Robert George was born on 12 August 1944 in Hemel Hempstead. After attending St Dunstan’s College, London, he studied medicine at King’s College and St George’s Hospital. He graduated MB,BS in 1967 and did house jobs at St Georges, the Hammersmith and the Royal Marsdon Hospitals in London. In 1968 he married Liz and the following year they moved to Jamaica where he spent 18 months at the University of the West Indies as a neurosurgeon and general surgeon. He returned to London for several years before being persuaded by Roger Crisfield, a fellow medic and a great personal friend, to move to rural British Columbia in 1977. In Canada he joined the staff of the C.S. Williams Clinic as a general surgeon in the town of Trail in the Kootenay region and worked at the local hospital for 20 years. Eventually he also set up in private practice. When his family left home he decided to explore new territory and, for the last ten years of his professional life, he was based in Saipan, one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific. While there, he and his wife enjoyed getting to know different regions and visited many places in South East Asia and Australasia. On retirement in 2007 they returned to Canada, where he was able to indulge his favourite sports such as golf and cross country skiing. Other interests were the enjoyment of meeting friends over good food and wine and he was famous for always having various DIY projects on the go. He died of pancreatic cancer on 22 October 2018. He was survived by his wife, his daughters Adrienne (Geordie) and Pippa (Gerry) and grandchildren Sean, Ewan, Mia and Adam. There was also an extended family in the UK including his sister, Susan.