Christie Brown was born on 1 July 1898 and was educated at the Royal Kepier Grammar School and Durham University, where he gained numerous prizes and scholarships. While an undergraduate he served for a few years of the first world war in a destroyer based on Scapa Flow, but returned to the Universi

Gordon King was born in London on 7 July 1900, the son of the Reverend Frederick Henry King, a Baptist minister, and Minnie Elizabeth née Wakeham. He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and the Liverpool Institute, before going to the London Hospital, where he won the Buxton prize in anatomy, the