Roger de Vere was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Westminster Hospital, London. He was born on 23 May 1921 in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, the son of Gaston de Vere, an Oxford extramural studies tutor and translator of Vasari's *Lives* of Renaissance artists, and Margaretta Josephine née Ham

John Tomkinson was born in Stafford on 8 December 1916, the son of Harry Stanley Tomkinson, a company director, and his wife Kate Mills, née Cliff. He was educated at Rydal School and the University of Birmingham, where he qualified in 1941 with medals in surgery and ophthalmology. He joined the nav