Peter Corfield was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, on 17 June 1922. Both parents were consultant analytical chemists, his father, Charles Edwin, being the editor of Martindale and the British Pharmacopoeia. He also lectured and examined at the University of London, as did his wife Ella, née Caird.

Bob Horton was a consultant surgeon at the United Bristol Hospitals. He was born in south London on 5 July 1917, the son of Arthur John Budd Horton, a schoolteacher, and Isabel Horton née Cotton, the daughter of a master mariner. He was educated at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School, and studied medici

David Jenkins was born on 29 September 1917, at Llanrhystwd, near Aberystwyth, in Cardiganshire. His father, a language graduate and later HM Inspector of Schools in Wales, was then in the Army and only that month had been promoted Captain and awarded the Military Cross. Following the war the family

Ken Wilkinson qualified from St Mary's Hospital in 1942. After house jobs he served in the RNVR as surgeon lieutenant, returning to complete his training at the Canadian Red Cross Hospital, Taplow. He was a true general surgeon, and although his main interest was in urology, he resisted the separati