Patrick Sames was a general surgeon in Bath with an interest in coloproctology. He was born on 17 January 1912 in Enfield, Middlesex, the only son of Christopher, a railway clerk, and Caroline née Radmore. He was a late entrant to medicine, leaving Harrow County School to become an apprentice in the

John David was born on 12 July 1912 in Rugby. He was the first son of the Rev Albert Augustus David, DD, who was headmaster of Rugby School and later Bishop of Liverpool, and of Edith Mary Miles whose father had been a civil engineer in Jaipur, India. John was educated at Rugby School and graduated