Henry Marsh is handy with tools.
His favourite hobby is woodwork: “I love to work with my hands,” he says.
That is just as well, because when not working with the lathe, Henry is wielding scalpels in the operating theatre as one of the UK's most respected neurosurgeons, or, sometimes, boring a Bosch drill into the brain of a conscious man.
Fifteen years ago, Henry visited Ukraine to give a series of lectures on brain surgery.
He was shocked by what he witnessed.
Decades of under-investment in medical services in the former Soviet state had left it with little infrastructure or expertise in neurological conditions.
Horror film
Patients with the kind of benign tumours which would be quickly identified and excised in the UK had been left untreated with terrible results.
That is the problem with what we do – we can often kill people
Igor Petrovich
“It was like being in a horror film,” he recalls, as he watches home video images of the huge tumours growing on the heads of the patients.
On his trip, Henry met one Ukrainian surgeon who was trying hard to make a difference.
Igor Petrovich had been enduring constant threats and harassment as he tried to reform his department at the Military Hospital in Kiev.
Petrovich combines a revolutionary zeal with a droll wit: “That is the problem with what we do,” he has remarked to Henry, “We can often kill people.”
He impressed Marsh so much that Henry brought him to London for further training.
Ever since that fortuitous meeting, Henry has been visiting the Ukraine at least twice a year to share his expertise and undertake complex operations with Igor.
He normally arrives bearing gifts – disused medical equipment from St George's Hospital, Tooting – often packaged in boxes made in his shed at home.