Harold Clifford Edwards was born in Newport, Monmouthshire on 15 August 1899, the second son of William Evans Edwards, Professor of Music, and Mary Selina (née Jones). He was educated at St Woollos School and Newport Intermediate School before joining the Royal Engineers in 1917 as a skilled sapper.

There was always something of a military bearing about Alan Stammers. Handsome, upright, level-headed, he had an able and generous mind and was always to be counted on to do the right thing by his patients, his medical students, young aspiring surgeons and his colleagues. It was characteristic that