Boyse's first training was in the air. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 at the age of 17½, the youngest age of intake, and served throughout World War II, demobilizing in 1946 with the rank of flight lieutenant. Flying remained his passion, and he often recalled a particular fondness for tunneling in clouds (“First you have to make sure nobody else has borrowed that cloud”). Later in life he returned to the air by skydiving and building ultralight aircraft with friends and family.

A diffident man, Boyse maintained that he took up medicine because there was nothing else he was able to do, a fallacy of which he could not be disabused. He attended the University of London, graduating MB, BS in 1952 and MD in 1957. His thesis, on the spread of herpesvirus in the cerebrospinal fluid of the rabbit, was undertaken in the laboratory of George Payling-Wright, at Guy's Hospital in London. Boyse retained a lifelong affection for Payling-Wright, whose excuse for lateness he delighted in quoting: “Sorry I'm late, Boyse, a combination of sloth and loquacity.” It was a genial place.

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