James Bernard Bourke

James Bernard Bourke (“Jim”) was born in Southampton to Bernard, a doctor from Castlebar, County Mayo, and Edna, a nurse from Liverpool. From Downside he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1958 to read medicine, taking his part II in archaeology and anthropology. He completed his training and began his professional career at the London Hospital, where he met his future wife, Ann, a medical social worker. They married in January 1965.

On 1 January 1972 he started as a newly appointed consultant surgeon …