Our father, Martin Christie, who has died of cancer aged 67, wrote last year: "I have had an interesting and fulfilling life and I have probably helped quite a few [people] along the way. Can't ask for more than that."
Martin was a consultant neurosurgeon and worked in some of the most remote and challenging locations in the world, from Papua New Guinea to the island republic of Kiribati. During the 1990s, he treated the war-wounded from Iraq, Bosnia and Yemen in a Saudi Arabian military facility. He served multiple tours as a civilian contractor in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009 and taught in South Sudan in the chaotic aftermath of its independence.
He did not like to speak much about his work in these places, always preferring to listen rather than bask in any limelight. However, vivid fragments remain: a photo of a Polynesian woman with a fishing spear through her chest sitting calmly in his waiting room; a diary entry about insects landing on a patient's exposed brain during surgery in a tent in Helmand province.
Martin was born and brought up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the eldest son of Richard Christie, a lawyer and pilot, and the journalist Phillippa Berlyn. He attended boarding school from the age of seven. He found his vocation as a doctor after a chance conversation with a family friend and graduated from University College Rhodesia (now the University of Zimbabwe) in 1971.
Having been called up for military service, he joined the Rhodesian Army Medical Corps, but broke his back during a training parachute jump with the SAS. He lay patiently among the rocks until found by his comrades, then instructed them on how he should be moved. The same year, he left Rhodesia for good to travel the world,
Those who knew him well miss his calm and reassuring presence, allied with great kindness and strength.
Martin is survived by his wife, Mary Chiarella, four children from his first marriage, Nikki, Scott and us, and by three grandchildren, Ngaire, Aurora and Skye.
