John Arthur Wilkinson studied medicine in Wales and graduated MB, BCh in 1948. Initially he worked as a registrar at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He then became senior registrar at the Westminster Hospital and passed the fellowship

Herbert Bernhard Eckstein was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, on 11 July 1926. His father Albert Eckstein was Professor of Paediatrics in Dusseldorf, Hamburg and then in Ankara (Turkey) where his family settled in the early 1930's. His mother, Erna, was the daughter of Professor A Schlossmann, Professo