Brian Anthony Nicholls was born in Worcester on 3 September 1941. He was educated at King's School Worcester, where he played rugby and rowed for the school. He attended Birmingham Medical School, graduating in 1965. He took the FRCS Ed in 1972 and the FRCS of England the following year. His initial

Gregory Reginald Houghton was born in Leicester on 29 October 1944, the son of L R Houghton, an engineer. Much of his childhood was spent in the Middle East where his father was working. He was educated at Oakham School, Rutland, and in 1963 went up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated

John Malcolm Barnes was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Bangor. He was born in Glasgow on 24 March 1943. His father, Roland Barnes (qv), was the first Professor of orthopaedics in Glasgow, who had trained under Sir Harry Platt at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. His mother Mary Mills née Buckley

Prabhakar Ganyadhar Vaishampayan was born on 30 May 1932. He passed the FRCS in 1973 while working at the Good Hope General Hospital, Sutton Coldfield. He had begun his career there as a senior house officer in orthopaedics and accident and emergency surgery in 1971 and progressed to being SHO in su