Arthur Messent obtained an open exhibition to Mill Hill School and proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital where he won the Brackenbury Prize in surgery and anatomy. He qualified in 1938 and after a short spell in general practice he joined the Royal Air Force and served in Coastal Command both in th

John Parry was born in Barry, Glamorgan, Wales, on 8 May 1914. His father, William Thomas Parry, was a barrister who died in 1917. His mother, Constance Esther née Daniel, had been a teacher of domestic science. His mother married Thomas Davies, a general practitioner, in Cardiff in 1920. John was e

John Steuart Alexander Linton was a consultant surgeon at Nottingham. He was the son of the Very Reverend J H Linton, a missionary who became a bishop in Persia. His mother, Alicia Aldous, had qualified in 1908 from the Royal Free Hospital and was then senior resident in Isfahan Hospital. She was on