James Forrest Shepherd was born on 3 December 1899 and educated at Aberdeen University where he graduated MB ChB, in 1922. He then spent a short time in general practice and a year as house surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, Monmouthshire. In 1924 he joined the Indian Medical Service and

Pamela Ball was a surgeon at Kidderminster General Hospital and at the West Midlands regional plastic surgery centre at Wordsley Hospital. She was born Pamela Margaret Moody on 28 November 1926 in Half Way Tree, a neighbourhood of Kingston, Jamaica. Her mother was Vera Holme Moody née Manley, sister