Clifford Henderson Baird was born in Wyndham, Southland, where his father was a general practitioner. He was educated at Southland Boys’ High School where he was proxime accessit and was awarded a Junior National Scholarship in 1935. He proceeded to the Otago Medical School where he had an excellent academic record, winning the anatomy prize and the Mickle Scholarship.

Upon graduating in 1941, he entered the army and served in the Middle East as Captain in the New Zealand Medical Corps, 2 New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was mentioned in dispatches for 'bravery under fire' at the battle of Cassino. He came under the influence of his Commanding Officer, Sir Charles Burns, (qv 2). Among his many duties he received commendation for developing new regimes for the treatment of venereal disease. Following demobilisation, he spent two years as superintendent at Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, gaining the MRACP in 1949. Then followed a period of three years postgraduate training in England, principally as registrar at Selly Oak Hospital Birmingham.

Returning to New Zealand in 1956, he set up a private consulting practice and was appointed physician at the Southland Hospital, Kew, Invercargill, where he practised as a general physician with an interest in cardiology for the next 24 years. The early 1960s were a period of controversy and dispute at the Southland Hospital, as younger post-war trained specialists struggled against a conservative management to transform the hospital into a modern secondary care service. He was at the forefront of this movement offering himself as an independent candidate at the general election on the hospital reform issue. Success was finally achieved when his mentor Sir Charles Burns was appointed for a year in 1967, to oversee the reformation. He made significant contributions to the hospital service, particularly to the development of the library and the Southland Medical Research Foundation.

In 1981, he moved to Nelson taking up a post as full time physician at the Nelson Hospital. He successfully recovered from two separate incidents of malignancy during the next few years. He finally retired in 1984. For a further two years he assisted with locums at Greymouth and Nelson Hospitals.

He practised in the best tradition of the general physician, maintaining meticulous attention to detail in history taking and examination. He was a kind and gentlemanly physician whose wide interests outside medicine allowed a friendly rapport with both patients and colleagues.

Sport was a lifelong interest. He excelled at hockey and tennis, gaining a New Zealand University blue in both. He was Southland and University of New Zealand singles tennis champion and continued to enjoy playing tennis for most of his life.

He had a lifelong interest in poetry, literature and history. In his retirement he became computer literate and spent much time putting together a classified history of the world, from pre-history to the present day, including such topics as architecture, politics, music, wars etc.

He married Alison Talbot in 1956, and had a family of three daughters and two sons, of whom Angus trained as a radiologist.