Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS (4 October 1922 to 7 July 2014) was a South African-born British cardiothoracic surgeon, who developed the pulmonary autograft, known as the Ross procedure, for the treatment of aortic valve disease, and also performed the first heart transplant in the United Kingdom in 1968. This paper, written by Jane Somerville, Professor of Cardiology [Retired], Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, provides the personal recollections about Donald Ross from Jane Somerville, and thus provides a unique snapshot of cardiac surgical history.