Colin Skelton was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 31 March 1935 and educated at Christchurch West High School and Otago Medical School. After house appointments at Christchurch Hospital and Grey Hospital, Greymouth, he became surgical registrar at Christchurch Hospital and then came to England

Michael Baddeley, universally known to a wide circle of friends as 'Mick', was a consultant surgeon to the United Birmingham Hospitals. He was born at Wolstanton in Staffordshire on 20 September 1932, the elder son of a mining engineer. He was educated at Chesterfield School, Derbyshire, and the Uni

William O'Flynn was born in County Limerick on 12 April 1927, into a family with a long tradition in medicine as general practitioners. Unfortunately no details of his forbears are available. After education at Presentation College, Bray, County Wicklow he entered the National University of Ireland

Michael Reilly was born in Sheringham, Norfolk, on 30 August 1913, several weeks post-mature. This procrastination was to be a feature of his life. There was a suggestion that he should be christened 'Fabius', after the great Roman general Fabius Maximus Cunctator, but he was saddled with the family

Alban Barros D'Sa was a consultant general surgeon at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya, into a Catholic family originally from Goa. Barros D'Sa later moved with his parents to Kisumu on Lake Victoria, where he went to school. He knew he wanted t

Trevor Layzell was a general and vascular surgeon at Bishop Auckland General Hospital. He was born on 2 February 1949 and studied medicine at Newcastle University, graduating in 1972. He started his career at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, followed by a move to Sunderland Roya

Douglas George Arnott Eadie was a consultant surgeon at the London Hospital. He was born on 16 June 1931, the son of Herbert Arnott Eadie, a general practitioner in Leeds, and Hannah Sophia née Wingate. His father died when Douglas was a year old and he was brought up by his step-father, Sir Raymond

Hugh Owen Jones was a general surgeon in Cardiff. He was born in Monmouth on 12 May 1918 and brought up in a school house in the tiny village of Goytre near Pontypool, where his father, William Lewis Jones, was a schoolmaster. His mother, Rebecca Jane Jones née Davies, was a nurse. The toilet for bo

Roger Hughes Johnson was a consultant general surgeon at Whiston and St Helens hospitals, Merseyside. He was born in Southend-on-Sea on 24 July 1939. His father, William Joseph ('Bill') Johnson, was a firefighter and his mother, Irene Johnson (neé Hughes), taught home economics. His grandfather was

Ramesh Nigam was founder professor and head of the department of surgery at the Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi, India, and a distinguished vascular surgeon. Born on 12 August 1920, his father had served in the Indian Medical Service, and then became professor of surgery at the King George's Med

David Evans was a much admired general and vascular surgeon in Shrewsbury who became well known nationally in the latter part of his career for being in the forefront of hernia repair by minimal access surgery. He performed more than 2,600 such operations, giving a Hunterian lecture on his experienc

Selim Mellick, universally known as Sam, was a legendary surgeon. He was born in Innisfail in north Queensland and was Dux of both his local primary school and his high school the All Souls School in Charters Towers. He graduated from the University of Queensland with first class honours in medic