Keith Reynolds was a consultant surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London. He was born in 1939 and studied medicine at Charing Cross Medical School, where he graduated in 1964. He held junior posts at St James's Hospital, Balham, under Norman Tanner. Whilst at Balham, he reviewed 4,000 cases of haematemesis and established the value of early endoscopy in the diagnosis of acute gastric mucosal lesions. He continued to work on the stomach in the department of surgery at Charing Cross Hospital, where he showed, by biopsies, that acute erosions of the gastric mucosa resulted from aspirin, through a synergy between aspirin and bile. These clinical and experimental findings constituted the basis of his masters thesis and an Hunterian Professorship in 1973. He was appointed consultant surgeon at Charing Cross in 1974 and undertook difficult hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery with great enthusiasm and skill. He extended the operability of cancer of the pancreas using by-pass grafts for the common bile duct and superior mesenteric artery. He showed that this, together with combination chemotherapy, provided effective palliation, but had no effect on long-term survival. Keith also established a service for managing oesophageal varices mainly by injection. He collaborated with Kenneth Bagshawe's oncology department, performing the technically demanding retroperitoneal debulking surgery in the treatment of disseminated germ cell tumours. Reynolds was an inspiring teacher and was so popular with undergraduates that he could fill a lecture theatre for his clinical demonstrations which he held on Sunday mornings. Inevitably, because of his beard and flamboyant style the students nicknamed him 'Sir Lancelot' after the character in the film *Doctor in the House*. His tremendous energy made it possible for him to combine a very busy clinical practice with service on many hospital and regional committees. He was also a sub-dean of the medical school for many years. He retired in 1991 following major arterial surgery from which he made a successful recovery and went to live in Cyprus. Bored by inactivity, he returned to England in 1993 to continue teaching as a part-time surgical tutor in Newcastle. He died on 23 January 1998. He left a wife, Susanna, and two daughters, Sue and Kate, by his first wife, Jennie.