Norman Hughes was born in Bangor, County Down, on 15 May 1915, the son of William Edwin Hughes, a manager of the Royal Insurance Company in Belfast, and his wife Elizabeth Knox, née Campbell, who was artistic and an enthusiastic gardener and golfer. Hughes was educated at Bangor Grammar School and Q

Douglas Vellacott was born on 12 November 1914, in Stoke, Devonport. His father, Harold Fitz Vellacott, MC, FRCS, was a consultant surgeon in Plymouth. His mother, Josephine Sempill, SRN, had been a sister at Poplar Hospital, London. He was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, then for a year at Ki

William Alexander Duncan Drummond was born in Cape Town on 16 September 1901 where his father was then working for the Anglo-American Tobacco Company. The family later returned to England. Having initially studied engineering and lost two fingers of his left hand in an accident at the Liverpool ship