Frank Ashton was a consultant vascular surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He was born in Birmingham on 26 April 1925. His mother died when he was two, and he moved to Manchester to live with relatives. He returned to Birmingham at the age of 11, when his father remarried, and atten

John Richard Kenyon, known as ‘Ian’, was a former consultant vascular surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. His father, who was a general practitioner in Glasgow, died when Ian was just 13. His mother had been a Queen Alexandra nursing sister on various hospital ships during the Gallipoli campa

Dick Berkin was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Hull and East Riding Group of Hospitals. He was born on 20 March 1920 in Hastings. Both his parents were missionaries of the temperance movement in China, where his father John Berkin was a surveyor, and his mother Catherine (née Coad) was a gy

Geoff Smiddy was a senior surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary and a prolific author. He was born in Kendal on 4 January 1922. His father was a hotelier and his mother looked after a haberdashery shop. His was not an easy childhood – his father left the family home shortly after he was born and his mo

Frank Couper Walker was born on 21 May 1925. He qualified at Glasgow Medical School with honours in 1952. His undergraduate career was marked by numerous prizes and certificates of merit awarded in every subject from anatomy to otorhinolaryngology. His father was John Walker, a doctor in the Colonia

Gerald Francis 'Joe' Murnaghan, Professor of Surgery at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, can be said to have been the father of upper tract urodynamics, although his work and influence extended far beyond this important area. He was born on 20 September at St Helen's, Lancashire, the son o

Robert Alexander Stephen was born in Elgin, Morayshire, on 20 June 1907, the son of James Alexander Stephen, MB, ChB, DPH a general practitioner who later became the first medical officer of health for mother and child welfare in Aberdeen. He was educated at East End School in Elgin and Aberdeen Gra

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