William Mervyn Owen was a consultant ENT surgeon who worked in Liverpool. He was brought up in Caernarfon, Wales, and studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, qualifying with the conjoint diploma in 1937 and the MB BS in 1938. During the Second World War he served in the RAMC and in

John Dobree was born in Woolwich on 25 April 1914, the son of Hatherley Moor Dobree OBE, a civil engineer, and Muriel née Hope. He was educated at Victoria College, Jersey, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he qualified in 1938. He was house physician at the Metropolitan Hospital and the Western