Christopher Wastell was professor of surgery at Westminster Medical School, London. He was born on 13 October 1932 in Birmingham, the fourth child and third son of Edgar Barker Wastell, a manager, and Doris Emeline Wastell née Pett. He was educated at George Dixon Primary School, Edgbaston, and then

Sir John Chalstrey was a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He specialised in oesophageal and gastric cancer surgery, was an early adopter of minimally invasive surgery when it was introduced in the 1980s, and a founder member of the Society of Minimally Invasive Ge