Mike Briggs was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. He grew up in Norfolk and won a scholarship to Norwich School. Because of wartime damage to the school, they were unable to teach science subjects, so Mike had a classical schooling, but it never seemed to put him off. After school he did his National Service in the Navy and enjoyed the sporting aspects of his life there, playing rugby, water polo and, oddly for a future neurosurgeon, boxing. At that time St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School accepted people to train in medicine who had not had a previous science education. Mike gained a place and qualified in 1963. He was appointed as a head injury registrar in Oxford and trained with Joe Pennybacker and John Potter in neurosurgery. After a short time at the South East Neurological Unit, he returned to Oxford in 1975. I first met Mike working at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1979 and we discussed the relatively new specialty of craniofacial surgery and, with my own interests in head and neck surgery, we decided to assemble a team of appropriate colleagues and set up a unit at Oxford. Craniofacial surgery addresses congenital deformities of the skull, face, skull base and orbits and requires close collaboration by a neurosurgeon and a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, with input from other specialists as required. At Oxford there was a wealth of such people who were keen to be involved. Older patients with trauma injuries and tumours patients also benefitted from the work. A joint respect is required and, with Mike in particular, was easily achieved; his humour and excellent surgical technique made light work of difficult cases. The specialty had developed largely in France, so frequent visits to colleagues there was required and was a great learning experience, along with courses and seminars. We applied for supraregional specialty funding from the NHS, which meant we were not struggling for funding. This was granted to us in Oxford, and to two other craniofacial centres in England. Most of the paediatric cases involved craniosynostosis (early and deforming closure of the cranial sutures), but also a group of less common complex deformities such as Apert syndrome, Crouzon syndrome and related conditions, hypertelorism (eyes, orbits widely spread on the face) etc. Once our work got underway, we documented problems and complications and met with our colleagues from the other two units in England to discuss these. Our published research was mainly clinical rather than lab-based, although some colleagues in Oxford from the genetics unit made strides in describing the genetic causes of many of our patient cohorts from work in their labs. The specialty worldwide was small as many of these cases are rare, so we had a small group of friends from Europe and internationally and met regularly to discuss problems and new ideas and techniques. Mike was forced to retire in 1994 after developing visual problems, and I left Oxford in 1995 and returned to Australia (being a native). I visited Mike regularly in his retirement and we remained great friends. His later retirement was marred by strokes, some not so severe in outcome, but others more troublesome. He sadly died on 27 August 2021 at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife Pauline.