James Dixon was an ENT surgeon in Glasgow and later Devon. He was born on 28 September 1921 in Trong, Perak, Malaya, where his father, William John Dixon, was working as a doctor. His mother was Grace Gertrude née Holmes. He was educated at St Peter’s, Exmouth, and Epsom College, from which he went

Kenneth Paine was born in London on 16 October 1921, the only son of William James Paine, an accountant, and his wife Edith, née Ellis. He won a LCC scholarship to the City of London School whence he gained a City of London scholarship to St Thomas's Hospital. There he won the Kitchiner scholarship

Bruce Pender was born in Bombay on 9 September 1921, the son of George T Pender, general manager for the British American Tobacco Company. He was educated at Mount House Preparatory School and Marlborough College before entering St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. After qualifying in 1944 he served

Ken Shuttleworth helped establish the urology department at St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was born on 30 April 1922 in Bradford to Frederick and Edith Shuttleworth. His father won a scholarship to Oxford from Bradford Grammar School to read mathematics: his mother was at Girton College, Cambridge.

John Andrew, also known as 'Tony', was born on 2 February 1922 in Poulton-le-Flyde, Lancashire. He was the son of Percy Andrew, a general practitioner, and Ida Louise née Rishworth, a first-generation American, whom his father had met as a nurse in France during the first world war. His grandfather