Richard Garwood Robinson was professor of neurosurgery at Otago University, New Zealand. He was born in Dartford, Kent, on 9 April 1915, the son of William Thomas Robinson, a pharmacist, and Annie Elizabeth Robinson née Garwood, the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at St Dunstan's College in Ca

Thomas Henry Cullen (Tom) was born on 6 February 1917 in Kelvedon, Essex. A farmer’s son, he was born and brought up on Clarke’s Farm. Educated at Colchester Grammar School, he opted to study medicine as farming in Essex was not particularly productive in the 1930s. He entered the Middlesex Hospital