Gerald Tresidder ('GCT') was born on 5 December 1912 in Rawalpindi where his father, Lt Col Alfred Geddes Tresidder, FRCS, was a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service. His was mother Lilian Annie, née Trelease. His career followed what was then the Anglo-Indian norm: 'home' at the age of eight, scho

Arthur Messent obtained an open exhibition to Mill Hill School and proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital where he won the Brackenbury Prize in surgery and anatomy. He qualified in 1938 and after a short spell in general practice he joined the Royal Air Force and served in Coastal Command both in th