Terence English: extravagant and uncompromising surgeon who performed the UK’s first successful heart transplant

Terence English was a dynamic force with disparate talents and a penchant for wild extravagance. He performed Britain’s first successful heart transplant at Papworth Hospital in 1979—this ensured the future of one of Europe’s leading heart and lung programmes after the UK’s first three cardiac transplant recipients, in 1968 and 1969, survived for only 45, 2, and 107 days. These results and poor international survival rates led to a moratorium on further UK operations—which English defied. His uncompromising life mantra was “tenacity of purpose.”