Kenneth Herbert Taylor was born on 7 August 1915, the fourth in a line of a family of doctors, and was educated at Epsom College and St Thomas's Hospital, graduating in 1938. At the outbreak of the second world war he joined the RAMC and served with the Welsh Guards during the evacuation from Dunkir

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