David Erskine Tolhurst was a pioneering plastic surgeon. Born in Wellington, New Zealand on 24 September 1934, he was the son of Robert Erskine, a stockbroker, and his wife Joan Morton née Henderson. He attended the Huntley School in Marton, where he won the Sherriff Memorial Prize and the Wanganui

John Lendrum was a consultant plastic surgeon in Manchester and Rochdale. He was born in Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire, on 24 October 1936 into a long-established medical family. His father, George McCormack Lendrum, was a general practitioner; his mother, Enid Lendrum née Fletcher, was a housewife.