Neville Rupert Mason Kay was born in 1934. His father was of Russian Jewish origin and his surname was initially Kay-Kreizman, while his mother came from protestant Northern Ireland stock. During the war years he spent his childhood in rural Derbyshire until the family moved to Nottingham in 1944 and there he attended the High Pavement Grammar School. After qualifying in medicine he travelled to the USA where he worked as a senior clinical fellow in orthopaedics and surgery at the University of Colorado in Denver. On his return he did house jobs at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry and the Royal Infirmary in Sheffield. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1969 and was appointed consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Royal Infirmary. He published two books and contributed widely to medical journals and to the press. President of the South Yorkshire Medicolegal Society he was also a member of the British Society for the Surgery of the Hand and the British Orthopaedic Association. He died on 6 June 2020 aged 86. Separated from his wife, he was survived by two daughters, one having predeceased him.