David William Hill was research professor in ophthalmology at the Royal College of Surgeons and a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Hospital, London. He was born on 5 May 1926 in Croydon, Surrey, the son of a bank manager and a housewife. He attended Whitgift School, Croydon, before becoming

Walter Ramsay Allan, known as ‘Peter’, was a consultant surgeon at Bolton Royal Infirmary. Born on 26 October 1927, he was the second of four sons of Walter Ramsay Allan, a general practitioner based in Edinburgh who had fought in the first world war before completing his medical studies at Glasgow

James Calvert, neurosurgeon, was born at Mount Bute, near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, where his parents owned a sheep farm. He was educated first at the local state school and then at Ballarat Grammar School. On leaving school, he worked briefly for the Commercial Bank of Australia, before enlist