Iorwerth Havard Griffiths, always affectionately known as 'Griff', was born at Barry in Glamorgan on 12 January 1909. His father Roland was a master baker and caterer and his mother Celia, née Havard, a housewife. His older brother, G J Griffiths FRCS (1901-1987) was consultant surgeon at Bedford. H

John Douglas Fergusson was born on 5 December 1909 at Great Malvern, Worcestershire, the son of John Newberry Fraser Fergusson, FRCS Edinburgh, radiologist at York County Hospital. He was educated at St Peter's School, York, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he was college prizeman and scholar

David Ronald Davies, always 'DR' to his friends, was born on 11 May 1910 in Clydach, Swansea, and remained readily identifiable as a Welshman throughout a long surgical career in London, followed by retirement to Exmoor. After schooling at the Ystalyfera County School, which inevitably gave him an e

Bernard Sanger was at school in Hastings and received his medical training at the London Hospital where he qualified in 1934. He pursued his surgical career at the London Hospital before his appointment to Southend Municipal Hospital in 1938. Rodney Maingot was a visiting surgeon at that hospital