Alan Gerald Amias was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at St George’s Hospital, London. Having spent his early years in the East End of London where he was born on 25 June 1929, he was evacuated to Bedford when he was eleven years old to escape the Blitz. Although he managed to gain swift entry to medical school in spite of his disrupted education, the emotional trauma of being sent away stayed with him for life. He studied medicine in London and, after house jobs at University College Hospital and national service at an army hospital in Germany, he passed the fellowship of the college in 1957. He joined the staff of St George’s Hospital – then situated at Hyde Park Corner – as a senior registrar and later, consultant. After he had been at St George’s for some years it was decided in 1973 to move the hospital to a new site in Tooting. Alan was closely involved in the extensive planning process which involved moving the medical school in 1976 and the hospital four years later. He became medical chairman of the St Georges’s NHS Trust and later of the district medical advisory committee and a member of council for the medical school. A fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, he was on their board of examiners. A prolific contributor to the medical literature, he also took his teaching responsibilities very seriously. Having suffered a reprimand as a junior himself for questioning a senior’s opinion he encouraged his staff to speak their minds. He turned his back on medicine after retirement and threw himself enthusiastically into other pursuits. Having researched Samuel Pepys’ medical history for a lecture he was writing, he became an active member of the Samuel Pepys Club. A keen theatre goer, for many years he had enjoyed attending the Shakespeare course at the City Lit in Covent Garden. Having learnt to read music and play the oboe, he joined an orchestra and took on the organisation of their summer workshop in a monastery in Provence. France meant a lot to him – for 20 years he had entertained family and friends at an old farmhouse he had done up in the south west of the country. When he died from a sudden heart attack on 4 January 2018, he was survived by his wife Fay, six children and step children and twelve grandchildren.