. He attended St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington for his clinical studies and qualified in 1961. Medical and surgical house jobs followed at St Mary’s. From 1962 to 1963, he was a senior house officer in obstetrics and gynaecology. He was then a senior house officer (casualty) at Paddington General Hospital and in the surgery department at Brighton General Hospital. He was a registrar in surgery at the Royal Sussex County Hospital from 1965 to 1967 and at Paddington General Hospital from 1967 to 1969. He then became a senior registrar in general surgery and urology at St Mary’s and at Wexham Park Hospital, Slough (from 1969 to 1974). During this period, he was awarded a Medical Research Council fellowship in the immunology department of St Mary’s. During his training at St Mary’s, Justin worked for Felix Eastcott and this inspired his passion for vascular surgery. In 1975, Anthony Adamson, a friend from Cambridge and a physician at Royal Lancaster Infirmary, invited Justin to look at the hospital set up. Justin was appointed as a consultant general/vascular surgeon to Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Westmorland County Hospital. The caseload in Lancaster and Kendal was very general, and the vascular service minimal. Justin’s determination to introduce a vascular service led to the purchase of vascular instruments and equipment, the setting up of new theatres and the establishment of an intensive care unit. By the time Justin retired, there was a 24/7 service for elective and emergency aneurysms, carotid endarterectomies and peripheral vascular grafting, together with an endovascular theatre for stenting. There were five vascular/general surgeons and the patients came from Lancaster, Kendal, Furness, Preston and Blackpool. Vascular specialty registrars were rotated to the unit from Manchester. Breast surgery was practised in Lancaster without the benefit of NHS mammography facilities until 1991. Patients requiring mammography either had to have the X-rays performed privately or had to travel to Manchester for NHS mammography. A surgical/radiological group was founded, in which Justin was prominent, to raise funds to pay for mammography equipment at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. At the same time, meetings were occurring to decide where to site a breast screening unit for Lancaster, Preston, Blackpool and south Cumbria. The main unit was sited in Lancaster with satellite units. The number of radiologists with mammography/ultrasound experience increased. Justin was one of the two surgeons who ran this unit in Lancaster, but later withdrew to take up the post of medical director. The general/breast surgeons were gradually replaced by full time breast surgeons. His main clinical practice was vascular and laparoscopic, and involved the training of registrars from the north-west region, the USA and Egypt. A rotating programme had been established in the 1980's when an American surgical resident from Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska came to Lancaster for six months to increase their clinical experience. In turn, a Lancaster surgical registrar went to Creighton to undertake a research project. Justin was in charge of this rotation from 1990 to 1996 and was appointed to the surgical faculty at Creighton. During one of his visits to Creighton, he observed laparoscopic cholecystectomies being performed. The equipment was purchased for Lancaster and four of the Lancaster surgeons were trained in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The procedure began locally in 1990 and the results were published in *The Lancet* in 1991 (‘Elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy for “all-comers”.’ *Lancet* 1991 Sep 28;338[8770]:795-7). Several of his surgical trainees were Egyptian and one of them became head of Army surgical services at the Maadi Military Hospital, Cairo. Every year the Cairo surgeons assembled a group of difficult vascular patients and Justin went to Cairo to operate on them and to teach staff of all levels of seniority. Justin was also involved in treating victims of the Abbeystead disaster, which occurred on 23 May 1984. A massive methane explosion occurred at the waterworks valve house on the Abbeystead estate; 44 people had been invited by the North West Water Authority to observe the operations of the station. The explosion blew the concrete roof off the structure and destroyed the steel mesh floor. Sixteen people were killed – eight immediately and another eight in hospital. The majority of the survivors sustained burns. Justin was the general surgeon on duty at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and co-ordinated the major trauma plan. Severe burns cases were transferred to the plastic surgery unit at the Royal Preston Hospital. This incident was extremely traumatic for all involved; many of the injuries were extreme. Justin was very involved with the administration of the Lancaster and Kendal hospitals. He sat on multiple local and regional committees, including of the Vascular Society and the Manchester Medical Society. He was chairman of the Kendal unit medical advisory group, the Westmorland Trust development board and, from 1992 to 1995, was medical director of the Westmorland Hospitals Trust. From 1995 to 1998, he was medical director of the Lancaster Acute Hospitals Trust. Justin was absolutely dedicated to the care of patients: family holidays were often modified for clinical needs. He was a very fast and decisive surgeon, known as ‘scissor hands’ by the theatre staff. When it came to committee work, he knew his brief, had a plan and was persuasive. Some of his colleagues, both clinical and managerial, did not always agree with his plans and these occasions could result in disharmony, however, another characteristic was determination, and he would usually succeed in pushing his plan through. Justin had high energy levels and a remarkable ability to multitask. He was often found in theatre in the evening waiting to do a femoral popliteal bypass or a distal graft. He would then leave the hospital in the night and go fly fishing on the river Kent for sea trout. He was an expert angler. In 1996, Justin began to suffer from angina pectoris and this led to a quintuple coronary artery bypass. He made a successful recovery and returned to work as medical director with reduced clinical duties. He retired on 31 March 1998 and in July 2002 moved to Liss in Hampshire with his wife Valerie (née Walton), a former nurse, whom he married in 1967. Justin was a dedicated family man; he and Val had four children (Sarah, Dominic, Julian and Justine) and 12 grandchildren. In Liss, Justin became involved with the Crossover Youth Centre. Run by Liss residents, the local churches and parish council, the centre aims to take young people off the streets and reduce minor crime. Justin became chairman. Justin had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for several years and latterly from prostatic carcinoma and spinal stenosis. In 2016, he fractured his hip. A combination of those conditions and progression of the carcinoma led to his final illness. He died peacefully at his home on 20 November 2018. He was 80.