Murad Ghorbal was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Liverpool’s Walton and Fazakerley hospitals. Born in Masr El Gedida, Egypt on 17 March 1931 to Gertrude Humberstone of Bradford and an Egyptian, Shafik Ghorbal, Murad spent a happy childhood growing up in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. His mother was one of the first women to graduate with bachelors and masters degrees in geography from Leeds and Liverpool universities in the 1920s. She became a school teacher in Yorkshire before moving to Egypt to marry. His father became an eminent Egyptian historian and wrote several important works on the rise of the modern Egyptian nation. It would seem that Murad got his love of astronomy and the natural world from his mother and his passion for history from his father. Murad gained his degree in medicine from Ain Shams University, Cairo in August 1956 and worked as a doctor there until moving to England in 1960. After qualifying with part one of his FRCS in London, Murad’s first job in the UK was as a casualty officer at Leicester Royal Infirmary for six months during 1962. There then followed a year of surgical work still in Leicester with the teams of John Leslie and Ernest Reginald Frizelle. It was here he met his future wife, nursing sister Ann Murphy, to whom he was married for over 50 happy years. Following his time in Leicester, Murad worked briefly at the orthopaedic unit at Norwich Hospital, but in order to obtain full registration with the GMC he took the LMSSA from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Part of this qualification required him to work as a junior physician for a time, which he did at Preston Royal Infirmary. It was on completion of the LMSSA that Murad took up his interest in orthopaedics once again, this time under the tutelage of Robert Symon Garden and Norman Arthur Glossop Covell. Murad then moved to Liverpool with his young family in 1970 to undertake his MCh in orthopaedics and the subject of his thesis was ‘Avascular necrosis of the femoral head following traumatic dislocation of the hip’. He became a consultant and ended up staying in Liverpool at Walton and Fazakerley hospitals for the rest of his career. In the early 1970's Murad took a couple of hand surgery placements, one with Athol Parkes in Edinburgh and the other with Jacques Michon in Nancy, France. This would lead to Murad becoming a leading specialist in hand surgery and he would go on to set up the hand surgery unit at Liverpool’s Walton Hospital. Murad went on to become a surgical instructor and, as part of the local MCh course in orthopaedics, he was able to set up a weekend clinical course in hand surgery on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings with a seemingly endless supply of local patients! At this time, emergency services were based at Walton Hospital and Murad provided emergency orthopaedic cover with a weekly fracture clinic. Elective orthopaedic services were provided at both Walton and Fazakerley, and he would spend a full day operating at both hospitals each week. Amongst his colleagues in Liverpool were Dick Calver, John Metcalfe, Mike Thorneloe and John Redding. Before his retirement, Murad became director of orthopaedics for a time after the creation of the hospital trusts. Murad was an active member of the North West Surgical Hand Society, which met regularly over a nice meal to discuss any problematic cases that were encountered that month. He was also a keen supporter of Bob Owen’s annual orthopaedic outing to scale the many wonderful mountains of north Wales. On a personal level, Murad’s main passion was astronomy and he was a committed and lifelong member (and one time president) of Liverpool Astronomical Society (founded in 1881). He had a particular, though not exclusive, interest in solar observation and he would regularly spend sunny days off in his garden observing the sun through his telescope using a hydrogen alpha filter. Over the years, he produced many meticulous drawings of the sunspots, filaments and prominences that he saw. His interest would take him and his family on many exciting adventures to view total solar eclipses around the world, from India to Indonesia, Kenya to Kazakhstan. Murad was always keen to share his knowledge with others and would often give talks with his wonderful slides on many and varied subjects of interest. Only the month before he died, he gave a lecture on the pyramids of Egypt to his retired medical associates. Murad passed away after a short illness on 16 August 2019 aged 88 and was buried in Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool. He was survived by his beloved wife Ann, two children, Kathryn and Richard, and five grandchildren. Kathryn, a qualified nurse, currently lives and works in the US as a reflexologist and Richard works as an airline pilot and still lives in Liverpool. It is widely accepted by friends and former colleagues that Murad was a kind, gentle and learned man who will be greatly missed.