Abani Kumar Chowdhury passed his MB in Calcutta in 1946 and his FRCS in 1958. He came to England and became a surgical registrar to the Walsall Hospital Group. In the 1960s he became senior casualty officer (and later consultant) to the accident and emergency department of Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

Katharine Mary Burkill (Kit) was born in Cambridge on 25 October 1929, the daughter of John Charles Burkill, FRS, Professor of Pure Mathematics in the University of Liverpool and later Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Helen Margareta Braun-Pritchard. She was educated at the Perse School and Newn