He was born in
Glasgow on 20 July 1937. His father was an executive at
Collins the publisher. He was educated at
Glasgow Academy then studied medicine at the
University of Glasgow graduating with an
MB ChB. Meeting
Bryan Jennett he was inspired to be a neurosurgeon. From 1962 to 1965 he was Surgical Senior House Officer at
Glasgow Royal Infirmary. From 1965 to 1967 he was a
Medical Research Council Fellow. In 1969 he went to America to the
University of Pennsylvania to study under Dr Langfitt. In 1971 he returned to Scotland and began lecturing in neurosurgery at the
University of Glasgow. In 1975 he became Professor of Neurosurgery at the
Medical College of Virginia and in 1981 returned to Scotland as Professor of Surgical Neurology at the
University of Edinburgh. He was also a practising neurosurgeon at Edinburgh's
Western General Hospital. Noted Indian neurosurgeon
B. K. Misra is one of his students. In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were
Phillip Harris,
Cameron Gould,
Sir Patrick Forrest and
Sir Abraham Goldberg. He died of a heart attack in
Edinburgh on 23 August 1995. ==Family==