Roy Howell died peacefully in a residential home on Saturday 7 June 2014, aged 89. Roy was born in July 1924 in Upper Park Place near Marylebone in London. He was the eldest of four siblings, his two sisters both emigrated to America and his brother eventually moved to Toronto. Roy trained as a navigator and served in the RAF during WW2 before studying dentistry at the Royal Free in London, where he graduated in 1950. Roy’s academic prowess emerged during his undergraduate years when he was awarded many prizes, so it came as no surprise that after working in general practice for a year and then as a registrar in London, he decided on academia and teaching. Roy was appointed to a lectureship in operative dentistry in Newcastle and, when Professor Hopper moved to Leeds in 1959, Roy assumed responsibility for Lead in Periodontology. He was instrumental in setting up and developing the School of Dental Hygiene at Newcastle. Roy was Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Periodontology at Newcastle Dental School until his retirement in 1985. He was also Treasurer of the British Society of Periodontology Society for many years and President of the Society during 1983-1984. I have special reason to remember Roy both as a teacher when I was an undergraduate at Newcastle and then as President of the Society when he held his Spring Meeting at the Gosforth Park Hotel. Roy invited some of periodontology’s ‘big hitters’ to the Gosforth Park Hotel with Professors Ainamo and Page being ‘top-of-the-bill’. Roy Page, in particular, was a massive ‘signing’, and as a junior academic attending his first BSP meeting, it was inspiring to hear Professor Page giving his lectures on early and established lesions. Roy Howell retired from academia in 1985 to care for his wife, Margaret, who had Parkinson's disease. They moved to Devon where, until his death, he remained totally independent and very active in his pursuit of steam (and other kinds of) trains around the UK and other parts of the world – camera always at the ready. Indeed, I recall many night-time journeys on the (now) East Coast line between King's Cross and Newcastle with Roy, Robin Seymour and Ian Macgregor. Roy would often announce that we would be arriving ‘wherever’ in a few minutes, not from having seen landmarks from the window, but from his extraordinary knowledge of the camber of the track at specific places along the line. A truly remarkable talent! Roy is survived by his three daughters Elizabeth, Jane and Louise.