Fraser-Moodie was christened William but he was always known as Alistair. He was born on 17 April 1942 into a medical family. His mother, Christina, had trained in medicine against her parent’s wishes (they thought it an unsuitable career for a woman) and eventually ran a single handed GP practice of over 1000 patients from the family home. William (Bill) Fraser-Moodie, his father, was an oral surgeon and his elder sister, Janet, trained at the Middlesex Hospital. He was educated at King’s College School and then studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, following in his parent’s footsteps. Early house jobs in plastic surgery at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton were followed by general surgical posts at the Hammersmith Hospital and Ashford Hospital in Middlesex. He passed the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1971 and of the college the following year. He put his plastic surgery training to good use mending the facial injuries frequently sustained in those pre-seatbelt days by drivers going through windscreens and was thus often spending time in the casualty department. His interest in this specialty grew and he was appointed casualty consultant at the Royal Derby Hospital in 1978. An early pioneer of emergency medicine, he was one of the first to develop a flying squad in the Derby area to attend to traffic accidents – a precursor of the paramedic services we have today. The value of this service was shown in 1989 when Alistair was called in to deal with the casualties from the Kegworth plane crash in which a plane crashed on the verge of the M1 causing 47 deaths and 74 injuries – he was interviewed by the Derby Telegraph on the 30th anniversary of the crash (see reference below). Over the years his innovations no doubt saved many lives and he remained as consultant accident and emergency surgeon in Derby until 2007, popular both with his patients and colleagues. For some years after retirement, until 2014, he continued to work in medical education and was also active as chairman of the Derby Scanner Appeal Charity, which successfully raised money for a CT scanner for the hospital and other items of expensive equipment. Very keen on sport in his medical student days, he played rugby and was captain of the St Thomas’ golf team and the London Universities second team. A representative of the Ski Club of Great Britain, he was also a member of the British Medical Ski Team. In 2018 he produced an entertaining memoir *Medical misadventures: 54 years at the cutting edge of the NHS* (Leicester: Troubador Publishing, 2018). In it he recalled spending five years at medical school learning very little about medicine but a great deal about sport, alcohol and girls. He described his early work in casualty, working as a single consultant whose job is now shared by 16 surgeons. Unsurprisingly he become an expert in road traffic incidents, often being called upon to be an expert witness and was a militant campaigner for the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets. The book also covers his views on current problems, such as the rise in child obesity and the pressures of working in the NHS. Throughout his life he continued to play golf with enthusiasm and enjoyed foreign travel. He died aged 78 on 21 May 2020, ironically as a result of a cycle accident, and was survived by his wife, Christine, also a retired medical consultant, his children, James, Elspeth, Duncan, Isabel and Lindsay, and his grandchildren, Angus, Rory, Louisa, Mirren and Thomas. Numbers at the funeral were severely curtailed due to the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, but apparently, when the hearse travelled the mile and a half from his home to the crematorium the streets were lined with well wishers.