Neil Rothnie was a consultant breast surgeon and medical director of Southend Hospital. He was born into a family with a well-known name in the world of surgery: his father Norman Rothnie, who trained at Barts, was a vascular surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and was also chairman o

Martin Cooper was medical director of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, and a consultant general surgeon. He was born in 1947. At 14, having had his appendix removed, he decided he wanted to become a surgeon. Three years later, at Forest Grammar School in Winnersh, Berkshire, his biology teacher

Cyril Cooling was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital and then medical superintendent of Benenden Hospital in Kent. The second son of Frank Cooling, a newsagent, and Lilian M Cooling née Waygood, he won the coveted Bucknill scholarship to enter University College Hospital in 1941, the

Michael McBrien was a general surgeon with an interest in urology at the West Suffolk and Newmarket hospitals. He was born on 4 July 1935 in Maidstone, Kent to Leo Patrick McBrien, a general practitioner, and Elizabeth Rosemary McBrien née Phillips, the daughter of a farmer, and had three sisters.

Robert Mitchell qualified in Medicine at the University of Otago gaining the Gold Medal in Anatomy and the Senior Scholarship in Medicine. He undertook the BMedSci and his degree thesis, postnatal development in the rat adrenal, was published in 1948 and attracted interest. This demonstrated his ear

Alan Rhodes was a consultant in general and paediatric surgery in Coventry. He was born in Wolverhampton on 1 April 1936 to Florence Rhodes née Levers, a secretary, and Wilfred Rhodes, a clerk. After a stellar performance at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he entered Birmingham Medical School in 1953.