Geoffrey Knight was born on 4 October 1906 at Lowfield Heath, Surrey, the only son of Cureton Hope Overbeck Knight, a produce broker, and Ida Emily Norton, the daughter of a physician whose uncles served as surgeons in the Crimean War. He was educated at Wadham House School, Hove, and Brighton Colle

Wylie McKissock was born in Staines, Middlesex, on 26 October 1906, the son of Alexander Cathie McKissock, a linoleum manufacturer and author who went under the pseudonym of Alan Graham, and his wife Rae, née Wylie. He went to the City of London School and King's College before winning the Laking Me