Born on 30 May 1921 Alvarez was educated in France and Spain, and then at Solihull School and Birmingham University, graduating there in 1945. After three years postgraduate training, especially in thoracovascular surgery, first at St Chad's Hospital, Birmingham, and later in the United States at Bo

Leon Abrams was a cardiothoracic surgeon who developed the first variable-rate heart pacemaker. He was born in Leeds, but his family soon moved to Birmingham, where he spent most of his life, apart from a short period of National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After medical school in Bi

Keith Roberts was a consultant cardiothoracic paediatric surgeon in Birmingham. He was born on 15 February 1923 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, the only child of the Reverend Meredith Danford Roberts, a Congregational minister, and his wife, Caroline Lettie Roberts née Stuart, a teacher born in South Afr

John Bastable was a consultant urologist at York. Born in 1923, he spent his childhood in Cornwall and studied medicine at Birmingham. He qualified in 1945. After National Service, he was a registrar to Alan Perry at Poplar Hospital and then at the London Hospital, where he became senior lecturer on