John Potter was a consultant neurosurgeon and director of postgraduate education at Oxford. He was born in London on 28 February 1920. His father, Alistair Richardson Potter, was a brewer. His mother was Mairi Chalmers née Dick, a housewife whose father had edited the songs of Robert Burns. He was e

Rees Lloyd-Jones was a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Middlesex Hospital, London. He was born in Pwllheli, Caernarfonshire, north Wales, the only child of Griffith and Marie Lloyd Jones; his father was a farmer and garage owner. They were Welsh speaking and strict Methodists, which

Keith Rawlinson was a general surgeon with an interest in urology at Walton Hospital, Liverpool. He was born on 1 August 1923, the second son of James Herbert Rawlinson (always known as 'Rawli'), a pre-NHS surgeon who practised at the Liverpool Northern Hospital, and Mabel Rawlinson née McClure, a n

John Samuel Hopkirk was born in Kelburn, Wellington, to Cyril Hopkirk (a veterinarian) and Dorothy (née Saunders, a ballet dancer and teacher). He had two sisters, Mary and Patricia and a brother, Alan. John’s early life was coloured by his father’s absence for veterinary studies at Melbourne. Money