John Hanson Hall was a consultant general surgeon in Peterborough and Stamford. He was born on 13 September 1937 at Stalybridge, near Manchester, the only son of George Sydney Hall and Lucy Hall née Hanson. His father spent several years away from 1939 to 1951, firstly in the Far East during the Second World War and afterwards as he was attached to the Territorial Army. On his return, he settled back into his profession as a chartered accountant. Like the majority of men who saw active service during the war, he never talked to his family about his experiences. John was educated a Rydal School, a boarding school, in north Wales. He went on to St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, where he played rugby on the wing. He qualified in 1966. His surgical training continued at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, where he was on the surgical registrar rotation. In addition, he spent a year at Kingston Hospital. He then moved on to the senior registrar rotation at St Thomas’, including a year at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. In 1975 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Peterborough and Stamford hospitals. John was a general surgeon in the original sense of the word and remained so until the mid 1990s, when general surgeons, while continuing to do emergency on-call work, each started to specialise more in elective surgery. During his training at St Thomas’, John noticed the valuable work of the stomatherapy department. He resolved to set up stomatherapy in Peterborough and encouraged his ward sister to train. In 1983, another nurse was recruited to expand the service. John’s non-clinical contributions were extensive and included being a surgical tutor for the Royal College of Surgeons of England, an examiner in surgery at Leicester, lead clinician in general and day surgery and chairman of various other committees. Outside formal committee work, he was skilful at managing some of the inevitable personality clashes between consultants that occur in any hospital. I first met John in 1967 at Watford, where he was a surgical registrar, and I was a house physician. I referred a patient to him with appendicitis: he agreed and did an appendectomy, at which I assisted. He came across as a pleasant, polite and competent surgeon. The experience confirmed my decision to become a surgeon. Also at Watford, I remember a visiting thoracic surgeon telling me that, when he had renal colic, he had been greatly comforted by John, who had held his hand until analgesia arrived. John always had an instinct for natural kindness. We later became consultant colleagues at Peterborough. At one point I asked him to remove a skin lesion from my face. He agreed as long as I removed one off his face. I turned up at the end of his afternoon list at Stamford Hospital when no juniors were around. We took it in turns to remove each other’s bits. I went first. Afterwards we agreed not to send the specimens for histology – with no long-term consequences. In 1961 John married Christine Margaret Albinson. They had two sons, Peter and Andrew. The marriage subsequently broke down and in 1982 he married Barbara Ambler. He had over 20 years of retirement in South Luffenham in Rutland, where he and Barbara enjoyed village life and made very good use of their nearby golf club, Luffenham Heath. John looked after Barbara during her final illness. In 2021 John had a leaking abdominal aortic aneurysm successful repaired with a difficult post-operative course, which left him too frail to continue playing his beloved golf. John died on 5 June 2023 at the age of 85 from metastatic carcinoma of an unknown primary. He was survived by his two sons, three stepsons and three grandchildren.