Freddy Durbin was born in Ealing on 23 January 1913, the son of Frederick William Durbin, a farmer and grocer, and Florence Albertine, née James. From the Merchant Taylors' School he went to St Thomas's Hospital, where he won the William Tite scholarship in anatomy and physiology. After basic surgic

Cecil Murray was born in Alexandria on 8 January 1910 and was educated at King's College Canterbury and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, qualifying MRCS LRCP in 1933 and MB BS two years later. As a lieutenant colonel surgical specialist in the RAMC he had a distinguished war record in North