Andrew Gentles was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Harrogate District General Hospital and Ripon and District General Hospital. He studied at Cambridge University and gained his diploma in ophthalmology in 1962 and his FRCS in 1968. Prior to his consultant appointment he was a senior registrar

Jonathan David Griffiths was an ophthalmologist at the Bath Eye Hospital. He was born on 6 March 1938 in a colliery house in Tonyrefail, Glamorgan, Wales. His father, William Marsden Griffiths, was a mining engineer and colliery manager, as had been his grandfather and great-grandfather before him.