John Beavis, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, co-founded the charity IDEALS – International Disaster and Emergency Aid with Long term Support. He was born on 8 June 1940 in Brighton and came from a modest background, but the post-War Labour government gave him the opportunity of a good education, which he used well, qualifying in medicine in 1967 from University College London Medical School. After house jobs, he spent the next five years as a medical officer in the Royal Marines. He then specialised in orthopaedics and, after a registrar post at Guy’s, his first appointment as a consultant was to Lewisham Hospital. Later he was transferred to Medway in Kent, where he had a busy practice. However, at the age of 53, he developed angina. A coronary artery bypass graft operation was performed, but some weeks after returning to work he had a bad attack of chest pain, as a result of which he was retired early from the NHS. Still being of an energetic nature and with a desire to help, he chose to go to war-torn Bosnia, where he set about training surgeons in Sarajevo to deal with some of the more complex traumatic injuries with which they were faced. On one of his return flights he met businessman Simon Oliver, who was so impressed by what he heard that he offered to fund a charity which would be staffed by volunteer surgeons and physicians, so that his work could be continued and expanded, both in Bosnia and elsewhere. Thus IDEALS – International Disaster and Emergency Aid with Long term Support – was born with John Beavis as the founding chairman. The next project was in north west Pakistan where, having met and charmed the local surgeons in Peshawar, courses in primary trauma care were delivered by UK volunteers to hospital and rural doctors, teaching them how best to deal with severely injured patients at the time of injury. Training courses were also held for local instructors, who were then able to take the programme to surrounding hospitals. These courses became so popular that during the ensuing years, with continuing support from IDEALS, they spread throughout Pakistan, where eventually more than 2,000 doctors received training in trauma care. When the earthquake struck north west Pakistan in 2005, John arranged for food, medical equipment and tents to be delivered to one of the devastated villages. Later, with funding from IDEALS, a whole village was transferred and rebuilt with help from the villagers on land purchased for them some 50 miles away. Similarly, when the tsunami struck southern Sri Lanka, IDEALS was there providing emergency aid for residents of a seriously damaged village, with the charity funding rebuilding of their fishing boats and part of the local school. For the last ten years, his main interest was in Gaza. As in Pakistan, the first visit was to determine whether courses in primary trauma care would be welcome. They were; friends were made and teams from IDEALS, in partnership with Medical Aid for Palestinians, were soon being asked to become involved with other medical and educational projects in Gaza. These included lectures at the medical school and training three local orthopaedic surgeons in complex limb reconstruction at King’s College Hospital, London. Other specialties such as plastic surgery and public health also benefitted from John’s capacity to engage with people, find out where help was needed and then try to provide it. All in all, he must have made over 30 visits to Gaza during the last decade of his life. While at medical school he married his high school sweetheart, Kate Frankland; they shared a loving relationship throughout the years that followed and were blessed with three children. Although his professional life as an orthopaedic surgeon was sadly cut short, his energy, capacity for friendship, generosity of spirit and contributions to deserving causes never failed. On retirement in 1993 he was elected an honourable citizen of Rochester for services to local orthopaedic patients and their families; in 2001, he was awarded the Bosnian medal of honour for his work in Sarajevo during and after the civil war and in 2003 he was appointed as a Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons for his work on improving the management of war injuries. In 2016, he was the recipient of the Hugh O’Flaherty International Humanitarian award in recognition of his valuable work. He died on 5 December 2018 at 78 from cancer of the lung, despite being a non-smoker, with news of the award of his OBE being announced a few weeks after his death.