Doug Altman was an internationally recognized statistician and chief statistical advisor to The BMJ for over 26 years until his untimely death in 2018. His career began in the 1970s in a medical and statistical environment different from today. The General Medical Council's curriculum did not introduce medical statistics until 1967, and the first textbook for medical students was published in 1976. The authors of the article examined the early years of his career, spoke to his wife Sue and recalled working with him. They were inspired by his work with the 1,000,000 citation milestone. Doug contributed his unfinished autobiography, The Making of a Statistician, which he left to one of the authors. The aim was to fill in the gaps between his works with his own words.