Having spent years repairing patients' knees, Simon Donell has retired to Somerset to renovate an old farmhouse he and his wife have moved into, writes Phil Hill.
You may have read in the County Gazette that he was recently elected president of Taunton Probus Club, more of which later.
Before relocating to the Blackdown Hills, he enjoyed a brilliant career as an orthopaedic surgeon, with knees his speciality.
Simon, whose father was chairman of governors at the College of Law after spending the Second World War in the RAF, was born in Kensington.
He was baptised in Yelverton, Devon, the birthplace of his mother, a talented musician who sang in a choir into her nineties.
He had an older sister and brother and a twin sister.
He attended Lambrook Prep School - where the Prince and Princess of Wales's three children are currently pupils and far removed from the Lambrook area of Taunton.
"After that, I boarded at Sherborne School, which I thoroughly enjoyed," said Simon.
"I then had a gap year working at a charity hospital in Pucallpa in the Amazon jungle in Peru.
"I went on to medical school at University College London.
"My grandfather had trained as a doctor, but he didn't practice after the war as he had been gassed.
"I was there from 1974 and graduated in 1980, undergoing my medical training in various hospitals."
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He started in orthopaedics in 1985 and underwent his senior training at St Bart's between 1987 and 1992.
Simon was then a senior lecturer at UCL, based at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, at Stanmore, close to Elstree.
He worked at a number of hospitals, including as a consultant in Norwich from 1994.
While still working as a consultant, he started an academic career in 2005 and was appointed an honorary professor at the University of East Anglia four years later.
In his final two months in Norwich, he only carried out one operation due to a lack of beds.
To this day, he continues in his honorary teaching post at Norwich Medical School.
"I'd done a range of operations, including expensive ones such as spinal surgery, which needed a lot of kit," said Simon, who has four children and five grandchildren.
"But I specialised in knee surgery and was President of the British Association of Surgery of the Knee (BASK) from 2012-2014.
"I developed an interest in problems with the kneecap and was a specialist in abnormalities of the knee."
During his time in East Anglia, he was chairman for five years of Norwich Rugby Club, hoping to guide it through a difficult period.
After putting away his scalpel, he and his wife, Lesley, moved to Churchstanton six weeks before lockdown in 2020.
"I knew the area quite well as we used to visit my grandmother in Yelverton virtually every holiday.
"Lesley and I went on walks with our dogs on the footpaths near our house during lockdown.
"We're renovating our farmhouse and have started a biodiversity project in our field."
He keeps himself busy in retirement and is emeritus editor of The Knee journal, which he edited from 2005 to 2012.
Simon, an accomplished pianist, added: "I joined Probus about two-and-a-half years ago.
"It's a social society group of men who have retired, getting together to enjoy themselves.
"As president, I chair our meetings, which take place once a month at Taunton Racecourse and act as a figurehead.
"Lesley has a similar role as chairman of the Blackdown Belles, which was originally the Women's Institute."
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